Nosso dragão não come as meninas que captura, não importam as histórias que contem fora do vale. Nós às vezes as ouvimos por conta dos viajantes que passam por aqui. Eles falam como se estivéssemos sacrificando um ser humano e ele fosse um dragão de verdade. Claro que não é assim: ele pode ser um mago imortal, mas continua sendo um homem, e nossos pais se uniriam e o matariam se a cada dez anos ele quisesse usar uma de nós como comida. Ele nos protege contra a Floresta, e somos gratos; mas não tanto assim.

“They are ours,” he said, “although not properly the sailors: they are only along because we would not leave them to drown, and ought to be more grateful for it than they are. Laurence,” he said, turning, “this is Palta, and that man is called Taruca: Iskierka snatched him, and I cannot find she asked him in the least.”

THERE WERE FEW STREETS in the main port of Sydney which deserved the name, besides the one main thoroughfare, and even that bare packed dirt, lined only with a handful of small and wretched buildings that formed all the permanence of the colony. Tharkay turned off from this and led the way down a cramped, irregularly arranged alley-way between two wooden-slat buildings to a courtyard full of men drinking, in surly attitudes, under no roof but a tarpaulin.

Along one side of the courtyard, the further from the kitchens, the convicts sat in their drab and faded duck trousers, dusty from the fields and quarries and weighted down with fatigue; along the other, small parties of men from the New South Wales Corps watched with candidly unfriendly faces as Laurence and his companions seated themselves at a small table near the edge of the establishment.

There was no help for it; Temeraire backed away from the cliff, and drew breath, preparatory; and then there was a hurried rush of wings above: Moncey dropped into the clearing beside him, panting, and said, “Call it off; it’s all off,” urgently, to Ballista.

“Hey, what’s this, then?” Requiescat said, frowning.

“Quiet, you fat lump,” Moncey said, slitting a good many eyes; he was not much bigger than the Regal Copper’s head. “I’m fresh from Brecon: the Frogs have come over the Channel.”

A great confused babble arose, all around; even Gentius roused, with a low hiss, and while everyone spoke at once, Moncey turned to Temeraire and said, “Listen, your Laurence, word is in they locked him up on a ship called the Goliath—”

“The Goliath!” Temeraire said. “I know that ship; Laurence has spoken of it to me before. That is very good—that is splendid; it is on blockade, I know just where it is, nearly, and I am sure anyone at Dover can tell me exactly where—”

“Old fellow, I wish I needn’t pop it out so; but there’s no good way to say it,” Moncey said. “The Frogs sank her this morning, coming across. She is at the bottom of the ocean, and not a man got off her before she went down.”

Temeraire did not say anything; a terrible sensation was rising, climbing up his throat. He turned blindly away to let it come, the roar bursting out like the roll of thunder overhead, silencing every word around him, and the wall of stone cracked open before him like a pane of mirrored glass.

“Yes, it is very clever,” she said, smiling, with a parchment thinness to the corners of her mouth. “The strategy is very sound; no one could argue with it. At a stroke we go from very nearly the weakest aerial force, in Europe, to the strongest.”

“By murder,” Laurence said. “It can be called nothing else; wholesale murder.” Nor was there any reason why the devastation should end in Europe. All the maps over which he had labored, through their half-year’s journey home from China, unfolded again for him without any need for their physical presence; the wavering course of their journey now made a track for slow creeping death to run along in reverse. Strategy, strategy, would call it a victory to see the Chinese aerial legions decimated: without them, the Chinese infantry and cavalry could hardly stand against British artillery. The distant corners of India brought under control, Japan humbled; perhaps a sick beast might be delivered to the Inca, and the fabled cities of gold flung open at last.

“I am sure they will find a prettier name for it, in the history books,” Jane said. “It is only dragons, you know; we ought think nothing more of it, than if we were to set fire to a few dozen ships in their harbor, which we would gladly enough do.”
He bowed his head. “And this is how wars should be fought.”

“No,” she said tiredly. “This is how they are won.”

"Esta é a disciplina do Corpo, eu entendo," Barham começou: mesquinho e ofensivo, uma vez que sua vida provavelmente acabara de ser salva pela desobediência. Ele mesmo pode percebê-lo, e tornou-se ainda mais furioso. "Bem, não será assim comigo, Laurence, nem por um instante; eu o verei quebrado por isso. Sargento, prenda-o-"

O final da sentença foi inaudível; Barham estava esmorecendo, tornando-se menor, sua boca vermelha gritante abrindo e fechando como um peixe sem fôlego, as palavras tornando-se indistintas enquanto o chão sumia sob os pés de Laurence.

- Peço perdão, não o fiz de propósito. Meu nome é Will Laurence; qual é o seu?

Nenhuma disciplina poderia ter evitado o murmúrio de choque que atravessou o convés. O dragonete não pareceu percebê-lo, mas pensou na pergunta por vários momentos, e finalmente disse, com ar insatisfeito.

- Eu não tenho um nome.

Laurence tinha folheado os livros de Pollit o suficiente para saber como deveria responder. Ele perguntou, formalmente:

- Eu poderia lhe dar um?

A criatura, revelando uma voz definitivamente masculina, examinou o capitão novamente, fazendo uma pausa para coçar um ponto aparentemente imaculado nas costas, e então disse com indiferença nada convincente.

- Por favor.

E então Laurence teve um branco completo. Ele não havia realmente pensado no processo de arreiamento, além de decidir que faria seu melhor para garantir que isso acontecesse, e não fazia idéia de qual seria um nome apropriado a um dragão. Depois de um momento terrível de pânico, sua mente, de alguma forma, conectou dragão e navio, e o capitão deixou escapar:

- Temeraire – pensando no nobre e grande navio de guerra que vira ser batizado, muitos anos atrás, com o mesmo movimento elegante de deslizamento.