‘It was not very fair of those dragons,’ Arkady said, ‘all coming on at us at once like that. If you ask me, they are all cowards. We should go fly in and get Iskierka out ourselves.’ He had recovered his spirits and was eating a sheep, which his fellow, Lester had fetched for him, with great cheer.

‘We will do no such thing,’ Temeraire said. ‘There are four times as many of them as there are of us, with guns and soldiers, so they will only have us down. Anyway that would not help us get Granby back, they will just shoot him,’ and maybe Laurence too, he thought anxiously. It was all the more unpleasant to have Arkady make such a reckless suggestion, when it was exactly what Temeraire wished to do himself.

‘What are we going to do, then,’ Arkady returned, ‘if they do not come back?’

‘If they do not come back,’ Temeraire said, and paused, ‘then we will think of something,’ he finished lamely, not liking to imagine the prospect. He had already thought Laurence dead once, and it had been just as dreadful as if he really had been dead. It made one unsure of the distinction between the events imagined and real, and therefore, Temeraire felt that any speculation on the subject, of any sort, was perhaps a little risky. Laurence thought such concerns to be foolishly superstitious, Temeraire knew, but to him it was a danger not worth courting.

‘What is he saying, the rascal?’ Gentius asked, scowling at Arkady, in great disapproval. He was not very happy with the extra flying, which he had to endure on Armatius' back, or the uncomfortable state of their camp. ‘I hope he is properly ashamed of himself.’

‘No,’ Temeraire said, ‘he is not, not at all; and he is making foolish suggestions, too.’

‘Well, pay no attention to him,’ Gentius said. ‘Now,’ and he lowered his voice, ‘I don't like to make you worry, Temeraire, but have you thought about what we will do, if they don't come back right off?’

Temeraire flattened his ruff and, unable to repress the desire, went aloft to look again. It was beginning to grow dark across the eastern edge of the sky, a watery moon near the west horizon ready to set, and a few plumes of dust here and there from herds of cattle. Not a sign of Laurence though, or of Iskierka. He looked back the other way and saw a Winchester in harness flying towards them.

Elsie landed panting. ‘Oh, we thought we would never find you. What are you doing here? Scotland is not this way, you are going back towards London.’