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NAOMI NOVIK
Victory of Eagles
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2008
Copyright © Naomi Novik 2008
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2014
Cover illustrations © Dominic Harman
Naomi Novik asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007256761
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007318612
Version: 2017-04-28
For Dr. Sonia Novik
who gave this book a home
Table of Contents
The breeding grounds were called Pen Y Fan, after the hard, jagged slash of mountain rising like an axe-blade at their heart, rimed with ice along its edge and rising barren over the moorland. It was a cold, wet Welsh autumn already, coming on towards winter, and the other dragons were sleepy and remote, uninterested in anything but meals. A few hundred of them were scattered throughout the grounds, mostly established in caves or on rocky ledges, wherever they could fit themselves. No comfort or even order was provided for them, except for the feedings, and the mowed-bare strip of ground around the borders, where torches were lit at night to mark the lines past which they might not go. The town-lights glimmered in the distance, cheerful and forbidden.
Temeraire had hunted out and cleared a large cavern on his arrival, to sleep in; but it would be damp, no matter what he did in the way of lining it with grass, or flapping his wings to move the air, which in any case did not suit his notions of dignity. Much better to endure every unpleasantness with stoic patience, although that was not very satisfying when no-one would appreciate the effort. The other dragons certainly did not.
He was quite sure he and Laurence had done as they ought, in taking the cure to France, and no one sensible could disagree; but just in case, Temeraire had steeled himself to meet with either disapproval or contempt, and he had worked out several very fine arguments in his defence. Most importantly, of course, it had been a cowardly, sneaking way of fighting: if the Government wished to beat Napoleon, they ought to fight him directly, and not make his dragons sick to make him easy to defeat; as if British dragons could not beat French dragons, without cheating. ‘And not only that,’ he added, ‘but it would not only have been the French dragons