‘Ballista, do you see?’ Temeraire called, and she waved her tail like a flag to show she had heard. A swarm of Yellow Reapers dashed after her as she charged the marbled yellow-brown Chanson de Guerre. ‘Quickly, with me,’ Temeraire said, to the lightweights, ‘and do you want to come with us?’ he asked Perscitia.

‘No, I do not,’ she said, hastily circling away, ‘and anyway,’ she called back over her shoulder, ‘I must go see if I can make more of those bundles; although I think I have used all the spirits—’

Temeraire did not have time to listen to any more, they were hurrying down straight for the Defendeur, who had swerved to avoid a particularly large fireball, that left a thick trail of smoke behind it. His flank lay exposed for a moment, unprotected by the line, and the Grey Copper Rictus darted in and opened a great gash along the line of his shoulder, nearly severing one strap of his harness.

The Defendeur bellowed in pain and hunched himself towards the wound. It was a wide gaping slice starkly red against the golden-brown and green of his hide. ‘Hah!’ Rictus called, and then squalled as the Defendeur snapped out his hook-ended tail and caught him full in the belly: a more dreadful and dangerous wound, on so much smaller a beast, and Rictus was borne crying away by one of the Anglewings.

But he had opened an avenue for attack, and Velocita flung herself at the Defendeur's rear, baiting his slashing tail and swerving this way and that, so that the other Anglewings and the Grey Coppers could make darting attempts on the Defendeur's head. When all of the riflemen had been flung off their feet, Minnow threw herself into the melee, landed upon the big dragon's back, and snatched away one of the men in her talons.

‘There, that's your captain,’ she called, waving the poor man, and the French dragon roared furiously and went after her in a rush, bowling over one of the Anglewings and breaking the French line completely, as Minnow raced away towards the British clearings with her prisoner.

‘That is a little hard,’ Temeraire said, feeling rather sorry for the poor dragon, and making a note that Minnow should never again ride upon his own back while Laurence was there. He had not thought she was quite so unscrupulous as to steal in the middle of a fight. But he could not deny it had been very handy luring the big dragon away, as now he could clear away great swaths of middleweights, just by roaring to either side of the gap the heavyweight had left.