The wagon-cart was unnecessary: Dobrozhnov tried to protest he was not yet well enough to travel, but when it had been borne in upon him forcibly that his alternative was to be flung out of doors, he sent for his well-sprung coach and was borne into it by his tall footmen, still groaning and muttering protests. They drove away, not before he pressed a little more gold into the mother’s hand, and gave Gabija a broad wink which brought fresh color to Ferris’s cheek. Dobrozhnov might well intend to send for her, or return when he was well; but for the moment he was gone from the house, at least. Laurence could see little more that they might do, and he could only trust to society to distract the man with more satisfying entertainments than he might have found while prostrated in a solitary farmhouse.

The treasure had been well-packed into its carrying-wagon, and Churki and Eroica fed; she was urging Hammond in a low voice, making one final push to persuade him to bring the girl along. Ferris had gone away to Eroica’s other side, and busied himself with unnecessary harness-work, to avoid looking upon Miss Merkelyte. He at least had no further cajolery to face, although he looked as though he might have wanted some; his obligations to a family both distant and already disappointed perhaps seemed less compelling than the attractions of the lady before him.

But when Laurence had been helped carefully aloft, and secured beneath blankets and oilcloth, he looked down Eroica’s shoulder and overheard Dyhern asking, “My young friend: you are determined not to pursue her? I wish to be certain you have made your choice.”

Ferris kept his head bowed and swallowed, then said in stifled tones, “Thank you, Captain; I cannot.”

Dyhern nodded. “Well, you are a young man, and there will be many young ladies yet! I have some heart to put into you, also: will I not write to my King’s ministers, and request your commission in his service? We have more dragons now than men to fly them, and I need not even ask Laurence if he would release you to us: his answer is a certainty.”

Ferris flushed scarlet in his fair skin; he averted his eyes. “I—I am very much obliged to you, sir,” he said, unsteadily, and bowed; Dyhern clapped him on the shoulder and left him, and Ferris came aloft. Even distracted by the mingling of anticipation and unhappiness, he clambered up with all the nimble speed that youth and practice could offer; he hooked on his carabiners with a habitual motion, and sat staring down at his hands. The ground crew were loading their gear and adjusting the makeshift harness, which had been cobbled together for Eroica out of the one Temeraire had left behind, and only imperfectly fitted him, as his breadth and bony plates gave him an entirely different configuration.

The officers were coming aboard; Hammond had persuaded a disgruntled Churki to give up her matchmaking and put him upon her back at last. Dyhern was speaking with Mrs. Merkelyte and her daughter, making their last farewells. Laurence shut his eyes; he had drunk laudanum against the pain, so he might not be unmanned by the flight, and he felt dizzy and ill. He opened them again: Ferris had made a small startled noise behind him. Dyhern had taken Gabija’s hand, and was speaking to her earnestly, gesturing to Eroica; she was looking up at him with surprise, a little shy. She glanced once at Ferris, who was staring down at her. But then she bit her lip and raised her chin, and nodded to Dyhern.

Dyhern spoke to Mrs. Merkelyte again, who held a low muttered conversation with her daughter, and then laid her hand in Dyhern’s, and nodded her blessing over them.

—

Dyhern flew back to the farmhouse the next morning with a special license, and returned to the covert with his bride. Eroica had by then gathered enough from Churki’s openly expressed indignation to be very satisfied with his own captain’s victory, as he could not help but see it. He was however gracious in his temperament, and assured Churki heartily that Hammond was sure of finding a splendid partner very soon, if not one quite so lovely and charming as his captain’s wife.

“I hope you do not blame me, Laurence,” Dyhern said candidly, stopping by Laurence’s small hut the following morning to see his progress. “But I am sure the boy will get over it soon enough: at that age, I did not think much of women when there was battle to be had. Six years grounded is long enough to cool a man’s head, however: I have had much time to be sorry that I had nothing to occupy my mind and my days, when my dragon was gone.”

Laurence could understand his sentiments; he would himself have been grateful for distraction, any distraction, from his own fear and anxiety. When Dyhern had left, he spread out the maps and reports again, which he had politely put aside during the visit, and returned to his self-appointed torment: marking out the likely routes which Temeraire might pursue, and referring to the dispatches to learn all the worst of the circumstances which he might encounter. These were unhappy indeed. Ferals had devoured and ruined so many stores in the western part of the country that famine was spreading widely; the nobles were paying peasant bands by the head to slaughter dragons while they slept.

When pain and fatigue overcame Laurence’s strength, and he closed his eyes to sleep a little, he walked through thick crusted-over snow, between black trees and a leaden sky above, and found Temeraire’s corpse lying still and alone in a field with a red-mouthed stoat feasting on his sides.

WHEN TEMERAIRE SCRAPED AWAY the snow around the protruding hoof, he discovered why the horse had not yet been devoured: the rest of the corpse was barely visible beneath several feet of blued ice. He contemplated it wearily, but he had not seen anything else left to eat, anywhere, so he gathered himself and roared at the block of ice: the divine wind thrumming through his chest and cracking the surface. He roared again and dug into the block with his talons; at last the ice broke apart. The corpse broke, too, but that was just as well; he picked up each piece with his jaws, held it in his mouth until it thawed a little, and then he could swallow it.

He was shivering when he had finished, but at least he did not feel quite so ravenously hungry. The light was beginning to fail, though, and he could not go much further. He went aloft to try to find something like shelter: after half an hour’s flight, he caught sight, to his grateful surprise, of a large barn—not quite a barn; it only had one rough wall of heaped stone, and a roof of half-rotten planks held up on columns, so the other sides were open to the elements. It seemed to have been left half-finished: a heap of tall logs stood to one side, as though waiting to complete the building and forgotten.