Page 81 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
“This is a horror,” murmured the colonel. He was unshaven and red-eyed. “It is like witnessing the flight from Athens when Xerxes burned the city.”
“You read Herodotus?” Perhaps military history was required for officers.
“In translation. My uncle gave me a copy.” His lip twitched. “I was miserable at Greek.”
“You do not need the Greeks for accounts of razed cities. The crusaders ravaged Jerusalem in 1099. Two years ago, the Americans massacred the Indians at Prophetstown.” The colonel gave me an uneasy look, and I grimaced. “When I am tense, I tend to be… academic. You are right, this is a horror. That is why our errand for the flute must not fail.”
We were traveling in a post-chaise carriage, a stripped-down military express that the colonel commandeered for his return trip by waving the signature on Lord Wellington’s letter. The army kept four-horse teams in reserve every twenty miles, so we had raced one hundred and forty miles in twenty-odd hours, not once slower than a trot. The jolts from the bench had bruised my calves, my shoulders, and very definitively everything in between.
Distant, punctuated thunder rumbled. Cannons. Some illusion made the sound seem to rise from the earth, as if the war raged in Hades.
We had met the first fringe of this exodus ten miles back. For a while, our military standard and livery opened passage, but that slowed as the crowd grew. Now, we had halted to consider tactics while the driver watered the horses.
A passing woman, sweating through fine clothes unsuited for walking, her hair threaded with gray, started when she saw the iridescent song draca perched on my shoulder. I stopped her with a finger on her arm. “What have you seen? Are the French in London?”
“I have seen nothing with my own eyes, but I heard men shouting in the street. Enemies on the brink of London, they said, the French army and the slavers. And there are creatures in the air…”
My exhaustion vanished in a tingle of fear. “Dragons?” Had the French captured one of the artifacts?
“Not a dragon.” The woman shook her head definitively; Londoners knew dragons all too well from Fènnù’s attacks and battles with Yuánchi. “Something different, swift and vile. It flew over me. The roar hurt my ears.”
She was pulling north, eager to leave, so I bade her good travel. She slipped into the dusty crowd, lost in a blink.
Our driver, his scarlet infantry coat caked with gray clay and dirt, reported to the colonel. “The team is fresh enough, sir, but I don’t know what to do about the crowd. There’s no way to find headway in this.” He squinted at the people, chewing his lip, then offered uncertainly, “If I laid about with my whip…”
Colonel Fremantle frowned. “Not that. We will consider other options.” The driver nodded and went to calm the nervous horses.
“I must reach the British Museum,” I said.
“And I must find Lord Wellington in Surrey.”
“Do you even think that possible? At least the museum stays still.”
The colonel’s lips compressed in a mirthless smile. “I suppose I shall wander, looking for soldiers who are unreasonably cheerful. It has worked before.”
“He has that effect on morale?”
“When all seems black, yes.” The colonel’s mirthless smile became an honest chuckle. “In Spain, I once followed a stream of happy gunners and found the duke at an improvised ball. I even danced with a Spanish lady. She was astonishingly beautiful. Sadly, I could not speak a word of Spanish.”
Since I had fallen in love, I had discovered a soft spot for romance. “You could learn. It is easier than Greek.”
“My father died when I was four. I have no fortune to tempt foreign beauties into marriage. That is why I enlisted, to earn a few pounds. And any marriage would be difficult with me gone to war for eleven months of every year.” He watched me with curious eyes, then ventured, “Do you worry about Miss Darcy when you are apart?”
It was my turn to smile. “Georgiana is like a demigod from a Greek myth, imbued with divine grace—in England, that is money—and beyond that, at her innermost self, stronger than us poor mortals.” I remembered the intoxicating reach of her song. “I suppose I worry she might do something foolish.”
The colonel rubbed his hands decisively. “We could unharness the horses and ride. A horse and rider can force a path where a carriage cannot.”
I looked at our four-horse team, prancing, skittish, and wild-eyed. I was reasonably comfortable on a horse, but that was on country paths. These did not even have saddles. “I doubt I could handle a horse in this press.”
The colonel nodded. “Probably for the best. They are not cavalry mounts. They might bolt.”
I worked my neck, loosening cramps and studying the smoky sky. “If only we could fly…” Colonel Fremantle produced a dutiful chuckle that choked when I continued, “but I cannot summon a dragon by myself.”
He eyed the song draca on my shoulder, so still and unbirdlike amid the chaos. “Miss Bennet, I do not wish to pry, but… I know Lord Wellington’s message, and I could not help but witness your and Miss Darcy’s discussion. What powers will you gain from this flute?”
“Me? Nothing. I have no power. But if I deliver the flute to the great wyves, they can end this war.”
I unfolded a scrap of linen and cleaned my spectacles while I thought. Could we walk? Eight miles was three hours on good roads, but against this tide it must be six or more, and dangerous among a desperate crowd. It would be fully dark when we arrived, and I doubted carriages would be for hire in a besieged city.
