Laurence, who has been out of touch for over a year, learns more details of Napoleon's crushing victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, which he had only received scant details of during the voyage to China. Temeraire and company escape to Europe, making an eventual landing in Austria. She hatches before the end of the book, naming herself Iskierka and accepting Granby as her captain. In the end, Laurence and his crew simply steal the promised eggs, especially once they discover that one of them is a fire-breather of the Kazilik breed, something England has been trying to get into her Aerial Corps for hundreds of years. Lien makes a private visit to Temeraire and announces that she has set herself to his destruction as opposed to merely killing him, she wishes to see Temeraire deprived of all he holds dear, and live out the rest of his life in squalor and despondency. Once there, however, they face clear betrayal the Sultan has chosen to ally himself with Napoleon, probably at the urging of Lien, who is now present in his court, and has seized the exorbitant payment offered him by the British Crown whilst simultaneously reneging on any intent to hand over the eggs in return. With his help, the group survives ambush in the Central Asian deserts, befriends a pack of feral dragons in the mountains of Turkestan, and makes its way to Istanbul. She is seen in company with the French diplomat de Guignes, which Laurence feels cannot bode well.ĭeciding to eschew the Allegiance, which suffers fire damage at the opening of the novel, Laurence takes the services of a guide named Tharkay, the well-bred but ostracized child of a British diplomat and a Nepalese woman. In a prologue, Laurence also observes the burial of Prince Yongxing, the primary antagonist of the previous novel, and the mourning of his much-distrusted albino dragon Lien. Laurence and his first lieutenant John Granby are confused at the provenance of these orders, as there must surely be some British dragon nearer to Istanbul than they, but the promise of the eggs spurs them on. In Black Powder War, Captain William Laurence and Temeraire - along with the surviving members of their crew - are ordered to make all haste and return from the mission to China via Istanbul, where they are to take custody of three dragon eggs purchased from the Ottoman Empire by the British Government.
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