Victory of Eagles Read Online Free PDF

now, or at dawn tomorrow.”
    “Now, now, let us not get excited,” Requiescat said pacifyingly. “I can see you are a young fellow, right
    enough. A challenge, really! It is nothing of the sort; I am the most peaceable fellow in the world, and I
    do not want to fight anyone. I am sorry if I was ham-handed about it. It is not that I want to take your
    cave, you see—” Temeraire did not see, in the least. “—it is a question of appearances. Here you are a
    month, with the nicest cave, and you nowhere the biggest, either.” Requiescat preened his own side, a
    little; certainly he outweighed any dragon Temeraire had seen but Maximus and Laetificat. “We have our
    own little ways here, of arranging things to keep everyone comfortable. No-one wants any fighting to cut
    up our peace, not when there is no need; it would be a nasty-tempered sort of fellow who would get to
    fighting over one cave versus another, both of them large and handsome enough for anyone; but
    distinctions must be preserved.”
    “Stuff,” Temeraire said. “It sounds to me like you have got so lazy, having all your meals given you, and
    nothing to do, that you do not even want to put yourself to the trouble of properly bullying other people;
    or maybe,” he added, having made up his mind to be really insulting, “you are just a coward, and thought
    I was the same: well, I am not, and I am not going to give you my cave, either, no matter what you do.”
    Requiescat did not rise to the remarks, but only shook his head dolefully. “There, I am not a clever chap,
    so I have made a mull of explaining, and now your back is put up. I suppose we will have to get the
    council together, or you will never believe me. It is a bother, but it is your right, after all.” He heaved
    himself back up to his feet and added, infuriatingly, “You may keep the place until then; it will take me a
    day or so to get word to everyone,” before he padded out again, leaving Temeraire quivering with rage.
    “His cave is the nicest,” Perscitia said anxiously, later, “at least, certainly we have always thought so; I
    am sure you would like it, and maybe you could make it even more pleasant than this. Why don’t you go
    and see, first, before fighting him?”
    “I do not care if it is Ali Baba’s cave, and full of gold and lamps,” Temeraire said, not trying to master
    his temper; it was better to be angry than miserable, and he was glad of anything to think about instead of
    what he could do nothing to repair. “It is a question of principle: I am not going to be bullied, as though I
    were not up to his weight. If I made the other cave nice, he should only try and take that back, I am
    sure; or some other dragon would try and push me out: no, thank you. Who are this council?”
    “It is all the biggest dragons,” Perscitia said, “and a Longwing, although Gentius does not bother to come
    out much anymore.”
    “All of them his friends, I suppose,” Temeraire said.
    “No one much likes Requiescat,” Moncey said, perched on the lip of Temeraire’s cave. “He eats so
    much, and will never take less, even if it is short commons all around. But he is the biggest, and so there
    shouldn’t be fighting, the general rule is that caves go by who is strongest, if there is any quarrel; and
    no-one is allowed to take a place out of his class, or others will get jealous and squabble.”
    “You see it is just as I told you, all unfairness,” Perscitia said bitterly, “as if the only quality of any
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    importance were one’s weight, or how good one is at scratching and biting and kicking up a fuss; never
    any consideration for really remarkable qualities.”
    “I will allow it to have some practical sense,” Temeraire said, “as a way to choose caves; but it is
    nonsense that after I have taken one, which he might have had at any moment before I came, and did not
    want, that he should be able to snatch it from me after I have gone to so much trouble to