THEY HAD LOST MUCH of the light. "If we find any sign of the trail, we will find it at water," Tharkay said quietly to Laurence, as Temeraire flew on towards a mid-point between the purple and golden splendour of the beginning sunset and the haze of fire yet clinging to the horizon to the north: the orange light more a faint tinge of color flung up against the sky than real illumination. They were nearly free of the scorched landscape: patches still of burnt ground beneath them, but these faded into the low scrub like paint-strokes brushed too long.
"And these bunyips also, of course," Laurence returned, grimly.
Tharkay nodded. "The camps we have seen have all been some distance back from the water, or upon rock: an example we perhaps ought to have had the sense to follow before now," he said dryly.
"Now that we know of them, I will clear the bunyips away," Temeraire said over his shoulder, "when we have landed: I cannot see what business they have sneaking about so, hiding under bushes, and I am not going to have them leaping out and snatching away any of my crew; or anyone else, either. I think they must all be very great cowards."
The sky behind them was already gone to cold-water blue when they found another water-hole, and Temeraire and Caesar drank deep and thirstily while they yet all remained aboard; except Demane, who slipped his carabiners and slid down to go hunting at once, and was already out of ear-shot before Laurence could notice and reprove.
"There," Temeraire said, lifting his dripping muzzle, and shaking his head to throw off a little of the dirt and sand which had accumulated upon his ruff and brow as they flew, "that is very refreshing; and now we will see about these bunyips, if there are even any of them here."
He set upon the bushes, tugging, and almost at once uncovered another of the trap-door openings; Caesar likewise found another, and pushed the mat clear of it. "Well, I don't see anyone in it," he said, poking his snout inside, and then drawing out, "so I expect they have run off."
Temeraire tossed aside the covering and said, "We had better make sure there are no more, however, before any of you should come down," and raking his claws through the knotted, clumped grass hit upon another.
They went scarcely a few strides before they had found a fresh opening after this, and throwing aside the vegetation in great heaps began to tear up all the border of the water-hole: the gaping dark holes began to show themselves everywhere, as they worked, and the oasis began to have a strange, nightmarish ant-hill quality, as the full honeycombed extent of the tunnels became clear. The bunyips never showed themselves, but their presence was everywhere: as though the water-hole itself was but a shining lure in the midst of a vast and malevolent trap, its real nature concealed beneath the earth, and they had haplessly been throwing themselves within all along.
Some of the tunnels further from the water's edge were in worse repair, disused and half-crumbled; in other places the concealing mats had dried up and were thin and fragile things that broke when Caesar and Temeraire pulled upon them. Others however were fresh and strong, requiring real effort on Temeraire's part to drag them loose: this was no abandoned complex. "How many of the creatures could there be, to build to such an extent?" Laurence said, a little horror-stricken to envision armies of the creature which he had glimpsed so briefly; and if they should survive here, in the desert, he wondered, what of their possible presence within the countryside nearer the colony - ?
Temeraire stopped to turn his head aside and cough raggedly; they had stirred up a great deal of dust and dirt, in tearing up the mats and the stubborn clinging roots. "I don't suppose we must keep going," Caesar said, pausing to take another drink himself. "We might fill these in, what we've found already, and then we can have a rest if we only stay on this side of the water-hole. It is getting dark, and it will be too hard to spot them soon."
They all warily disembarked, and unloaded the dragons; then Temeraire reared up on his hind legs and set his claws into the side of the rising dune and pulled it down, cascading sand and the narrow trees sliding askew, to bury all the dark gaping mouths: the tunnels vanished beneath the spill of darker red earth, and they all beat down upon it with the backs of shovels, to trample it flat and smooth, and then without any orders, the men began to roll over whatever rocks of any size they could find, and the toppled trunks, to make an entrenched border around the site.
They posted a watch of four men, holding pistols: not much use, Laurence privately thought, against the sort of creature he had seen, unless a man should be exceedingly lucky in his shot; but comforting to the spirit nevertheless. He stood by the water's edge with his own pistols drawn and ready, while they filled their water-jugs by twos and threes, and when Demane came back over the ridge, Laurence said to him, "You will not go away without permission again and alone: we do not know how far from the water-holes these creatures may travel."
"But I have to hunt," Demane said, "or else he will eat everything we have: he has already eaten half the salted meat I found the day before."
Laurence had not realized that Demane had given Kulingile still more food during the flight, but a consultation of their stores confirmed the truth. "Well, I call that greedy," Caesar said, disapprovingly, "and a waste, too. Now what are we to eat, and when we have been doing all the work?"
"I have done the work of finding the meat," Demane flashed, "so I may feed it to anyone I want."
"That is enough, Demane," Laurence said. "All our stores are held in the common interest, and we must ration a little better than this; if you permit him to gorge in excess to-day, he is too likely to starve tomorrow, when we are in strange territory with such uncertain supply."
Demane subsided, and his latest gleanings were shared out. Temeraire at least did not quarrel over his portion, but as his restraint came from lack of appetite, Laurence was not disposed to be glad. Gong Su dug out a cooking-hollow in the earth, lined with the oilcloth, and brewed a profligate vat of tea which Temeraire drank eagerly; but this at once consumed nearly all their store of tea, and was no adequate substitute for food.
"Pray do not be anxious," Temeraire said, "I am sure I will be better soon; only it is so very dry, all day long," and he coughed again.
"I will make soup," Gong Su said, "and we will let it cook overnight, so more of the virtue will go into the water," and three times during the night, Laurence roused to see him depositing more hot stones from the fire into the cooking-hollow, clouds of rich steam billowing out from under the oilcloth, soft hissing smoke as the rocks went into the water: Kulingile woke with him, his small head rising on the narrow slender neck from under Demane's protective arm, to watch very intently, and sniff deep.
By morning, the meat had been wrung nearly grey and the cracked bones clean and white with all the marrow gone, a thin gleaming layer of flecked white fat floating on the surface in the slanting early sunlight, when Gong Su had uncovered the whole. This Temeraire ate, and then drank off the soup to the dregs and professed himself very satisfied. The meat he would have abandoned, with the last few feet of the soup which were too awkward for him to extract; Kulingile waited only until Temeraire had turned his head away to pounce, tipping himself nearly entirely inside the hollow, and very shortly had consumed all that was left.
He certainly would have cared for more breakfast, but there was none; Laurence shook his head when Demane would have gone hunting. "When we stop at mid-day, you may go," he said. "We must use these early hours for travel," and, he hoped, thereby ease Temeraire's labor.
Dorset had persuaded Temeraire to tip his head back, angled towards the sun, and had crawled nearly into his throat to perform an inspection further aided by the light of a candle. "There is a great deal of general aggravation to the tissues," he reported, his voice echoing out queerly. "Hmm."
This last came stretched long and hollow, and Temeraire said interrogatively, "Ammnh?"
"It appears particles of ash entered the throat: the flesh is burnt in a speckled pattern," Dorset said, and did something.
"Aaahm!" Temeraire protested, and when Dorset had emerged added reproachfully, "That was not at all pleasant; I do not see why I ought let you look if you will only be hurting me."
"Yes, yes," Dorset said, callously, and informed Laurence, "There is some blistering as well; I should advise against any roaring, and only cold food, henceforth. It is a pity we do not have any ice." The sun was climbing; soon it would be near enough to a hundred degrees. It was indeed a pity.
They rigged up again the oilcloth canopies on his back, for what relief both they and Temeraire could get thereby, and settled within the artificial shade as he leapt aloft, only stirring to look over the side for some track or sign; or to sip from their warm canteens. There had been no trace of the aborigines at the water-hole though they had inspected around the near-by rocks which should have offered shelter from the bunyips.
"I am still hungry," Kulingile piped from behind them.
Laurence sighed. "Demane, he must be patient."
"Yes, sir," Demane said, but when the bell was rung for the half-hour, Kulingile asked with great anxiety, "Now may I have something?" and again before the next bell sounded. At last Laurence permitted Demane to swing down and fetch him a little of the salted meat, but this did not stifle the pleas for long, and they possessed an edge of real misery which made them very difficult to endure. Kulingile did not whine, but only grew more desperate, and when he fell silent, Demane said suddenly, "No! You cannot chew that - " and Laurence turned to see Kulingile had begun to gnaw upon the harness.
"I did not mean to; only it is hard to be quiet when it aches so," Kulingile said, small and miserable, leaving off and trying to hunch himself tighter around his belly.
"Temeraire," Laurence said, with equal and warring parts pity and exasperation, "if you should see any game, we must stop, I think." Happily the kangaroos proved to yet be active in the relative cool of the morning, but Temeraire did not quite so easily catch them as before: he made several attempts, while Caesar took two one after the other, and plainly did not mean to share his bounty.
There was a quiet indignation in the makeshift camp, when Rankin did not order Caesar to do so; Caesar remarked, "I am sure I would be happy to share with anyone who could not catch their own, if they did their part; but as for throwing good food after bad, no, thank you."
"Oh!" Temeraire said, coughing, "I should like to know why he has deserved to be fed, ever, in that case; and I certainly would not like any of his catch: they look very skinny and tasteless to me. If I wished a kangaroo of that sort, I am sure I might have taken two myself."
"I would not mind one like that," Kulingile said indistinctly, swallowing.
"What are you feeding him?" Laurence said, looking over.
"Snake," Demane said, despairingly, "and also two rats, but I could not find any more."
Temeraire gathered himself and leapt aloft once again, going after the small herd of kangaroos which were yet fleeing, and this time he did not try to snatch one or another as they hopped: instead he flung himself down among them and returned with eight: more than their appetite could require, and the herd likely smashed beyond recovery by so brutal a culling; he was plainly embarrassed by the clumsiness of the maneuver, and looked away when Caesar sniffed.
"Pray eat as much as you can now," Laurence said, "and when we have reached water, Gong Su can stew the rest for us to carry: it will save us similar pains should we have enough to feed him tomorrow."
Kulingile dispatched an entire kangaroo alone, by no means the smallest of the catch; Temeraire could scarcely manage as much, despite all his exertions, before the pain of his throat once again overcame his appetite. They loaded the remaining carcasses, cleaned a little, into a sack to hang below the belly-netting.
"Only," Temeraire said, a little low, "it is quite unaccountable why I should be so tired when we have not been flying very long; it feels as though I cannot properly get my breath, and if I should try and breathe deeply, it aches." He stretched his wings, and rolled them through their range of movement, a few times, and refused Laurence's suggestion they should rest a little longer. "No; we have already lost too much time," he said, "pray let everyone come back aboard."
Temeraire flew now with the sun climbing over his shoulder and his neck, so that he felt uncomfortably warm upon the one half, and lopsided; a grinding flight which seemed very long. "I suppose it is not mid-day yet," he said eventually - he did not ask for himself, really; only Laurence had urged a break from the heat of the day, for all their sakes. But it was only eleven.
He put his head down and flew doggedly onward, thinking of nothing but the next wingbeat, until Laurence said, "I think we will stop a little while here, my dear, if you will agree," and Temeraire raised his head to see the shining blue-white stretch of water, rolling out before them and stretching northward, covering all the ground.
The lake's shore was peculiarly crusted, seen from aloft: blue and shallow water, and very white sand, which when they had landed proved instead to be salt: a thin crust over the earth, and the lake full of fish; too small to be worth catching for dragons, Temeraire noted with regret, but the men made a hearty meal of them, and it was pleasant to dip into the deepest part, some distance away, and come out wet.
There were not very many trees or shrubs, although fresh grasses grew in abundance; but despite the lack of shade, Temeraire found it a great refreshment to sit upon the half-green shore and look away from the red sand and rock everywhere; and there were no bushes to hide lurking bunyips. It only lacked, to make the respite complete, Tharkay's returning in a little while with a tiny scrap of blue silk he had uncovered, half-buried, near some rocks a distance down the shore.
"It has been here some time," Tharkay said, spreading out the ragged strip to show them: one corner exposed to the sun had gone quite white, where the rest which had been buried was yet a dark blue when it had been brushed free of sand. "There is no reason to expect their latest visit was recent, but we are on some track which they have used."
"And which should lead us back to their home," Temeraire said, jubilantly, "and there we may wait for them to come out of the desert with the egg, or perhaps if there is someone there, they will tell us which way to go to find them."
So he might rest easy in his conscience: he flew out for another swim and drank deeply, gratefully, from the cool water; he did not mind at all that it had a faint little taste of salt, and it was pleasant running down his throat.
He was sorry to leave again; the lake seemed a true oasis at last, the first they had found in so very long. When they had built the cairn of stones, for Iskierka to follow back, and Laurence had tucked a note for Granby beneath it, Temeraire looked over the gleaming expanse with a little sigh.
But Caesar said, half under his breath, "We might stay a little longer," so Temeraire might even feel virtuous in saying sternly, "No; the egg is still somewhere ahead, and we must keep going," and he flung himself aloft over the silver water with a leap.
They made good time, after the rest, and Temeraire thought that his breathing was not quite so embarrassingly noisy as before; certainly he could get his breath a little easier, and if he did cough a little, it was nothing so unpleasant as before, he told himself, and managed not to be overcome.
Tharkay counseled against crossing the lake directly: instead they skirted its limits, ragged and imperfect, with long spurs of land protruding deep into the lake, miles wide, which they crossed, landing briefly to scrape together a few more cairns. Long hours and not a sight of the smugglers, or their trail; at least there was game, and Temeraire took more than one kangaroo from the air, neatly, to his satisfaction.
They landed for the night at another stand of trees and shrubs around a watering-hole of fresher water, a little distance onward from the lake, although the ground was still pale with salt. Temeraire put down the kangaroos to be cleaned properly: Gong Su meant to salt down a great quantity of the meat, to sustain them through the desert. The men began to rake together a heap of the salt under his direction; meanwhile Temeraire set upon the vegetation with a will, happy to clear away the bunyips' concealment.
He had an additional cause to be satisfied with this labor, too, for many little rodents fled from the wreckage, and also some birds, and Kulingile sat by as he worked and snatched them up as they tried to dash.
"You see," Temeraire said to Caesar, quite pleased, "he can hunt, even if he cannot fly; so there is no call for you to always be sneering."
"I don't call it hunting," Caesar returned, tugging up a shrub beside him, "when we are running them out towards him, and he is only sitting there picking them up. Why, you might as well call it hunting to take a drink of water from a hole that is right before you."
Temeraire snorted, dismissively; water did not try to run away, so it was not at all like. "Perhaps you might care to try flying, again," he suggested to Kulingile, as he threw down another heap of bushes.
Kulingile shook out his wings and drew a deep breath and reared up on his hindquarters; he flapped a little; his sides quivered, jelly-like, and then he tipped back down panting thinly and said, "Maybe I will manage it tomorrow."
Temeraire sighed.
Demane was plainly glad for the respite, also; he had gone out hunting at mid-day again, to take advantage of the bounty of game at the lake, and as soon as they had disembarked to the security of the rocks, he collapsed almost enervated in what shade they offered. Temeraire thought he might say a private word to Kulingile: he was not taking very good care of Demane, and one might be hungry and still think of these things.
Temeraire, and Caesar, had cleared away the brush and once again filled in all the wretched tunnels - there were so very many of them; Temeraire did not see why they should be necessary. If the bunyips were as quick as Laurence said, it seemed to him they did not need to be hiding underground and leaping out on some unsuspecting person, only to eat; they might hunt respectably. There was something unnatural and unpleasant in it, he felt - and when they had cleared all away, and made safe the camp, the rest of the men shifted over: but Demane lay where he was, asleep.
"If he does not want anything to eat, he can stay there," Sipho said, rather coldly. "I am surprised he has not gone out hunting again; won't Kulingile be hungry?"
"You are saying it wrong," Temeraire said, "it is Kulingile, and you know better, so there is no excuse."
"I don't see why it should matter to anyone," Sipho said, and stared down at his book mulishly.
But Roland pushed herself up, after she had drunk and rested a little, and trudged over to Demane with her canteen. He struggled up and hanging limply over his crossed legs drank and drank, and then drooping followed her to the camp and fell asleep once more, as far as he could be from the little fire which the aviators had put up, for comfort and cooking. Kulingile crept over to him and nosed at his shoulder anxiously until Demane blindly reached out and patted him; then slumped back.
Kulingile sighed, reassured; then looked up at Temeraire and said, in his thin voice, "May I have another kangaroo?"
"After all those rats you ate, anyone would think you had put away enough," Caesar said, but as Caesar had taken two kangaroos earlier and not shared a bite, Temeraire was quite out of temper with him, and it pleased him to say, in what he felt was a particularly gracious way, "Certainly you may; I do not believe in being stingy," and Kulingile fell with so much gratitude upon the meal that it gave Temeraire a glow of lordly satisfaction.
"If he is going to smother himself with his own weight," Caesar said, "it seems to me you can't call it friendly to help him do it quicker," but this was only spiteful meanness, Temeraire felt; although Kulingile would eat too quickly, and then stop and gasp to catch his breath, and then begin again; and when he was done and had collapsed in slumber beside Demane, his breathing was a little worse.
"Another ten feet," Dorset remarked, winding up his knotted cord again as he stood from Kulingile's side. "The rate of growth is exceptional. I will have to make a note of it for the breeding journal, and perhaps for the Royal Society."
"But when will he be able to fly?" Temeraire asked, and Dorset had no satisfactory answer to give.
But this was only a small and vanishing shadow on his general complacency of spirit: his throat did not hurt quite so much, and Gong Su was now making another pot of soup, which Temeraire expected to enjoy a great deal in the morning - flavored this time with the small yellow fruits of one of the bushes which Temeraire had torn up; Tharkay had pointed it out as having been harvested a little by the aborigines, he thought, and an experimental taste had not caused any discomfort: a little sweetness, and a strong flavor rather like tomatoes, although they looked more nearly like raisins.
"Will you try and eat a little now, before you sleep?" Laurence said. "We can cut some kangaroo small, if that would ease the passage; you cannot heal quickly or well when you are straining to your limits, and not eating."
"I think I can," Temeraire said, feeling optimistic, and if he only managed perhaps one kangaroo, and none of the bones, those went directly into the soup and so would not be wasted, and he did not feel quite such vivid pangs when he at last settled upon the sand.