He was not unhappy for Temeraire to have an example before him of dragons in their natural state, without any influence of men: the ferals’ existence offered a happy contrast with the elevated circumstances of the Chinese dragons, by which comparison the lot of British dragons need not look so very ill, and he was glad Temeraire so plainly felt his own position superior to theirs; but Laurence was dubious of the wisdom of thus provoking them into a more active envy and perhaps to belligerence.

The more Temeraire spoke, the more the ferals murmured and looked sideways at their own leader Arkady, with a jaundiced air; jealously aware that he was losing some of his luster in their eyes, he was ruffling up the collar of spikes around his neck and bristling.

“Temeraire,” Laurence said, to interrupt, even though he did not know what else to say, but when Temeraire looked towards him in inquiry Arkady leapt at once into the breach: puffing out his chest, he made an announcement in grandiose tones which sent a quick murmur of excitement around the other ferals.

“Oh,” Temeraire said, tail twitching doubtfully, and regarding the red-patch dragon.

“What is it?” Laurence said, alarmed.

“He says he will come with us to Istanbul, and meet the Sultan,” Temeraire explained.

This amiable project, while less violent than the challenge Laurence had feared, was nearly as inconvenient, and argument was of no use: Arkady would not be dissuaded, and many of the other dragons now began to insist that they too would come along. Tharkay gave up the effort after a short while and turned away, shrugging. “We may as well resign ourselves; there is little we can do to prevent their following, unless you mean to attack them.”

Nearly all the ferals set out with them the next morning, saving a few too indolent or too incurious to be bothered, and the little broken-winged one they had rescued from the avalanche, who stood looking after them at the mouth of the cave and making small unhappy cries as they left. They made difficult company, noisy and excitable, and quick to fall to squabbling in mid-air, two or three of them tumbling head-over-tail in a wild flurry of hissing and claws until Arkady or one of his two larger lieutenants dived at them and knocked them apart with loud remonstrances to sulk in private.

“We will never pass through the countryside unnoticed with this circus following behind us,” Laurence said in exasperation after the third such incident, the echoes of the shrieks still ringing off the peaks.

“Likely they will get tired of it in a few days and turn back,” Granby said. “I have never heard of ferals wanting to go anywhere near people, except to steal food; and I dare say we’ll see them turn shy as soon as we leave their territory.”

The ferals indeed grew nervous towards the afternoon, as the mountains began abruptly to diminish into foothills, and the smooth rolling curve of the horizon came clear, green and dusty and endlessly wide under the great bowl of the sky: a wholly different landscape. They whispered and rustled their wings together uneasily at the edge of the camp, and were very little use at all in hunting. As evening fell, the lights of a nearby village began to gleam faintly orange in the distance, half-a-dozen farmhouses some miles away. By morning several of the ferals had agreed amongst themselves that this must be Istanbul, it was not nearly so nice as they had expected, and they were quite ready to go home.

“But that is not Istanbul at all,” Temeraire said indignantly, and subsided only at Laurence’s hurried gesture.

They were thus rid of the better part of their company, much to their relief. Only the youngest and most adventurous remained, chief among them little Gherni, who had hatched in the lowlands and thus had a little more experience of this foreign landscape, and was quite pleased with this newfound distinction among her peers. She was loud in professing herself not at all afraid, and making mock of those turning back; in the face of her taunting, a couple of the others determined on continuing also, and sadly these were the most chest-puffing quarrelsome of the lot.

And Arkady was unwilling to turn back while any others of his flock remained: Temeraire had told too many stories, and those too vivid, of treasures and feasts and dramatic battles; now the feral leader evidently feared one of his erstwhile subjects might return at some future date covered in glory real or contrived, and challenge his standing; a standing founded less in raw strength—both his lieutenants outstripping him in this arena—than on a certain alchemy of charisma and quickness of thought, rendering his position the less easily defensible.

But he was hardly enthusiastic, for all the strutting bravado with which he concealed his anxiety, and Laurence hoped that he would shortly have persuaded the others to go. His lieutenants, called Molnar and Wringe—as best as Laurence could make out—would certainly have been happier to stay behind even without him, and Wringe, the dark grey, even ventured to suggest as much to her chief, which only succeeded in making Arkady fly into a passion and beat her vigorously about the head, accompanied by a verbal harangue which required no translation.

But that night he huddled close with them for comfort, the mountains having dwindled to distant blue majesty, and the rest of the ferals cuddled about them also, paying only half-hearted attention to Temeraire’s attempts at conversation. “They are not very venturesome,” Temeraire said, disappointed, coming to settle down beside Laurence. “They only ask me all the time about food, and how soon they shall be feasted by the Sultan, and what he will give them, and when they can go home: though they have all the liberty in the world, and could go anywhere they like at all.”

“When you are very hungry, my dear, it is hard for your ambitions to rise above your belly,” Laurence said. “There is not much to be said for the sort of liberty which they enjoy: the freedom to starve or to be slaughtered is hardly one to which most would aspire, and,” he added, seizing the moment, “both men and dragons may with good sense choose to sacrifice some personal liberty for the sake of the general good, which shall advance their own condition with those of their fellows.”

Temeraire sighed, and did not argue, but prodded at his dinner dissatisfied, at least until Molnar noticed and made a cautious gesture at taking a bit of the half-abandoned meat for himself: which made Temeraire growl him away, and devour all the rest in three tremendous gulps.

They had fine weather the next day, the sky clear and vast, which worked to excellent discouraging effect upon their traveling companions; Laurence was sure that evening would see the last of them turn tail for home. But they made only a poor show of hunting again, and Laurence was forced to send Tharkay with some of the men to try and find a farm nearby, and buy some cattle to make up the difference.

The ferals grew round-eyed at the great, horned brown beasts as they were dragged into the camp lowing in pitiful fear, and even more so when they were given four to divide up amongst themselves, gorging near to ecstasy. The littler ones lay on their backs afterwards, with their wings splayed awkwardly out of the way and their limbs curled over their distended bellies, beatific expressions on their faces, and even Arkady, who had done his best to eat nearly an entire cow alone, sprawled limp-legged on his side. Laurence sinkingly gathered they had never tasted beef before, and certainly not like this farm-raised cattle, fat and sweet-flavored; they would have made very good eating even for the finest table in England, and must have been ambrosial to the ferals, accustomed to subsistence on thin goats and mountain sheep, and the occasional stolen pig.

Temeraire put the seal to the matter by saying blithely, “No, I am sure the Sultan will give us something much nicer,” after which Istanbul took on the roseate glow of Paradise: there was no more hope of shaking them.