Plot summary
In the winter of 1804 ("the year four" as the characters call it) or thereabouts, during the War of the Third Coalition, HMS Reliant under Captain William Laurence seizes the French Amitie, a 36-gun frigate. Laurence and the crew of the Reliant find an unhatched dragon-egg on board and declare it a prize captured from the French. Unfortunately, the egg is near hatching, and in order to bring the resulting dragonet into service with Britain's Aerial Corps, it must accept harness and a handler as soon as possible. Laurence orders every officer aboard to prepare to make the attempt, but the dragonet, unusual with all-black hide and six spines on his wings, chooses Laurence, who names him Temeraire, after a second-rate itself named for a French ship likewise brought into service of Britain. Despite Laurence's reluctance to leave polite society and join the Aerial Corps, whose men are almost married to their dragons and who are known for grievous informality, he and Temeraire develop a deep affection.
The Reliant lands in Madeira, where Laurence and Temeraire await the Aerial Corps' response concerning their enlisting in the Corps; they are eventually ordered to a training camp at Loch Laggan in Scotland. Meanwhile, the naturalist Sir Edward Howe identifies Temeraire as a rare Chinese Imperial, a breed rarely seen outside China, much less in Britain; only the Celestials are rarer. The Corps also attempt to reassign Temeraire to a more experienced handler, Lieutenant Dayes; Laurence is surprised at how close he has grown to Temeraire in this short time and rejoices when Temeraire rejects Dayes entirely.
After a brief stopover at his father Lord Allendale's estate, where Laurence reveals his new profession to his family, Temeraire and Laurence arrive in the covert of Loch Laggan. Here Laurence meets Celeritas, the dragon training-master; Catherine Harcourt, the young female captain of the Longwing Lily (Longwings, the only acid-spitters in Britain, insist on female captains), whose formation they will join; Berkley, the captain of the Regal Copper Maximus; and Rankin, a captain of noble family, and his abused Winchester Levitas. Temeraire sees his first action when Victoriatus, a Parnassian, is injured in combat and must be carried back to base. Laurence and Temeraire also adopt their flight and ground crew, headed by Lt. John Granby; Granby, a friend to Dayes, showed initial hostility to Laurence, but the two overcome their difficulties during the mission to aid Victoriatus. Finally, Laurence meets Jane Roland, mother of one of his runners, Emily Roland, who is being groomed to captain the Longwing Excidium after Jane herself retires; Jane and Laurence eventually become lovers.
During their training, Celeritas introduces Choiseul, a French deserter, and his dragon Praecursoris, whom Temeraire views as competition. Choiseul is revealed to be a double agent when he attempts to kidnap Lily and Captain Harcourt. After interrogation, he admits that he was actually sent to steal Temeraire, whom the Chinese had gifted to Napoleon as his personal mount. The spirits of the captains, dragons, and crew are bolstered by the victory at the Battle of Trafalgar (October 1805), which erases Napoleon's navy and diminishes his aerial strength; additionally, while Nelson is raked by fire from a Spanish Flecha-del-Fuego, he survives to fight another day. While they are celebrating, Rankin and a mortally wounded Levitas arrive at Dover with important intelligence: Napoleon had not planned to send troops over by sea, as originally predicted. Instead, he plans to send them by air, using transports hauled by dragons, accompanied by Napoleon's aerial force. This disrupts celebrations as the captains at the Dover covert prepare for combat, knowing their great disadvantage in numbers.
The Dover dragons fly out to meet the French aerial armada, their primary objective the destruction of the transports. Unfortunately, the superior French numbers prove telling, and soon some of the transports land. However, Temeraire, earlier deemed unlikely to develop a breath weapon, unleashes a powerful shockwave roar, which destroys the transport they are attempting to take down. This turns the tide of battle and the French signal retreat. At the celebration party held in order to commemorate the victory, Sir Edward seeks out Laurence. He then reveals that Temeraire is actually Celestial; the roar, called the "divine wind," is unique to that breed. The Chinese reserve Celestials solely for emperors and royalty. Though this opens plenty of new worries concerning China's apparent friendship with France, Temeraire dismisses the idea of going to France, preferring his life in Britain with Laurence.
