Read Dragonback 04 Dragon and Herdsman Online
Authors: Timothy Zahn
Draycos looked back toward where he'd left his latest batch of
unconscious soldiers. Now that Jack mentioned it, it really
wouldn't
take very long to deal that same injury to them. And it would certainly
put them out of the fight.
"Jack?" Alison's voice called cautiously.
Draycos grimaced. It wouldn't take long, but he certainly didn't
want to do it with Alison watching. "We should be on our way," he said.
"No argument here," Jack agreed, putting out his hand.
Draycos laid his paw on the palm and slipped up the sleeve,
settling into his accustomed place across the boy's back. A surge of
warmth and strength flowed into the K'da as he did so—he hadn't
realized just how long it had been since he'd been connected to his
host. "I'm ready."
He sensed Jack taking a deep breath. "It's me, Alison," the boy
called, starting forward. "Don't shoot."
"I figured Frost was overdue to pull something cute," Alison said
as they made their way through the forest. "So when we hit the stream
up here, I decided to send everyone else ahead while I went back and
waited for trouble to show up." She waved a hand at Jack. "And for you
to show up, too, of course. Speaking of which, shouldn't you have a red
Phooka with you?"
"I did," Jack said, grimacing. "The soldiers got him."
"Oh." Alison seemed taken aback. "I'm sorry. I just assumed that
was the one who went tearing by just before they cleverly brought the
top of that tree down on top of themselves."
"No, that was the gray one," Jack told her. "She must have gotten
lost from the rest of the herd."
Alison snorted. "Wandered away on purpose, more like. That one's
been trouble since we started. So the red Phooka . . .?"
"He was the first set of gunfire you heard," Jack said. "I was
hiding by a tree and he just took off."
"Odd," Alison said. "Did he attack them or something?"
"No, he was just wandering away," Jack said. "Not that odd,
really. He'd probably picked up the herd's trail and was trying to get
back to them."
"I was talking about the mercs' reaction," Alison said. "They
shouldn't be spooking nearly this soon. That's a bad sign."
"What do you mean, spooking?"
"Shooting at something that's not a threat when they're supposed
to be sneaking up on someone," she explained. "I wonder if they know
something about Phookas that we don't."
"I don't know," Jack lied. Of course the soldiers would have
orders to shoot at anything even vaguely K'da-shaped on sight. But
Alison had no way of knowing that. "Maybe they've run into whatever it
is that clawed the bark off that tree we saw," he suggested. "That
would sure spook
me
."
"Maybe," she said. "Might explain why they were burning so much
ammo shooting up that tree, too. But if there was something up there, I
never saw it. I don't suppose you thought to grab one of their guns or
anything."
"Actually, that would have been a bad idea," Jack told her.
"They've got trackers in the guns. I don't know where."
"Probably the shoulder stock," Alison said. "That's where they
usually put things like that. Keeps them clear of the moving parts that
way. Here we are."
The stream was, to Jack's mind, more like a small river than the
little babbling brook he'd expected. It was at least five yards across,
moving swiftly but quietly. "Where are they?" he asked, peering across
at the other side.
"If they're where I told Hren to stay, they're fifty yards upriver
and twenty yards north on the far side," Alison said. "Afraid you're
going to get your feet wet. Hey, what do you know? There she is."
Jack followed her pointing finger to see Taneem emerge from behind
a row of reeds at the water's edge. "Oh, good," he said, a wave of
relief rolling through him. He already had the red Phooka's death on
his conscience. He didn't particularly want Taneem's there, too. "Right
where I told her to go, too. Good little Phooka."
"You
told
her to come here?"
"Well, I told her to find the rest of the herd," Jack corrected.
"This is close enough for jazz."
"No, I'm still working on the
told her
part," Alison said.
"Since when do you talk to Phookas? Or maybe I should say, since when
do they
listen
?"
"You should try it sometime," Jack said blandly, taking a step
toward Taneem and holding out his hand. With only a slight hesitation,
and clearly to Alison's amazement, the gray Phooka walked right up to
him.
And to Jack's own surprise she laid her muzzle across his palm.
"Careful," Alison muttered. "Lots of sharp teeth in there."
"It's all right," Jack said, gazing down into Taneem's silver
eyes. So she remembered him holding her muzzle this way earlier.
Interesting. "So where are we going, again?" he asked, letting go of
Taneem's muzzle and taking a step backward.
"Upriver," Alison said. She was still staring at the two of them,
an unreadable expression on her face. "If you and your new pet would
follow me?"
Jack gestured. "Lead the way."
They stepped into the water and turned upstream. As the icy water
flowed around his shins, Jack winced, wondering how deep it was going
to get.
Wondering, too, why Draycos was suddenly so tense.
They found the rest of the group exactly where Alison had said
they would be. The Erassvas were huddled together beneath a tall
outcropping of rock, looking altogether miserable. The Phookas were
scattered around them, lying quietly in ones and twos around their
hosts' feet.
"Cheerful-looking bunch, aren't they?" Jack murmured as he and
Alison approached.
"Hren's not very happy with me," she said. "I think he's finally
grasped the fact that the people back there want to hurt us."
Jack grimaced. If he only knew how badly. "He can't give up on us
now," Jack warned. "Frost's mood hasn't had anywhere to go lately but
down. Who knows what he'd do if they tried to go back?"
"I'd just as soon not find out," Alison agreed. "Well, maybe
passing out some ration bars will help."
"You go ahead," Jack said. "I want to take a stroll around the
perimeter."
"Your tangler have any ammo left?"
"I've got three shots," Jack said. "But I don't think I'll have to
use any more of them tonight."
Alison grunted. "I hope you're right. Watch yourself."
She headed toward the huddled Erassvas, while Jack angled off
toward the eastern edge of their encampment. "You should have taken
some of the mercenaries' tangler rounds," Draycos murmured from his
shoulder.
"Couldn't," Jack murmured back. "They're using military-caliber
ammo. Too big for my civilian version."
"Then you should have taken one of their weapons," Draycos
countered, an edge to his voice.
"Their weapons include handy little trackers, remember?" Jack
said, frowning down into his shirt. This wasn't the calm, patient K'da
poet-warrior he was used to. "In fact, they probably hoped we
would
help ourselves to one."
"Alison has told you where the tracker is."
"Sure,
now
I know," Jack said. "At the time, I didn't.
What have I done wrong
this
time?"
"You deliberately sent a civilian into danger," Draycos bit out.
He lifted his head from Jack's shoulder to glare into the boy's eyes.
"Or do you deny that was your intent when you ordered Taneem to find
the herd?"
"No, that was exactly what I had in mind," Jack said, struggling
to hold on to his own temper. Draycos was being completely
unreasonable. "I don't know if you were aware of it, buddy, but you'd
been spotted. I figured you could use a diversion."
"I did not need a
civilian
to be that diversion," Draycos
snapped.
"Hey,
I
didn't ask her to wander into a war zone," Jack
shot back. "She got there all by herself. What was I supposed to do?
Walk away and leave her?"
There was a long silence from inside his shirt. Then, to Jack's
surprise, Draycos gave a long, tired sigh. "I cannot protect you
anymore, Jack," the dragon said quietly. "Not now that they know I
survived the Iota Klestis attack. There are simply too many of them."
Jack grimaced. He should have known there was something like that
behind the dragon's anger. "Okay, so things have changed," he said.
"But things
always
change. The trick is to figure out how
they're changing and adapt."
"I understand that," Draycos said. "The difficulty is that I can
no longer think of how to do that."
"Then we'll just have to figure it out together," Jack said
firmly. "And before you get too depressed, let me point out that you've
now repulsed two separate attacks and decoyed a third, all in one day.
That's a pretty good record."
"I could not have done so without your help."
"Which is how it's supposed to be," Jack reminded him. "We're
partners, remember?"
"I suppose—" Abruptly, the dragon broke off. "Listen."
Jack stopped in midstep, holding his breath as he strained his
ears. In the distance, he could hear a low rumble. "Sounds like the
transport firing up its main drive," he said. "Geez. I hope Frost
hasn't decided to carpet bomb the forest after all."
But the sound didn't seem to be approaching. It rose once in
volume as the pilot fed power to the drive, then faded steadily away
until it was lost in the background forest noises.
"Now,
that's
interesting," Jack said, frowning into the
darkness. "You don't suppose they've given up, do you?"
"More likely Colonel Frost has decided to speak to Neverlin,"
Draycos said.
"Probably," Jack said, nodding. "Do a little ranting and ask for
further instructions."
"Or for more troops," Draycos said darkly.
"No, I don't think so," Jack said, scratching his cheek as he
gazed into the darkness. "Seems to me they have to be running a
shoestring operation here. Reinforcements may not be available."
"Explain."
"Basically, I figure there are only so many Malison Ring soldiers
Frost and Neverlin can trust with the whole story," Jack said. "Pulling
in new troops from outside their little conspiracy would mean more
chances for something to leak out."
"And they cannot afford for StarForce or the Internos government
to hear of this," Draycos said. "I see."
"Especially with only two and a half months to go before the
refugees arrive," Jack agreed. "So what you see is pretty much what you
get."
"You may be right," Draycos said. "Certainly the presence of the
soldier Dumbarton at both the Iota Klestis ambush and the Chookoock
family slave auction supports that theory."
"Not to mention right here on Rho Scorvi," Jack said.
Draycos's head lifted from his shoulder again. "He is
here
?"
"He was the guy in charge of the group I clobbered with that
concussion grenade," Jack said, frowning at the sky as a sudden thought
struck him. "Now that I think about it, between you, me, and Alison, a
lot
of Frost's men got clobbered back there."
"Far too many for him to have collected and taken back aboard his
transport so quickly," Draycos agreed thoughtfully. "Especially as
there were no likely spots nearby for a vehicle that size to land."
"So did he just abandon them?" Jack asked. "That doesn't seem
likely."
"I agree," Draycos said. "More likely he brought the transport to
the area on lifters and dropped or rappelled more of his troops in to
care for the casualties."
Jack grimaced. "So Frost may be gone, but we still have his hyenas
to deal with?"
"Most likely," Draycos said. "Perhaps they will have orders to
take no action until he returns."
"Maybe," Jack said doubtfully. "Still, at the very least, they'll
probably want to avoid further combat until tonight's attack force has
recovered."
"Indeed," Draycos agreed. "We should have at least a day or two of
breathing space."
"I'll take it," Jack said. "Let's go back and run all this past
Alison."
Alison listened thoughtfully as Jack explained the line of
reasoning he and Draycos had come up with. "Sounds good to me," she
said when he had finished. "I wonder how close the nearest InterWorld
transmitter is."
"It's got to be at least a few hours away," Jack said. "Add in
whatever time Frost and Neverlin will need to figure out a new strategy
and we're probably talking at least a day. Maybe more if Neverlin is in
transit somewhere and Frost can't get hold of him right away."
"I doubt Neverlin's anywhere except hanging around his own
InterWorld transmitter waiting for the joyous news of our capture,"
Alison said sourly. "And he probably doesn't need to rappel his men
down, by the way. A Kapstan usually carries a short-range floater plus
one or two ground-hugger armored cars. If Frost left the floater
behind, they could shuttle troops all over the forest if they wanted
to."
"Oh, that's encouraging," Jack said with a grimace. "How come you
know so much about Kapstans, anyway?"
"Same way I know they can carry up to thirty troops," she said.
"Mercenaries and mercenary equipment are my job." She cocked her head
to the side, the posture somehow reminding Jack of Taneem. "You ready
to tell me what exactly they want with you?"
Jack lifted his hands, palms upward. "I know Neverlin is extremely
annoyed with me, for a couple of different reasons," he said. "But if
all he wanted was to kill me, a few well-placed missiles would have
taken care of the problem."
"And they wouldn't have bothered with tanglers back there,
either," Alison agreed. "They definitely want you alive."
"For which we should both be grateful," Jack said, shivering. "
Why
they want me alive, though, I haven't a clue. Really."
For a moment Alison was silent. "Well, work on it," she said at
last. "Just in case your ship
didn't
survive its high-dive
belly flop."