"Fraggled if I know," she admitted. "But I do feel a whole lot better than I did yesterday. Maybe I was just tired."
"Join the club," Jack said with a sniff.
"I'm sorry—would you like to ride for a while?" Alison asked sweetly, gesturing to the vine hammock at her feet.
"What about Taneem?" Draycos asked before Jack could come up with a suitably sarcastic answer.
"She's fine," Alison assured him. "She's been sleeping most of the time, too, I think. But she's fine."
"This from your vast experience with K'da?" Jack put in.
Alison gave him a look of strained patience, then lifted her collar an inch and peered down into her shirt. "Taneem?" she called.
For a moment nothing happened. Then, the upper right side of Alison's shirt stirred and the top of a dark gray K'da crest pushed up against the cloth as it transformed into three-dimensional form. Alison opened her collar a little more, and the crest was joined by the top of Taneem's head and a single silver eye peering through the gap. "Yes?" a tentative voice asked.
Jack felt his mouth drop open a little. Taneem was actually speaking?
"This is Jack, Taneem," Alison said, pointing to him. If she was surprised by the Phooka's new verbal skills, she didn't show it. "And this is Draycos. Do you remember them?"
The single visible eye swiveled to look first at Jack and then at Draycos. "I think so," Taneem murmured.
"They're friends," Alison said, talking to the Phooka as if to a young child. "Do you understand?"
The eye swiveled to Jack, then back to Draycos. "I think so," she said again.
"Good," Alison said. "Then—" She broke off as the dragon crest abruptly flattened back down onto her skin. "Taneem?" she called. "Taneem?"
There was no response. "She's a little shy, I think," Alison said. "Still, it's progress."
"It is indeed," Draycos agreed, his tail making slow circles again.
"Aren't you glad now that we saved them?" Jack asked.
An instant later he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. Draycos spun to face him, his crest stiff, glowing green eyes glittering unpleasantly. "Sorry," Jack apologized hastily. "Sorry. I didn't mean it that way."
The crest relaxed a little. "I know," Draycos said, some of the fire going out of his eyes. "Yet you are right. To my shame, you are right. For a time I did not permit myself to hope."
"Just don't hope too high and too fast," Alison warned. "This whole thing is very new to her. She's not going to be operating at the level of a K'da poet-warrior any time soon."
"I'm just glad she's able to talk," Jack said. "And in English, yet. Is that what you were muttering in your sleep? English lessons?"
Alison frowned. "What are you talking about? I don't talk in my sleep."
"How would you know?" Jack countered.
"My parents told me," Alison retorted. "What was I saying?"
Frost, Neverlin, Braxton . . . "Just your basic nonsense muttering," Jack said. "Nothing I could make out. So you weren't teaching her English?"
"Not that I know," Alison said, still looking troubled. "I assume she picked it up the same time Hren and the other Erassvas did. So what's our current plan?"
"We've veered east from their last ambush attempt, so it's probably time to turn north again," Jack said. "If your guess a couple of days ago was right, we've still got two or three more days before we hit the river."
"Then we'd better move it," Alison said. "What was this about an ambush?"
"It didn't work," Jack said. "We can leave the details until it's too dark to travel."
"Fine," Alison said. "You can go back to your herding—I'll take point."
Heading north, as it turned out, was easier said than done.
The first obstacle was a line of crumbly-edged cliffs like the one the ill-fated red Phooka had fallen down on the evening of their first day in the forest. Alison found a way through, but it cost them time they didn't really have to spare.
The second obstacle was another bog, or perhaps an arm of the same one they'd spent the day slogging through. Alison was half-inclined to go on in, citing the same reason of enemy stalemate that Jack had given Draycos earlier in the day. She seemed surprised and even a bit embarrassed when she learned that the party had already done that once, and that Jack for one had no interest in a repeat performance.
The sun was dropping toward the horizon and a line of evening clouds was creeping across the sky when they finally finished circling the swampland and Alison called a halt. "What do you think?" she asked as Jack and Draycos joined her. "We've got maybe another hour of light left. Do we want to keep going north, or should we angle northeast and get back to the path we were on earlier?"
Jack peered through the trees, studying the terrain. Neither direction looked any better or worse than the other. "I vote for northeast," he said. "That'll put the bog at our backs, which means they probably won't be coming at us from that direction."
"And we'll have a place to retreat to if necessary," Alison agreed. "So we'll angle northeast until dark, then turn north again tomorrow?"
"That should work," Jack said. "Draycos?"
"I have no objections."
"Good." Alison craned her neck. "Anyone seen Taneem? She hopped off just before I called break."
"She is over there," Draycos said, flicking his tongue to the side.
"I see her," Alison said, nodding. "Taneem? Come on, girl. Time to go."
Obediently, Taneem trotted toward them. She eyed Jack and Draycos a little nervously as she approached, sidling gingerly past them as if afraid to touch either of them. She placed one of her forepaws on Alison's outstretched hand, and a second later had gone two-dimensional and slithered up the girl's arm. "At least she's not completely oblivious to the universe, like the other Phookas," Jack said.
"No," Draycos rumbled. "Instead, she has become excessively timid."
Jack had hoped the K'da wouldn't notice that. "Give her time," he urged quietly. "Like Alison said, she's new to this."
"I know," Draycos said. But Jack could still hear the disappointment in his voice. "Come—help me get the rest of the Phookas moving."
He padded away. Jack looked at Alison, lifted his eyebrows. "I don't know," she said, shrugging helplessly. "But he's right—let's get moving before we lose the daylight."
It was quickly clear that neither the Erassvas nor the Phookas were really interested in going any farther. As Draycos set off on his moving-sentry duty he could hear Hren complaining to Alison, insisting they be allowed to settle down for the night. For her part, Alison responded by ignoring his protests and continuing to walk.
The Phookas, without the ability to complain, simply began dragging their feet. Draycos could hear Jack's running footsteps weaving in and out of the herd as the boy urged, cajoled, and occasionally ordered them to keep going.
Once or twice Draycos heard the sound of a light slap when none of the words would do the trick. More frequently, he heard a muttered curse that the boy had apparently borrowed from Uncle Virge's vast collection of such words. Clearly, Jack was as exhausted as the rest of them.
But one way or another, he kept the herd moving, and he kept it mostly together. Draycos kept an eye out for stragglers as he ran the perimeter, again finding himself impressed by Jack's ability at the task. There were very few stragglers that made it anywhere near Draycos, and even those Jack usually managed to snag before the K'da had to step in.
The sky overhead was darkening, and he was starting to look for a suitable place to camp for the night, when he heard the sound of the Malison Ring floater.
He froze in place, swiveling his head back and forth. It was coming up from behind them, from the south, he decided. And unlike earlier that day, this time it was headed straight for them.
The long-expected attack had begun.
CHAPTER 22
"Jack!" he called, turning inward toward the main group. "Alison! They are coming!"
"Where?" Alison called back.
>
"Above and to the south," Draycos told her as he leaped over the last line of bushes between them. Across the way, he saw Jack hurrying toward them, gripping his machine gun awkwardly across his chest.
"I hear it," Alison confirmed grimly, looking up at the dark canopy of leafy branches high overhead.
"Where are they?" Jack demanded as he ran up.
"Straight above us," Alison told him. "No place to land—must be planning a rappel drop."
Jack looked up. "No, that's too simple," he said darkly. "Frost has something else in mind."
Above them, the sound of the floaters lifters changed subtly. "Perhaps so, but this is certainly part of it," Draycos told him, looking around. Just to the side of the likely drop zone was a tall, thick tree. "Get the Erassvas and Phookas out of the way," he ordered, leaping into the tree's lower branches. "Then stand ready." He paused and looked down. "Tanglers only, please," he added.
"You got it," Jack said, thrusting his gun into Alison's hands. "Here—you're a better shot than I am. I'll get the others to cover."
Draycos turned back around and headed up the tree. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the familiar blood trickles flowing into his scales, turning them from gold to black. In the deepening gloom, it would be an effective camouflage.
He was sixty feet off the ground when, with a faint rustle of branches, six coils of rope dropped into view through the canopy, unrolling themselves to the ground. Draycos froze, pressing himself into the crook of a large branch. A second later, in perfect unison, six Malison Ring mercenaries in quick-drop harnesses crashed through the canopy, machine gun/tanglers at the ready, sliding swiftly down their ropes toward the ground.
They were lined up three by three, each soldier of a threesome separated by two or three feet, with about six feet separating the two different groups. Apparently, three of them were dropping from each side of the floater, which clearly wasn't a very big aircraft. The result was an attack group that was forced to bunch up more than they probably would have liked.
From Draycos's point of view, it was as good a setup as he could have hoped for. Bracing himself, he watched as the soldiers continued sliding toward the ground below.
And as they passed his position, he leaped.
His outstretched left paw caught the nearest rope just above the soldier's head, his momentum shoving the soldier back into his fellows as they all continued to slide down their ropes. With his grip on the rope as a pivot point, the K'da's leap changed abruptly into a sweeping, horizontal circle. His body caught the other two ropes of his group as he swung around them, squeezing all three closer together. His tail snapped out as he continued his circle, snaring the farthest rope of the other threesome, as his hind claws likewise caught the other two.
And with all six ropes now in his grip, he ignored the sudden flurry of shouts and activity from below and curled himself into a ball.
And as he pulled the ropes together, the six men suddenly found themselves clustered together like fruit on a vine. "Now!" Draycos shouted.
The word was barely out of his mouth when the first of Alison's tangler cartridges sizzled its way upward, catching the nearest soldier squarely across his chest. The white threads whipped out, entangling him and the two men beside him, as the shock capacitor sent a jolt of current through all three of them. Still firing, she moved sideways beneath the dropping men, methodically plastering the entire group. A couple of seconds later, the now-unconscious soldiers had been turned into something a giant spider might have wrapped up and tucked away for a future meal. "Is that it?" Alison called.
Draycos looked up, listening for the sounds that would indicate more soldiers were on the way. But he didn't hear any.
What he did hear was the faint noise of drumming hooves below him. Hooves that were rapidly coming closer.
He turned his head back toward the ground, trying to locate the sound. From the west, he decided. A moment later he spotted a small group of bodies racing toward them. "Alison!" he called again. "A group of horn-headed plant-eaters are coming toward you."
"I hear them," she called back, turning to face that direction. "Sounds like a stampede."
"Get everyone on the eastern sides of the trees where they'll be safer," Draycos ordered. He was catching more glimpses now through the branches as the animals approached. There seemed to be just five of them, running as if a demon was pursuing them.
A demon, or perhaps one of the Kodiak predators. Draycos shifted his attention to the trail of scattered leaves swirling behind them, searching for signs of pursuit.
And because he was looking in the wrong direction, he was caught completely by surprise when the five animals burst into view beneath him.
He'd been right the first time. They were indeed fleeing from demons.
Only the demons weren't behind them. They were riding them.
"They're on the animals!" Draycos barked. "Tangle the animals!"
But it was too late. The five Malison Ring soldiers had already leaped backward out of their makeshift saddles, hitting the ground running. As the hornheads sped mindlessly on, the soldiers trotted to a halt, swinging their weapons up into firing position.
One of them staggered and collapsed unconscious as Alison got him with a tangler round. But before she could get off a second shot she was forced to dive for cover as two of the others sent machine-gun bursts spattering through the bushes beside her. She made it behind a tree, pressing herself against the trunk as the two soldiers continued to fire. The other two looked straight up at Draycos, still clinging to his ropes.
And with the bitter sense of having been caught like a freshly trained recruit, Draycos realized he was trapped. There was no cover anywhere around him, nowhere he could leap to or climb to in time. Nowhere at all he could go.
Except down.
Bracing himself, he let go of the ropes.
The first burst of machine-gun fire sliced through the area he'd just left. He tucked his legs and tail close in toward his body as he dropped, trying to make the smallest possible target of himself. Below him, the tangler-webbed group was slowing as the sensors in their quick-drop harnesses spotted the ground approaching and put additional friction on the ropes. Another salvo of machine-gun fire shot past, closer this time, one of the rounds twitching across the tip of Draycos's left ear.
And as he reached the falling soldiers, he snapped his legs out and grabbed hold of the webbing on the far side, putting the webbed group between him and the two gunners.
But the gunners weren't going to be thwarted so easily. Both continued firing, sending short bursts past either side of the group, pinning Draycos in place while they waited for their moving target to stop moving.
A second later it did just that. The webbed soldiers hit the ground, toppling over in a confused tangle of torsos and legs and tangler thread. Draycos dropped flat behind them, pressing himself against the ground as he again used their bodies for cover.
But that cover wasn't going to last long. One of the two mercenaries continued to fire bursts across the left side of Draycos's shelter, blocking any escape in that direction, while the other began circling to Draycos's right. Unless the K'da did something, and fast, in another few seconds he would be directly in the second soldier's line of fire.
And he would die.
He risked a look around the mass of bodies, wondering if Alison might be in a position to counterattack. But she was pinned down the same way he was, with one of her pair of soldiers raking her tree with fire while the other circled to the side to try to get a clear shot.
And then, even as Draycos braced himself for a desperate and almost certainly fatal dash for safety, over the stutter of the machine guns he heard a war whoop.
He turned his head. Jack was charging across the battle zone toward him, firing his tangler wildly at the soldiers as he ran, screaming defiance at the top of his lungs.
It was probably the last thing the mercenaries expected from their young quarry. It was certainly th
e last thing Draycos expected, and his warrior's instincts winced as the boy deliberately threw himself into harm's way.
But if the soldiers wanted Draycos dead, they wanted Jack alive even more. For a second the machine-gun fire stopped as both soldiers switched over to their tangler settings.
It was all the opening Draycos needed. Bounding over the pile of webbed soldiers, digging his claws into the threads for extra traction, he threw himself at the nearer of his two attackers.
The other tried to swing his gun up, but he was too late. Draycos slammed into him, grabbing his combat vest with one paw as he slapped the side of his head with the other. The soldier's knees buckled as he blacked out, and Draycos turned toward the other gunner.
But before he could shove off the unconscious soldier something hard slammed into his side, and an explosion of white threads burst around the two of them. An instant later a jolt of current arced through him, turning his muscles to jelly and dropping him and the soldier together onto the ground.
Clenching his jaws, Draycos tried to force his body to respond. At least he wasn't unconscious; apparently with the charge split between two of them it had been low enough to leave him awake.
But it had been more than enough to also leave him helpless. It would be at least another few seconds, he estimated, before his muscles would be back under his control.
There was a sudden movement, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Jack drop to his knees beside him. "Draycos!" the boy gasped.
Get away! Draycos tried to snap. But his mouth couldn't even manage that.
Besides, it was already too late. A pair of boots stepped into Draycos's field of view, and with a startled squawk Jack was hauled to his feet. "Got him," the soldier called.
"This one, too," someone else called back.
With a supreme effort, Draycos turned his head. One of the other soldiers had a grip on the back of Alison's shirt collar and was half-pulling, half-dragging her toward them.
"Do we even want her?" the third soldier retorted as he walked toward Jack, his gun pointed warily at Draycos. "I thought we just wanted Morgan."