Temeraire went for the Anglewings, bulling them along and up again, and nudging a shoulder under Velocitas, who had been worst hit by a pepper ball right in the face. His golden-yellow head was speckled black and red, and his eyes and nostrils were already swollen up so dreadfully that he could not see, streams of mucus dripped away from his face and he was moaning wretchedly.

And then Requiescat came down behind them going too fast for his weight and bowled through everyone, crashing through the camp with his wings spread trying to slow himself, and knocking soldiers and dragons every which way as he drove a massive furrow down the middle of the campground with his talons and his tail.

‘Aloft!’ Temeraire called furiously, squirming himself free of several tents and shaking off a couple of soldiers who had been thrown on his leg. ‘Everyone aloft, at once!’ He punctuated the order with a roar, a proper one, which he aimed towards the caissons of ammunition stacked neatly by the guns. The pyramids of roundshot trembled and collapsed, balls rolling everywhere, crushing men's legs. The dragons all leapt aloft in the fresh confusion.

‘Look, look,’ cried Fricatio, one of the Grey Coppers, as he climbed up, ‘look, I caught a horse,’ waving it in his talons.

‘This is no time to be eating!’ Temeraire said, but it reminded him of their real purpose, and he flew a little higher to see. Sure enough there were a great many shadows moving about near the pigs, and the gate of the pen was swinging wide open. ‘We have the pigs!’ he cried, and everyone cheered noisily, and Temeraire added, ‘Now we can go!’

‘Why?’ Majestatis said.

‘What?’ Temeraire said.

‘Why ought we go?’ Majestatis said, and pointed down: the soldiers were now fleeing in a body eastwards, entirely routed, only stopping long enough to heave the wounded upon wagons and drag them away. Far aloft, the Chevaliers were turning tail and going too, and the camp in all its flames was left deserted, to its conquerors.

‘Well,’ Temeraire said, peering down the slightly charred barrel, ‘it is very nice, but I am not sure what we can do with it.’

‘Drop it on their heads, next battle?’ Moncey suggested.

‘Listen to you talk; we shan't waste a real cannon like that,’ Gentius said. ‘What we need is some men to fire it for us. A proper artillery company. And we need some proper surgeons, too,’ he added, ‘for us and for 'em,’ meaning the prisoners, most of them wounded who had been left behind on the field. There were not very many; by the time the dragons had managed to put out the fires, nearly all the casualties had died.