Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (30 page)

"Come on." Langston grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet.
"We've got to hide."

They were halfway up the bridge before Jack's mind cleared enough
to realize where they were going. "Wait a minute—this is no good," he
protested, trying to pull out of Langston's grip. "It's the first place
they'll look for us."

"That's why we're not going to
be
here," Langston
countered, pulling harder on Jack's arm. In his other hand, Jack saw,
he still had the two Golvin bows. "We're going up the air shaft to my
old prison."

"That won't work either," Jack insisted as they brushed through
the streamers into the apartment. "I can't climb up there. Even if I
could, they must have blocked that hole by now."

"I don't think so," Langston said, crossing to the light shaft and
looking up. "I think all they found was my decoy."

"Your what?"

"A little hole I dug and then camouflaged about as badly as I
could without being too obvious about it," Langston explained. "In case
you hadn't noticed, these people aren't the brightest stars in the
galaxy. You have any food in here?"

"There's meat and fruit in the refrigerator."

"Get it," Langston ordered. "No telling how long we'll be up
there."

Numbly, Jack obeyed, stuffing as much as he could into his
Judge-Paladin hat. "Ready," he said, coming back to the light shaft as
he tucked the hat inside his shirt.

"Get in," Langston said, pointing to the shaft. "Sitting up; back
against the left side."

Jack did so. The shaft was a little too narrow for him to stretch
all the way out, forcing him to bend his knees. Even through his shirt
he could feel the roughness of the wall, and wondered uneasily how that
was going to affect Draycos.

"Now take this." Langston thrust one of the bows into the opening.
"Turn it with the bow part up and the bowstring down and wedge the ends
against the walls to your right and left. You probably want it about a
foot in front of you and a foot or two above your head."

The bow, like Jack himself, was a little large for the opening.
Pulling on the bowstring to compress the wood, he was able to get it in
position. "Okay."

"Here's what you're going to do," Langston said. "You're going to
pull yourself up with the bow while you walk your feet up the other
side. Then you'll brace your back against the wall, move the bow up a
couple more feet, and repeat. It's basically a climber's rock chimney
technique, only with the bow to help."

Jack tried it. The method was awkward, but it seemed simple
enough. "Be sure to hold the bow near the ends when you're pulling
yourself up or it might flip over on you," Langston said, peering in at
him. "Keep going—I'll be right behind you."

Clenching his teeth, Jack headed up.

They'd gone perhaps thirty feet, and Jack's arms were starting to
tremble, when Langston whispered a quick warning.

Someone was moving around in the apartment below.

Jack froze, gripping the bow as he pressed his back and feet
against the walls. His mind flashed back to that first encounter with
the Golvins back at the spaceport, when they'd been able to sniff out
his parentage. If one of them thought to stick his nose into the light
shaft, it would be all over.

Or maybe not. The air was moving
up
the shaft from below,
he noticed now, carrying his and Langston's scents upward with it.
Probably something to do with the stone having absorbed sunlight all
day and still giving some of that heat back to the air inside the
apartments. A minute later, the footsteps fell silent, and he heard
Golvin voices calling faintly from outside the apartment. "Go,"
Langston whispered.

Jack resumed climbing. His arms and legs were beginning to ache,
his back feeling itchy and sore and cold where it pressed against the
stone.

But none of that mattered. All he could think about was Draycos,
stretched across his skin.

Maybe dying.

The word terrified him. But he couldn't put it out of his mind.
Over and over as he climbed he mentally called the K'da's name. But
there was no answer.

And he was lying so still against Jack's skin. So very, very still.

"Jack?" Langston called softly.

Jack started out of a haze of ache and fear and guilt. "What?" he
whispered.

"We're here."

Jack blinked the tears out of his eyes. To his surprise, he saw
that the stone wall to his right had opened up onto a rough-hewn hole.
"How do I get in?"

"First, make sure it's really still open," Langston said. "Reach
in and give the far side a push."

Jack shifted his grip on the bow and stretched a hand into the
hole. His fingers touched something slightly stretchy and gave it a
push.

It popped out, sending a rush of warm air into his face. "Bless
their simple little minds," Langston murmured. "Now put your feet in
and just slide yourself through."

A minute later Jack was sprawled on the apartment floor, his arms
and legs trembling with released strain. He barely noticed as Langston
came in and crossed to the door. The other stood there a moment, and
then came back. "So far, so good," he said, squatting down beside Jack.
"How's your friend?"

"I don't know," Jack said, brushing at his shoulder. Did the skin
where Draycos was lying feel hot? "Draycos?"

There was no answer. "I don't know what the floos is going on with
this," Langston said. "But however this works, that wound is probably
bleeding like crazy. We've got to get a look at it."

Jack closed his eyes.
Draycos
, he thought urgently as he
pushed up his sleeve.
We need to look at your wound. We need you to
come off. Can you do that
?

Abruptly, the K'da was there, pouring off Jack's arm more like a
thick liquid than a living being. He collapsed onto the stone floor and
lay there in a broken heap, not moving.

His entire side was covered in black blood.

"Oh, no," Jack breathed, his heart seizing up as he bent over his
friend's still form.

"Here," Langston said, thrusting a wad of cloth into Jack's hands.
Jack looked up, realizing only then that the other had pulled his
jumpsuit half off and given Jack his flight shirt. "Soak it in the sink
over there," Langston told him as he knelt down beside Draycos. "We
need to get some of the blood off and find out how bad it is."

A small part of Jack's mind wondered whether running water up here
in an empty apartment would be noticed by the neighbors. The rest of
his mind didn't even care. He got the shirt good and wet and brought it
back.

"If this is all the blood he's lost, I don't think we're in too
bad a shape," Langston said, taking the shirt and carefully daubing at
the bloodstained scales. "At least, if he's got the same amount of
blood as other animals his size."

"He's not an animal," Jack growled. "I can do that."

"Have you had any medical training?" Langston countered, holding
the wet shirt out of Jack's reach. "No? Well, I have. Star-Force's
basic first-aid course, anyway. You just watch for now. There'll be
plenty of nursing later to go around."

Jack grimaced. But the other did seem to know what he was doing.
Under his careful ministrations the dried blood was starting to come
off. "The real question is how much internal damage he took," Langston
went on. "You happen to know how his organs are arranged?"

Jack shook his head. "Not a clue."

Langston grunted. "I was afraid of that. Still, his breathing
seems steady. We'll just have to tie up his wound as best we can and
keep our fingers crossed."

"You can use my shirt," Jack offered, pulling it off.

"Thanks." Langston set the shirt aside and got back to his
cleaning. "So what exactly is he? Is he the last of his kind?"

Jack snorted. "Hardly. Or rather, not yet."

He told Langston the whole story. All of it, including the
information on his parents that he'd uncovered since coming to
Semaline. Somehow, talking helped keep his mind off Draycos.

Langston listened in silence as he worked. By the time Jack was
finished, so was the first aid. "It's up to him now," Langston said,
wiping his hands on his jumpsuit. "You know the saying: the patient
does the healing, and the doctor takes the credit. So you think
Cornelius Braxton himself was behind your parents' murder?"

"I don't know what to think," Jack said with a sigh. Suddenly he
was feeling utterly drained. "Draycos thinks it's more likely it was
Neverlin. But I just don't know."

"Well, it's not something we have to figure out tonight," Langston
assured him. "Get some sleep. I'll take the first watch." His lip
quirked upward. "Sorry about the accommodations."

"They're fine," Jack assured him, glancing around the empty
apartment. All the furniture had apparently been moved to Langston's
cliffside prison when Langston himself was. "I'll just fluff up some of
the floor and settle in."

"That's the spirit," Langston said. "I'll wake you in four hours."

"Make it three," Jack said. "Draycos has already been off me for
one, and I don't want to push his limits."

"I don't know," Langston said doubtfully. "He'll probably drop
that bandage when he goes back on your skin."

"I know," Jack said. "But it won't do any good to keep it on and
let him die."

"Point," Langston admitted. "Three hours it is." Jack's last
memory as he lay down on the floor beside Draycos was of Langston
sitting cross-legged near the door, one of the bows in his hand, gazing
thoughtfully out into the night.

It took Alison all the rest of the night and most of the next
morning to work her way through the Brummgan areas of the Chookoock
estate. During that time Taneem smelled or heard three guard patrols,
each time warning Alison with a touch of her claws.

It was nearing noon when they finally passed over the thorn hedge
into the slave areas of the estate. Beyond the hedge, the neatly
manicured lawns and trees abruptly turned scraggly and untended. The
Brummgas, Alison reflected grimly, had no interest in maintaining this
part of their grounds. The slaves, for their part, had no spare time
for the job.

"How far are we going?" Taneem asked.

"No farther than we have to," Alison said, wincing as she pushed
them another six inches north. Her shirt had torn through in several
places, and even through the material that remained her back had been
rubbed raw. "We at least need to make it to the forest. If we can find
one of the isolation huts Jack talked about, maybe we can hide there
for a while."

"And enlist the aid of the slaves?" Taneem suggested.

"Not if we can help it," Alison said. "The Brummgas have spies
mixed in with them, remember?"

"Oh. Yes." The K'da moved restlessly on Alison's skin. "I don't
understand why any slaves would be willing to betray their friends that
way."

"It's a power thing, I suppose," Alison said. "To have even a
little power over the other slaves is probably very appealing to some
of them."

"Draycos says that traitors deserve death."

Alison pursed her lips. "I imagine that's part of the K'da warrior
code," she agreed. "Let's keep it quiet for a while, okay?"

They made their slow way for another hour before Alison finally
called it quits. "This should be far enough," she said, studying as
much of the landscape as she could see from her vantage point. It
wasn't much. "Now the big question: how do I get down?"

In answer, Taneem bounded from her shoulder and dropped to the
ground. She landed on all fours in a crouch and swiveled her long neck
back and forth as she surveyed the area. Then, looking up, she moved
directly beneath Alison and rose up on her hind legs, her forelegs
stretched upward. "Drop down," she called softly. "I'll catch you."

It sounded pretty risky. Unfortunately, Alison didn't have any
better ideas. Getting a grip on the white ceramic, she rolled herself
over the edge of the curl. She hung there for a couple of seconds to
stabilize herself, then let go.

Taneem's forelegs caught her around her torso, and she hit the
ground no harder than if she'd jumped off a chair. "Thanks," she said,
wincing as the K'da's paws brushed across her sore back. "Let's get
moving."

She got two paces before she was suddenly pulled up short by
Taneem's paw on her shoulder. "Alison!" the K'da gasped. "Your
back
."

"Lovely, isn't it?" Alison agreed, twisting her neck to try to see
for herself. "Feels just like it looks, too."

"My fault," Taneem said, ducking her head guiltily. "I should have
helped take some of the pressure and pain. But I never even thought to
do that."

"It's okay," Alison assured her. "It's not really that bad.
Anyway, before this is over we may need you in top fighting shape.
Better get aboard—we don't want some roaming Brummga to spot you."

They were not, as it turned out, as close to the forest as Alison
had thought. Fortunately, there were plenty of scattered trees and
bushes along the way to use as cover as they worked their way farther
north.

It took them nearly half an hour to reach the forest. Along the
way Taneem's nose and tongue picked up two groups of Brummgas, but both
were too far away to be any danger to the fugitives.

Finally, they were there. Heading into the permanent twilight
beneath the branches, Alison finally felt herself relaxing a little.

Her relief was short-lived. They'd been traveling barely five
minutes when she heard the sound of footsteps crunching through the
dead leaves.

Instantly, she dropped into a crouch beside a tall bush. "Taneem?"
she whispered, her eyes darting around as she tried to tell which
direction the steps were coming from.,

"They're all around us," Taneem whispered back, her tongue
flicking out rapid-fire now. "But there are no Brummgas among them."