Laurence was silent; Temeraire curved his head back towards him. “We surely ought not miss the chance,” he said anxiously: he perfectly understood the caution Laurence must have felt, and of course they would be in a very nasty position if the Tswana did not attack in the end. But he felt he could scarcely bear to let Napoleon slip away, again; and who knew but that he would find some clever new way of defeating them. “Perhaps we might send someone around to see, and have a word with them?”

But Laurence said, “There is no time. Whatever chance there is must be a thin one; even a narrow avenue of escape must suffice for Napoleon to evade capture, and he will certainly begin his own withdrawal in short order now; the course of the day is decided, if nothing should change.” He shut up his glass with a snap and said, “Pass the word to concentrate our assault upon the center, at once,” and then went on, to Temeraire’s rising delight, “and we must go in ourselves, to offer both support and reason; Napoleon and Lien especially will wonder less at the incaution of a frontal assault if we give them the excuse of your exuberance.”

Laurence sent Yu Guo to inform Granby of the plan, and then they were flying across the field: Temeraire felt himself loosed as though from a cannon-mouth, with a wild propulsive energy behind him. The armies below were engaged in a thinning struggle: everywhere French soldiers streamed westward into the trees and fields, in rout and retreat, and on the flanks, the Cossack cavalry was harrying them along. But in the center the Imperial Guard still held their positions, magnificently firm, their tall shakos like ranged checker pieces from above in even rows, and above them Temeraire counted half a dozen Grand Chevaliers in full equipage, with a surrounding cloud of Incan beasts too large to enumerate. He did spy two Copacati, the venom-spitters, and Maila Yupanqui himself was here, circling nervously above the rear.

“I am surprised he should not have insisted on staying behind with the Empress,” Temeraire said, with a snort.

“Napoleon can ill afford to leave his staunchest supporters behind in Paris, in his present circumstances,” Laurence said.

They were closing: Temeraire gathered his breath and roared out his challenge, envisioning the force of it thundering like a wave upon the ranks of their enemies and crashing upon them. He roared again, and once more as he drew into striking range, the legions falling into place at his rear and roaring with him, heartened. The screen of lighter dragons at the fore of Napoleon’s force tumbled away like pebbles in surf, and Temeraire had the gratification of seeing Lien’s head come up, her ruff spreading wide as she heard his approach.

She bent down towards a man on the ground beside her: Temeraire was able to pick Napoleon out, when she spoke to him. The Emperor wore a plain grey coat and blue hat with no decoration at all; he looked plainer than his Guardsmen. It would be so very easy to miss him in the crowd, Temeraire thought anxiously, but he had to take his eyes away: half a dozen Incan middle-weights were converging upon him, bent on checking their advance.

The Incans’ feathery scales had the effect of making them seem larger than their size, and were handy besides for turning lead balls and canister-shot. Forthing shouted, “Fire at will!” and the sharp retort of the rifles went off as the middle-weights closed, but the Incan beasts did not flinch.

Temeraire turned to slash with his talons and met an Incan middle-weight’s peculiar eye, vivid green on the outer rim, yellow-blue-streaked on the inside; she looked squarely at him, their paces matched for a moment, and then darted her head down trying to bite his wing-joint. He folded his wing in on that side and rolled sideways into her, blowing out a little of his wind; his weight landed squarely on her and drove a great gasp of air from her body. He kept rolling until he came off her other side, and both of them dropped a hundred feet or so below the cluster of dragons.

He snapped out his own wing again and caught an updraft as she tumbled away struggling to right herself. A scattering of bombs fell away from his belly-netting, Challoner calling the orders faintly below, and the Incan lost another hundred feet in evasions and had to turn back and hurry to the safety of her ranks.

“Temeraire, ware above!” Roland called: and he darted a quick look up. He had lost some height himself, and one of the Copacati meant to try to seize the advantage, a silver-green arrow darting towards him.

“Pass the word to ready boarders,” Laurence said, and Temeraire flattened his ruff. Of course it would be splendid to take a Copacati prisoner, if they could—this one was rather larger than the one Iskierka had dueled, back in Talcahuano, he thought. But Challoner would naturally lead the boarding party, and it would be of all things wretched to lose a fine lieutenant just when he had finally got a satisfactory one, and Temeraire had a struggle to repress the instinct to twist away too quickly for anyone to go over.

The Copacati spat: a thin black stream of poison jetted narrowly into the air, but with a skillful twist of her body she pulled up and fanned her wings at the stream twice, dispersing it into a fine cloud of mist. “Temeraire, your eyes!” Laurence shouted, and Temeraire shut them tight at once and twisted aside, Laurence calling the mark as he whirled blind through the sky. One hapless middle-weight came into his way, trying to claw at him, and was bowled over for his trouble; Temeraire cracked open an eye when the poor fellow began crying out noisily as he himself was caught by the mist of venom.

But Temeraire had got out of range himself; with a quick double-thrust of his wings he closed in on the Copacati as she circled back for another pass, too quick for her to spit again, and seized her from below, belly to belly. The feathery scales now offered him an advantage, better purchase than he might have had otherwise; he gripped onto her shoulder-joints and snapped at the underside of her neck, forcing her to dart her head up and away from him.

She raked at him with her back legs, hissing, and he could not roar, either, while he had to keep her head off him; but his bellmen were throwing grappling-hooks up to catch on her harness, and swarming up the lines.

“Pray be careful, Challoner,” Temeraire called as he twisted away, when they had gone over, “and I will certainly have words with you, if you lose her,” he added to the Copacati, in the Incan tongue.

“Then you shouldn’t be sending her jumping through the sky!” the Copacati returned smartly, not without some justice Temeraire had to admit, and made another darting stab at him with her long glistening fangs. “Perhaps I will keep her,” she added tauntingly.