They were obliged to spend some time each day finding water, although from their lack of success in finding a route, they were often able to fall back to their former camp by the river. The fifth day of their surveying attempt, however, ended in more confusion. From the air, they thought two valleys had conjoined, if only by a narrow passage, which could barely have admitted men on foot to pass, single-file. “I will settle for that, gladly,” Granby said. “It can be widened, and perhaps once we have found one route, we can find another, if we look in the other direction.”
“And more to the point, while we look, we can in the meantime put the men to work, which should hardly be delayed another hour,” Rankin said, with a cold look over his shoulder at the string of convicts who had not yet roused themselves from around their rough and makeshift camp, though the morning was well advanced. “So far they have nothing to occupy them but idleness and rum, and I am sure we may expect trouble from leaving such men prey to restlessness and wild fancies.”
Those wild fancies were rampant not only amongst the convicts, by now. “I hope, sir,” Fellowes, his staid and hard-headed ground-crew master, and ordinarily a sensible fellow, said to Laurence under his breath, “I hope you will have a care, walking that pass; I am sure we have not had so much bad luck for no reason.”
“I do not like it, either,” Temeraire said. “Perhaps I might try and break it open wider, myself, before you should go; I have found the divine wind answers quite well for breaking rock.”
“And for bringing half the cliff wall down upon our heads, certainly,” Rankin interjected.
“It may come down upon your head, and no-one mind in the least,” Temeraire flared, but this criticism was unfortunately sound, and barred the experiment: the soft sandstone walls would crumble a little even from a leather-gloved hand rubbed vigorously across their face, and everywhere the rock rose above the tree-line stood the scars of small landslides and collapses.
The ground of the pass was uneven and shifted easily beneath their feet, gravel and rock slipping where new grass and undergrowth had yet to take secure hold, though there was also enough greenery risen calf-high to hide the canyon floor and make their passage more difficult. They could only go single-file, and the rock thrust up on either side crowding near, so that looking up, squinting, one saw only a narrow strip of sky stark against the dark walls; Laurence had the sensation that the cliffs leaned in towards them.
The wind also was crammed in narrowly, and whistled a little where it passed over sharp edges or crevasses in the rock; a loose slope challenged them awhile in climbing, and Laurence slipped badly on the other side, sliding with a tumble of loose pebbles, sand creeping into all his clothing; falling backwards he caught himself awkwardly on his hands, which sank wrist-deep into the gravel as he slid a little further.
He managed to halt his skidding progress, and lying a little dazed in the spill of stones around him saw directly in front of him another overhang in the cliff, the height of several men from the ground, marked with the ochre signs: handprints and a faded painting. A very narrow and steep ledge protruded from the cliff face which might have served as a track to reach it, for an exceptionally skilled climber.
Laurence struggled up to his feet, and only then saw there was no way forward: they had yet again come to the end of a gorge, without breaking through. There was only a small grassy clearing within almost curved walls of rock, spiky-leaved plants like ivy and a few sapling trees protruding almost horizontal from cracks, and the overhang standing above with the quality of an empty sentinel post.
Granby came in a more controlled slide down the gravel slope beside him, saw at once the dead end, and did not say anything. A few pebbles rolled a little further along from his feet, rattling, and then stopped. There was a palpable silence, all sound muffled and deadened by the encircling rock and the high slope of loose stones.
“Another false start, then?” Rankin said irritably, from the summit of the slope, breaking the silence and yet not the queer power of the place, cathedral in quality. Even he was not insensible to it: his words fell into the space and died without echoing, and he did not speak again.
It was not so easy to get out of the clearing as to get in; Granby managed it, at the price of scraped palms, but Rankin had in the end to brace against the wall and reach down a hand for Laurence to scramble up the slope and out again. Rankin himself balanced easily despite the unsteady ground: he was, Laurence could not deny, an aviator born to the life; his training had started nearer to the cradle than even the age of seven, when most boys were taken into the service.
They returned somberly along the narrow passage, quiet with failure and discomfort; it was a longer and hotter walk retracing their steps, the sun having climbed overhead, and Laurence was weary and damp with sweat before they had returned to the waiting dragons. “No,” Laurence said briefly, to Temeraire’s raised head, “there is no passage. We must return to the river.”
“It’s cursed country,” Jack Telly announced loud and sourly, over the disheartened groans and objections of the other convicts as Lieutenant Blincoln made a desultory effort to marshal them for loading, “and I don’t see why there is any call for a road into it; if we ain’t all to be found like dried-up husks ten years hence we had better be going back to town. And I ha’nt a drink all morning.”
“That is quite enough, Mr. Telly; you will have one when we have made camp by the river, if you are not having strokes for malingering,” Forthing said, and with a clout of a stick roused Maynard and Hob Wessex, who had not even taken their hats off their faces.
He went to prod Jonas Green also, lying curled in the shade of a tree, but Green, who had so far been the most reliable of the men, did not stir but only moaned; and after prodding again, Forthing turned to Laurence and said, low, “Sir, if you would—”
Across the clearing, Rankin looked away from Caesar’s side, where he had been adjusting a strap, and said frowning, “What are you about, there? Get that man up.”
Forthing hesitated, and by then the men were looking over; Green yet had not moved. “He’s not drunk, sir,” he said.
Laurence stepped over and looked down: Green was curled around himself with sweat sprung out all over his body, soaked through his shirt in great dark stains; when they turned him over, his hand was swollen large and reddened around two small black punctures.
Dorset made an inspection—though a dragon-surgeon, he was the nearest thing to a physician among them; he shook his head. “A snake perhaps, or a spider: it is quite impossible to tell.”
“What ought be done?” Laurence asked.
“I will take most detailed notes on the progression,” Dorset said. “I understand there are several highly venomous species recognized already in this part of the world; it will be of great interest to the Royal Society.”
“Yes, but what are we to do for the poor blighter in the meantime?” Granby exclaimed.
“Oh; I can bind up the arm, but I imagine the venom has already spread,” Dorset said absently, his fingers on the man’s pulse. “He may not die; it is entirely dependent upon the degree of venom, and his natural resistance.”
“Water, I imagine,” Tharkay said, a more practical compassion; but Green moaned wordless and incoherently when touched, and vomited up all he was given before they had managed to lift him into the belly-rigging. His condition silenced the noisiest complaints, from respect, but a low muttering grew as they went back aboard: it seemed fresh proof of the hostility of the country which surrounded them.