Jane had set them a course along the coastline, for their first excursion; no risk at all of an action, so near to land, but at least the cliffs interested the ferals, and the bustle of shipping around Portsmouth, which they would gladly have investigated further if not called to order by Temeraire. They flew on past Southampton and westward along towards Weymouth, setting a leisurely pace; the ferals resorting to wild acrobatics to entertain themselves, swooping to such heights as must have rendered them dizzy and ill, save for their former habituation among the most lofty mountains of the earth, and plummeting thence into absurd and dangerous diving maneuvers, so close they threw up spray as they skimmed up again from the waves. It was a sad waste of energy, but well-fed as the ferals now were, by comparison to their previous state, of energy they had a surfeit which Laurence was glad enough to see spent in so restrained a manner, if the officers clinging sickly to their harnesses did not agree.
“Perhaps we might try a little fishing,” Temeraire suggested, turning his head around, when abruptly Gherni cried out above them, and the world spun and whirled as Temeraire flung himself sidelong; a Pêcheur-Rayé went flying past, and the champagne-popping of rifle-fire spat at them from his back.
“To stations,” Ferris was shouting, men scrambling wildly; the bellmen were casting off a handful of bombs down on the recovering French dragon below while Temeraire veered away, climbing. Arkady and the ferals were shrilly calling to one another, wheeling excitedly; they flung themselves with eagerness on the French dragons: a light scouting party of six, as best Laurence could make out among the low-lying clouds, the Pêcheur the largest of the lot and the rest all light-weights or couriers; both outnumbered and outweighed, therefore, and reckless to be coming so close to British shores.
Reckless, or deliberately venturesome; Laurence thought grimly it could not have escaped the notice of the French that their last encounter had brought no answer from the coverts.
“Laurence, I am going after that Pêcheur; Arkady and the others will take the rest,” Temeraire said, curving his head around even as he dived.
The ferals were not shy by any means, and gifted skirmishers, from all their play; Laurence thought it safe to leave the smaller dragons entirely to them. “Pray make no sustained attack,” he called, through the speaking-trumpet. “Only roust them from the shore, as quickly as you may—” as the hollow thump-thump of bombs, exploding below, interrupted.
Without the hope of surprise, the Pêcheur knew himself thoroughly overmatched, Temeraire a more agile flyer and in a wholly different class so far as weight. Having risked and lost a throw of the dice, he and his captain were evidently not inclined to try their luck again; Temeraire had scarcely stooped before the Pêcheur dropped low to the water and beat away quickly over the waves, his riflemen keeping up a steady fusillade to clear his retreat.
Laurence turned his attention above, to the furious howling of the ferals’ voices: they could scarcely be seen, having lured the French high aloft, where their greater ease with the thin air could tell to their advantage. “Where the devil is my glass?” he said, and took it from Allen. The ferals were making a sort of taunting game of the business, darting in at the French dragons and away, setting up a raucous caterwauling as they went, without very much actual fighting to be seen. It would have done nicely to frighten away a rival gang in the wild, Laurence supposed, particularly one so outnumbered, but he did not think the French were to be so easily diverted; indeed as he watched, the five enemy dragons, all of them only little Pou-de-Ciels, drew into close formation and promptly bowled through the cloud of ferals.
The ferals, still putting on a show of bravado, scattered too late to evade the rifle-fire, and now some of their shrill cries were for real pain. Temeraire was beating up furiously, his sides belling out like sails as he heaved for the breath to get himself so high aloft, but he could not easily gain their height, and would be at a disadvantage himself against the smaller French when he had. “Give them a gun, quickly, and show the signal for descent,” Laurence shouted to Turner, without much hope; but the ferals came plummeting down in a rush when Turner put out the flags, none too reluctant to put themselves around Temeraire.
Arkady was keeping up a low, indignant clamoring under his breath, nudging anxiously at his second Wringe, the worst-hit, her dark grey hide marred with streaks of darker blood. She had taken several balls to the flesh and one unlucky hit to the right wing, which had struck her on the bias and scraped a long, ugly furrow across the tender webbing and two spines; she was listing in mid-air awkwardly as she tried to favor it.
“Send her below to shore,” Laurence said, scarcely needing the speaking-trumpet with the dragons crowded so close that they might have been talking in a clearing, and not the open sky. “And pray tell them again, they must keep well-clear of the guns; I am sorry they have had so hot a lesson. Let us keep together and—” but this came too late, as the French were coming down in arrow-head formation, and the ferals followed too closely on his first instruction and spread themselves out across the sky.
The French also at once separated; even together they were not a match for Temeraire, whom they had surely recognized, and by way of protection engaged themselves closely with the ferals. It must have been an odd experience for them; Pou-de-Ciels were generally the lightest of the French combat breeds, and now they were finding themselves the relative heavy-weights in battle against the ferals, who even where their wingspan and length matched were all of them lean and concave-bellied creatures, a sharp contrast against the deep-chested muscle of their opponents.
The ferals were now more wary, but also more savage, hot with anger at the injury to their fellow and their own smaller stinging wounds. They used their darting lunges to better effect, learning quickly how to feint in and provoke the rifle volleys, then come in again for a real attack. The smallest of them, Gherni and motley-colored Lester, were attacking one Pou-de-Ciel together, with the more wily Hertaz pouncing in every now and again, claws blackened with blood; the others were engaged singly, and more than holding their own, but Laurence quickly perceived the danger, even as Temeraire called, “Arkady! Bnezh's’li taqom—” and broke off to say, “Laurence, they are not listening.”
“Yes, they will be in the soup in a moment,” Laurence agreed; the French dragons, though they seemed on the face of it to be fighting as independently as the ferals, were maneuvering skillfully to put their backs to one another; indeed they were only allowing the ferals to herd them into formation, which should allow them to make another devastating pass. “Can you break them apart, when they have come together?”
“I do not see how I will be able to do it, without hurting our friends; they are so close to one another, and some of them are so little,” Temeraire said anxiously, tail lashing as he hovered.
“Sir,” Ferris said, and Laurence looked at him. “I beg your pardon, sir, but we are always told, as a rule, to take a bruising before a ball; it don’t hurt them long, even if they are knocked properly silly, and we are close enough to give any of them a lift to land, if it should go so badly.”
“Very good; thank you, Mr. Ferris,” Laurence said, putting strong approval in it; he was still very glad to see Granby matched off with Iskierka, even more so when dragons would now be in such short supply, but he felt the loss keenly, as exposing the weaknesses in his own abbreviated training as an aviator. Ferris had risen to his occasions with near-heroism, but he had been but a third lieutenant on their departure from England, scarcely a year ago, and at nineteen years of age could not be expected to put himself forward to his captain with the assurance of an experienced officer.