Dragon and Herdsman

CHAPTER 15

"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."

She leaned back to look at the small section of stars visible through the trees. "Too bad we haven't run into any decent-sized clearings. With the transport gone, you could whistle up the Essenay and we could be out of here before they knew what was happening."

"Wouldn't work," Jack said. "Uncle Virge will have the comm off, along with every other system he can do without. He won't turn it back on until he's well inside the forest and ready to start listening. Any idea how much farther we've got to go?"

"I'd guess we did eight miles today, as the gooney bird flies," Alison said. "Maybe a little more. Barring any serious trouble, four to five more days ought to do it."

Four to five days, with the Malison Ring on their tails the whole way. But there wasn't much they could do about that. "Let's make it four," he said. "You want me to take the first watch?"

"I think we can safely skip that for tonight," Alison said. "Like you said, the mercs aren't likely to come looking for more trouble right away. And both of us can use as much rest as we can get."

"Sounds good to me," Jack said. Suddenly, his eyelids were drooping with fatigue. It had indeed been a full and rich day. "Pleasant dreams."

Besides, even if he and Alison both slept through the night, the camp wouldn't be left unguarded. Not if Jack knew Draycos.