Dragon and Judge

CHAPTER 27

Privately, Draycos had expected it to be at least a week before the Golvin guards relaxed their watchfulness enough for him to risk another midnight excursion. To his mild surprise—and to Jack's obvious relief—barely two nights later, the K'da judged the time was right.

Man, are these guys amateurs, Jack's scornful thought echoed through Draycos's mind as the boy peeked out between the doorway streamers.

Draycos lifted his head from Jack's shoulder, brushing aside the partially open shirt with his snout. The two Golvins were seated side by side at the foot of the bridge, clearly visible in the moonlight, paying no real attention to the area around them as they chatted casually together in low voices. Their small bows rested against the sides of the bridge, the quivers propped alongside them. I told you these weren't a warrior people, he reminded Jack.

I know, but this is just ridiculous. The stream of thoughts paused, and Draycos sensed the boy trying to hide his anxiety. You sure you're going to be all right?

They will never see a thing, Draycos assured him. With a casual leap, he came out of the back of Jack's shirt. "I'll be back for you soon," he added quietly.

"Be careful," Jack warned. He looked out the door again and gave Draycos a thumbs-up.

Nosing his way between the streamers, the K'da slipped onto the bridge. He gave the area a quick scan, then turned halfway around and stretched up to the stone above the doorway. Setting his claws into the cracks and crevices, he started to climb.

He went up just far enough for his hind claws to get a grip of their own before changing direction and working his way horizontally around the pillar. When he reached the far side he turned head downward and climbed back down to the ground.

For a minute he paused there, crouched against the stone, his eyes probing as his tongue flicked out to taste the air. But except for the two guards lazing around on the opposite side of the pillar, the area was deserted.

The first thing on Draycos's list of things to do was to locate their transport. Fortunately, there were a dozen scents unique to flying vehicles, scents he could smell drifting along on the nighttime breezes. Keeping alert, he set off across the fields.

He found the Golvins' shuttle and Bolo's aircar together in a cavernous machine shop that filled the entire ground floor of the pillar farthest from the river. As usual with Golvin construction, the shop had no door, but both vehicles had been anchored to the floor with metal chains.

That, at least, would present no problem. Slipping inside, Draycos extended his claws and began working on the chains tying down the aircar. Within ten minutes, he had it freed.

Now came the tricky part.

The Golvins stationed beneath Langston's cliffside prison turned out to be no more alert than the ones back at Jack's apartment. Apparently, the novelty of nighttime guard duty, and the watchfulness Draycos had seen on his first visit, had worn off quickly after Langston's move to his new quarters.

Still, this time it wouldn't be just a poet-warrior of the K'da slipping in and out. This time, he would be attempting to smuggle out a full-sized human. Sternly warning himself against over-confidence, he climbed across the cliff to the cave mouth and slipped inside.

Langston was lying on his side on his cot, his back to the entrance as Draycos padded over to him. He reached out a paw to touch the man's shoulder—

"Draycos?" Langston murmured.

Draycos felt his tail twitch in surprise. "Yes," he murmured back. "You're a very light sleeper."

"I've been expecting you ever since I saw them lock up your Judge-Paladin," Langston said. "What's the story there?"

"The same as yours," Draycos said. "You're both victims of the fear created by an eleven-year-old threat."

"So what do we do about it?"

"We end it," Draycos said. "Tonight."

"Sounds good to me." Langston started to roll over.

"Wait," Draycos said, putting a restraining paw on the man's shoulder. "Before you look at me, I have to warn you that my appearance may shock you."

"Hey, in this light you could be covered with scabs and I'd never notice," Langston said. "No problem."

"I'm serious," Draycos said. "The guards outside aren't very alert, but even they would wonder at a startled shout coming from up here."

"I said no problem," Langston said, a little impatiently. "What's the big shocker?"

"I am a dragon."

There was a brief silence. "A dragon," Langston repeated, his voice flat.

"Actually, I'm a poet-warrior of the K'da," Draycos said. "But my appearance is that of a small dragon."

"Interesting," Langston said. "Can you fly and breathe fire?"

"Regretfully, no," Draycos said. "Both abilities could be very useful."

"I've always thought so," Langston said. "Okay, I'm ready."

He rolled over. Even in the dim light Draycos could see his face suddenly tighten. "Floos on a frissle. You weren't joking, were you?"

"Did you think I was?"

"Yeah, mostly." Langston reached out a hand, paused. "May I?"

"Certainly."

Gingerly, Langston touched the side of Draycos's neck. The touch steadied a little, and he ran his fingertips down the scales to Draycos's shoulder. "Well, if you're robotic, you're the best floosing robot I've ever seen."

"What would convince you I'm a living being?"

"Actually, right now I don't care what you are," Langston said. He threw off his blanket, and Draycos saw that he was fully dressed in a dark green jumpsuit and low boots. "Not as long as you get me out of here."

"That is the plan," Draycos agreed. "Collect anything you wish to take with you."

"It's collected," Langston said, reaching to the floor and picking up a handkerchief tied into a bundle. "How do we do this?"

"I climb sideways away from the cave," Draycos said. "You hold on to my tail."

"Ah," Langston said, sounding suddenly doubtful. "Your— uh—?"

"It will work," Draycos assured him. "You're not much bigger than my symbiont, Jack, and I have successfully carried him that way."

"Your symbiont?"

"Yes," Draycos said. "A symbiont is one who shares—"

"I know what it is." Langston shook his head. "I can see we're going to be having a long talk when this is over." Taking a deep breath, he stuffed his handkerchief bundle into the front of his shirt. "Let's do it."

The first stage of the journey was the hardest. Draycos had to climb quietly, without knocking any bits of stone onto the lounging Golvins below. More than that, he had to do it with a hundred and forty pounds of dead weight hanging on to his tail.

Fortunately, he'd done the trip enough times that he knew a route that would work. A few tense minutes later, they were safely away from the guards and starting down. A few minutes more, and they'd made it to the canyon floor.

"That was interesting," Langston said, crouching behind a cluster of tall grain plants as he rubbed at the cramped muscles in his hands. "What's next?"

"We collect our transportation, pick up Jack, and leave," Draycos told him. "Though flying through the canyon's many obstacles may be difficult in the dark."

"Don't worry about that," Langston assured him grimly. "Just show me to the pilot's seat and get out of the way."

"The vehicles are across the river," Draycos said, pointing with his tongue. "The nearest bridge is this way."

They had made it across the cropland to the river and were nearly across the bridge when the nighttime silence was suddenly pierced by a warbling shriek.

Draycos leaped the rest of the way across the bridge, landing in a crouch on the far side. Langston was right behind him. "What the floos was that?" the human demanded.

"I would guess someone has discovered my sabotage," Draycos said, turning his head to look behind them. Across the canyon, shadowy figures were climbing rapidly up the cliff face toward Langston's former prison. "They're about to discover your absence, as well."

"Terrific," Langston growled. "What's Plan B?"

"The same as Plan A, only noisier," Draycos told him, flicking out his tongue. So far there didn't seem to be any Golvins between them and Jack's apartment. "We free Jack from his guards, attempt to fight our way through to the aircar, and escape."

"Simple, but lunatic," Langston said. Probing briefly into the river mud, he came up with a pair of fist-sized rocks. "After you."

Draycos headed off, angling their course so as to approach the pillar from the rear. Somewhere along the way, the K'da combat pattern kicked in, pumping extra blood into his muscles and turning his scales from gold to black.

But it was growing more and more clear that all the camouflage in the world would be of limited value. As they traveled, he heard a half dozen more of the shrieks, some from the direction of the vehicle shop, others from Langston's now empty prison.

The alarm was out. By the time they reached the pillar the whole canyon was starting to come awake.

"How many guards?" Langston whispered as they sidled around the cold stone toward the front.

"Two when I left," Draycos whispered back, slowing down. They rounded the final curve and came within view of the bridge.

To find that the two guards had been joined by two more. All four were standing alertly at the bottom of the bridge, two of them looking up toward Jack's door, the others looking back and forth across the area around them. All four had arrows out and nocked at the ready in their bowstrings.

"Not good," Langston breathed in Draycos's ear. "Mostly open ground, too."

"But delay will only make the odds worse," Draycos pointed out. "I'll circle around the other side and try to draw their attention and fire. If I succeed, move in and try to take them from the rear."

"Got it."

"And don't forget that these aren't our enemies," Draycos added firmly. "They're as much the victims of evil as we are."

"I'll try to remember that," Langston said sourly. "Good luck."

Draycos backed up and retraced his steps around the pillar, swinging wide toward the river. A minute later, he once again came within sight of the four guards.

For the first few crucial seconds they didn't seem to notice him among the shadows as he turned inward. Then, one of them jerked in shock as he spotted the black creature racing toward them. Gurgling something incoherent, he snapped up his bow and fired.

The shot went wild, the arrow swishing into the plants two yards to Draycos's left. But the gurgle and shot were enough to alert the other three. They twisted around to face Draycos, and three more bows were lifted toward him. Draycos dug his claws into the ground and dodged to the side, switching to an evasive zigzag pattern.

And suddenly Langston was there among the Golvins, clubbing coolly and methodically with his rocks. By the time Draycos reached them, all four guards were sprawled on the ground. "Piece of cake," the pilot said, a note of grim satisfaction in his voice. "Man. If I'd known it was that easy, I'd have done it a long time ago."

"This was the easy part," Draycos reminded him, peering at the fallen Golvins as he trotted to a halt. He couldn't tell if they were still breathing, but Langston's blows hadn't seemed overly violent. "The next part will be—"

"Draycos!" Jack's voice shouted from overhead.

Reflexively, Draycos leaped to the side as he twisted his neck up to look.

But the move was too late. Even as his eyes registered the fact that there was a fifth Golvin just emerging from Jack's apartment, he heard the snap of a bowstring.

And a searing jolt of pain exploded into his side.

With a desperate lunge, Jack hurled himself through the streamers at the doorway, slamming his shoulder into the Golvin's back with everything he had.

But he was too late. Even as the Golvin gave a strangled little squeak and toppled off the bridge, Jack saw Draycos jerk violently as the arrow buried itself into his side.

"No!" he yelped. Throwing himself onto the bridge, he half ran, half slid down the rough rock to the ground.

Draycos was lying on his side when Jack reached him, panting with shallow breaths, the arrow sticking out of his rib cage. "It's okay," Jack breathed, his heart thudding violently as he dropped to his knees beside his wounded friend. "We'll get this out." Steeling himself, he reached for the arrow.

"No—leave it alone," someone said from behind him.

Jack turned as a heavily bearded man—Langston?—dropped to one knee beside him. "He's hurt," he snarled.

"I know," Langston said, his voice grim. "But pulling it out will just make it worse." He held up one of the other Golvin arrows. "See this wide arrowhead? You pull it out, and it'll just tear more of the flesh and muscle. Besides, it's helping stanch the blood right now."

Jack looked down at Draycos. His glowing green eyes were half-closed, the muscles in his neck working with pain. "What if it's poisoned?"

"I don't think it is," Langston said. "These look like hunting or fishing arrows. There's no reason to poison those."

He looked over his shoulder. "But if we don't get out of here, and fast, it's not going to matter much. They're on the move."

"So we need to get to the aircar." Reaching down, Jack took one of Draycos's paws in his hand. "Draycos? Can you get aboard?"

The K'da blinked, turning his head as if noticing Jack for the first time. "Jack?" he croaked.

"The aircar's a bust," Langston said tightly. "They're on to us. Our only chance is to go to ground for a while." He thrust two Golvin bows at Jack. "Take these. I'll get your friend."

Jack brushed the bows aside. "I'll do it," he said. "Draycos? Come on, symby. You can do it."

The green eyes blinked, and Jack could see the K'da struggling to focus his thoughts through the agony. His paw shifted in Jack's grip.

And to Jack's relief he slid up the sleeve onto Jack's arm.

Langston stuttered out a startled curse. "Holy—Where did he—?"

"He's gone two-dimensional and is riding on my skin," Jack said. "It's a symbiotic thing—I'll explain later." He started to get up.

And froze in horror. Lying on the ground in front of him was the arrow that had been in Draycos's side. The arrowhead and first inch of the shaft were black with K'da blood. "It's not stanching the blood now," he heard himself say. "Oh, no. No."

"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.