Tongues of Serpents (25 page)

“I think I have found one,” Roland said, thrusting the handle of a shovel deep into the earth, a little way back from the water-hole beneath some more of the bushes. These did not need to be torn up, they discovered: when Temeraire had set his claws in the mat, he might lift it up, and the bushes would go with it: evidently their roots had grown around and through the mat, a clever way to disguise the lurking trap.

But they dug a little way down, and this passageway, too, collapsed: designed for its maker, and not the weight of dragons or shovel-wielding men, or perhaps only ever intended to be temporary. If there
were more permanent chambers, far below, no quick excavation would reach them: the bunyip had undoubtedly fled as deep and as far as it could go, with so much noise and upheaval upon the surface.

“Well, are we going to dig forever,” Caesar said, shaking dirt a little fastidiously off his claws, “or are we going? I am sorry for the fellow, but I don’t think we are going to get anywhere at this rate: it can dig, too, and while we are going at it here, it is probably digging itself halfway across the desert and away.”

While blunt, there was no denying the practical truth of the matter; and Laurence could not call Blackwell’s survival likely: he had made no sound, and any man would have shrieked, dragged away by such a creature, if still alive. The very speed and silence of the attack which had made it so otherworldly, to be missed even if one was standing directly by, argued for the creature’s instantly killing its prey, even as it whipped its victims away to be devoured in quiet and safety.

They considered and delayed a little longer, while Temeraire dug in a half-hearted way around the opened holes, trying if by chance he should find a deeper chamber, but these efforts collapsed the passageways even before he broke into them, and the only result was to leave behind a wreckage of sand-heaps and torn-up grasses, and the dunes assembled into new shapes, a deep valley marking where Temeraire had labored.

“Very well,” Laurence said finally, drawing his sleeve across his face. “We can do no more.”

Temeraire’s belly-netting had grown choked with sand, during the first efforts, the desperate rush to try and retrieve the taken man. They did not wait to clean it, but only shook and brushed off the worst of the clumps. The men boarded silently and with alacrity; all were glad to be gone.

T
HEY 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.”