"And we see the kind of results that produced," Alison commented under her breath.
"My point," Jack continued, sending her a dark look, "is that any training he could give her would be worth something."
Alison shook her head. "It's a point, but it's a pointless point," she said. "Even if he could bring her completely up to speed, two K'da warriors aren't going to be enough to tip the balance here."
"Why must it be just two?" Taneem asked. "You woke me. Can you not wake the others?"
Alison sighed. "The problem, Taneem—"
"Wait a second," Jack cut her off, a cautious excitement in his voice. "That's not such a bad idea. Remember, they only need an hour on a host for every six hours off. That means that if we can shake them out of their sluggishness, you and I could handle ten to twelve K'da between us. Draycos?"
Draycos gazed out at the dancing Phookas, a whisper of cautious hope moving through him. If it were at all possible . . .
But it wasn't. It had taken Alison a full day to awaken Taneem, and both of them had been effectively helpless the whole time. It would take far too long to build up the kind of fighting force Taneem and Jack were talking about. "In principle, you are correct," Draycos said reluctantly. "But in actual practice, we simply do not have enough time."
"Unless we can find a way to get Frost off our backs for a while," Alison said.
Draycos looked sideways at her. The girl was watching him, a darkly suspicious look on her face. Had she guessed what he was planning? "Indeed," he said, forcing himself to meet her gaze. "We shall have to think about ways of doing that."
"Looks like they're done," Jack commented, nodding to the Phookas as he got to his feet. "Time to be off."
"Draycos will have to stay up front with me today—he's the only one who knows exactly where we're going," Alison reminded Jack. "Unless you'd like to take point this morning and let me handle the Phookas?"
"No, you go ahead," Jack said. "Their day's going to be strange enough without breaking the routine right out of the box."
"Okay," Alison said, standing up as well. "Taneem can stay with you and help with rear guard. You'd better take the machine gun, though."
"Fine by me," Jack said, scooping up his pack and the weapon. "Go get Greenie, and I'll tell Hren we're breaking camp. Come on, Taneem."
Jack headed off, the gray K'da trotting alongside him. "We will be going that way," Draycos told Alison, indicating the direction with a flick of his tongue. "I will await you."
"Just a second," Alison said as he turned to go. "I want to know what you and Jack are planning that you haven't seen fit to tell me about."
"Jack and I have no private plans," Draycos said, choosing his words carefully.
Alison snorted. "Fine; I'll rephrase. What are you planning that you haven't seen fit to tell me about?"
Draycos's first impulse was to again deflect the question. But if he was going to leave Jack in her care, she deserved to know the entire truth. "Unless we can make contact quickly with Uncle Virge, I intend to take the comm clip and head downriver," he told her quietly. "With luck, I will be able to draw the Malison Ring soldiers into pursuit before they realize that Jack is not with me."
"And then what?"
"And then, as you suggested, you and he must try to hide until your friends arrive."
"I meant what happens when your six hours are up."
Draycos turned to look at Jack, busily urging Hren to his feet. "I will die."
For a moment Alison was silent. "I gather Jack doesn't know anything about this," she said at last. "How were you planning to keep him from finding out?"
Draycos grimaced. "I expect the Malison Ring to be gathered in force by the time we reach the river," he said. "In the fury and confusion of combat, I should be able to slip away unnoticed."
"Leaving us to fight them alone?"
"I will make sure you have made it to safety before I leave," Draycos said. "At that point, it will be up to you to lead."
"Terrific," Alison growled. "My first military command. That'll look really impressive on my grave stone."
"Do not speak that way," Draycos said sternly. "You have had military training. I can see that. You can do it."
She exhaled noisily. "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that." She tapped her collar. "I presume you still want me to code my comm clip to the Essenay's frequency?"
"With Jack's comm clip dangling from a tree, yours is now our only way to contact Uncle Virge," Draycos reminded her.
"I'll take that as a yes," Alison said dryly. "Easy enough to do while we're traveling—"
"Quiet." Draycos cut her off as the sound of distant lifters caught his ears. "They are in the air."
"Where?"
"To the west," Draycos said. "Moving . . . southeast, I believe."
"Southeast?" Alison echoed, frowning. "Like they're circling around behind us dropping troops?"
"That is the correct pattern," Draycos confirmed. "But they are not dropping soldiers. The transport is moving too quickly and too steadily for that."
"Which means Frost has something new planned," Alison said, grabbing her pack and slipping it over her shoulders. "Great. Jack! Hustle it!"
Jack looked quizzically up at her; and as he did so, Draycos's straining ears caught a new sound. "Quiet," he warned Alison. "The floater is coming this way."
"Good morning, Jack," a booming voice came faintly from the direction of the floater. Frost's voice, amplified by a set of loudspeakers. "I hope you had a good night's sleep. My men tell me you're in this area somewhere, so I'm assuming you can hear me."
"Come on," Alison said, beckoning to Draycos.
"You've caused me a lot of trouble, Jack," Frost continued as they scrambled down the hill and came alongside Jack and Taneem. "Way more trouble than you should have. Almost more trouble than you're worth. But that trouble ends right now."
"Any idea what he's up to?" Jack murmured, peering up at the trees in the direction the voice was coming from.
"He's got the Kapstan circling around behind us," Alison said. "But Draycos says it's going too fast to be dropping troops."
"So here's the deal," Frost said. "You've got ten minutes to follow the sound of my voice and get to a big clearing right below the floater. If you surrender there, I promise your girlfriend and the Erassvas can go in peace."
Draycos frowned, flicking out his tongue. There was a new scent suddenly drifting toward them, an odor he couldn't quite place.
"Option two is that you keep going until you reach the river," Frost went on. "Means more walking for you, but, hey, you're probably used to that by now. If you want to do that, fine. We don't mind waiting a little longer to pick you up."
"What is that smell?" Taneem asked, her tongue flicking out rapidly as she tasted the air.
"What smell?" Jack asked, sniffing.
"I don't know what it is," Draycos said. "But it seems familiar."
"And then there's option number three," Frost said, a sudden dark edge to his voice. "That's the one where you stay right where you are . . . and you and all your buddies get to burn to death."
Alison inhaled sharply. "No," she breathed. "He wouldn't."
And suddenly the strange odor clicked. "He would, and he is," Draycos said tightly. "The transport is spraying a semicircle of aviation fuel across the trees behind us.
"He is going to set this part of the forest on fire."
CHAPTER 26
On their previous days the group had walked carefully and deliberately through the forest. Jack and Alison and Draycos had tried to watch all directions at once, watching for ambushes and traps.
Today, all that was forgotten.
They ran. All of them, even the Erassvas. They ran as fast as they could, dodging trees and bushes, stumbling over roots and small hollows hidden beneath the matting of dead leaves.
And as they ran, one by one the brightly colored Phookas faded to black.
The rest of the forest animals were o
n the move, too. Small animals scampered around them, and at least two herds of hornheads went lumbering past in the distance. Large and small predators alike were also on the move, ignoring potential prey as they fled from the fire chewing its unstoppable way toward them through the trees.
And it was gaining. At first Jack had dared to hope that Frost was bluffing. But after the first five minutes of their mad dash he was able to hear the distant crackling of the flames whenever the group paused for a minute's rest. Slowly but steadily the sound increased until he was able to hear it even over the rapid swishing of their feet and his own hoarse panting.
He could smell the smoke, too, as the wind generated by the fire blew it ahead of the flames themselves. He had no idea how fast a forest fire moved, but already he could tell that they would have little margin for error. Clenching his teeth, blinking his eyes against the tendrils of acrid smoke burning at them, he focused on his footing—
And nearly ran into Hren as the Erassva suddenly stopped in front of him. "What?" he gasped as he managed to brake to a halt. "What is it?"
"There," Hren said, panting even harder than Jack as he pointed ahead. "The river."
Jack stepped around him. It was there, all right, glimpses of blue water between the trees. At the front of the group he could see Alison and Draycos talking together in low voices. "Stay here," he told Hren. "Try to keep everyone together."
Jack maneuvered his way through the crowd, automatically patting and stroking the heads of the more frightened Phookas as he passed them. Off to the side, behind some bushes, he caught a glimpse of Draycos's diversion tree, still bent over with the comm clip dangling from it. "I hope you two have a plan," he said as he reached Draycos and Alison.
"We must first see how the enemy is positioned," Draycos said, keeping his voice low. His green eyes glittered unnaturally brightly against his black scales.
"Then let's do it," Jack said. "Alison, stay here and watch the others."
"Watch them what?" she retorted. "Panic? Hren and Taneem can watch them do that. Give me the machine gun—we're wasting time."
Jack glared at her. But she was right, and the distant crackling of the flames was getting louder. Unstrapping the gun from his shoulder, he handed it over. "Now be quiet," she warned. She started forward, Draycos moving into place beside her. Jack followed, hoping it wouldn't be as bad as he feared.
It was. In fact, it was worse. A hundred yards north, the Kapstan transport was hovering fifty feet above the river. Its stubby wings were discolored from the smoke of the fire it had started, its nose and weapons pointed vigilantly at the forest where Frost expected them to emerge. Behind and above it, moving up and down the river like a roving patrol, was the floater.
And that was it. There were no ground troops on the river-bank that Draycos could ambush, no air or ground vehicles nearby they might be able to grab, nothing at all within their reach. Frost and his men would simply sit high up out of harm's way until their quarry came to them.
Or else died in fiery agony.
Jack looked at Draycos, a hard lump in his throat. "I guess that's it, then," he said as calmly as he could.
"Cork it, Morgan," Alison said tartly. "We're not finished yet. Draycos, how high can you jump?"
"Not as high as the transport," Draycos said, his tail making thoughtful circles. "But if we can lure it here, I won't have to. I can use the bent tree as a launching platform."
"Oh, I can get it here," Alison promised, hefting the machine gun. "The question is, once you're up there will you be able to disable it?"
"Probably not the transport itself," Draycos conceded. "The lifters are on the underside, and the power and control mechanisms will not be easily reached." He arched his crest. "But I do not expect the pilot will be nearly so well protected."
"Wait a second," Jack cut in as he suddenly saw where they were going with this. "You kill the pilot and the ship's going to drop like a rock."
"As long as the transport remains at its current height, I will be all right," Draycos assured him. "Especially if it stays over the river."
"I thought hitting water was like hitting concrete."
"It can be, yes," Draycos agreed. "But I know how to enter the water so as to minimize the risk."
"What if they go higher before you crash them?" Jack persisted. "You could be killed."
"That is a possibility a warrior must always face," Draycos said quietly. "I am willing to take the risk. At any rate, we have no choice."
"Sure we do," Jack said. "I can surrender."
"And then what?" Alison demanded. "You really think Frost will let any of the rest of us live? Okay, Draycos, we've got a plan. Go get ready."
"It will not take long for me to get to the tree," Draycos said. "It will be a better lure if we give them a chance to see me."
"Fine," Alison said. "Just don't hang around long enough for them to also get the range and start firing. Jack, you'd better get back under cover."
Jack took a deep breath. "No thanks. I'll stay."
"Don't be an idiot," Alison growled. "Aside from everything else, you're standing right where I'm going to be running in a second. Now, get back."
"Please, Jack," Draycos seconded.
Clenching his teeth, Jack turned to go.
And jerked as he found himself staring into a pair of silver eyes glowing from a black K'da face.
"Taneem," he breathed as his brain caught up with him. He hadn't realized she'd followed him up here. "Come on, move back. We need room."
For a second Taneem didn't move. Then, her eyes flicking to Draycos, she turned and padded back into the trees. With one final look at Alison, Jack did likewise. "Okay," he called.
Alison nodded. "Here goes nothing." Lifting the gun, she squinted along the barrel and squeezed the trigger.
For a couple of seconds the stutter of the machine gun drowned out even the crackling of the flames behind them. Alison paused, fired a second burst, then paused again. "Well?" Jack called.
"They see us," Alison called back. "Maybe trying to decide—here they come," she interrupted herself, lowering her gun and backing hurriedly away from the bank. "Make a hole, Jack."
Jack took another step backward, glancing over at the bent tree as Draycos slipped past him—
And caught his breath. Taneem was crouched on the treetop, gazing up at the incoming transport, the claws of her right forepaw poised over the vine rope.
Draycos spotted her the same time Jack did. "Taneem!" he barked. "No!"
Taneem twitched her tail. "You are needed," she said simply. "I am not."
And as Draycos leaped toward her, her claws sliced through the vine and she was catapulted upward toward the river.
"What's going on?" Alison demanded, crowding against Jack.
"Out of the way," Jack snapped, shoving past her and sprinting back to the river. Grabbing a branch for support, he leaned out over the water and looked up.
Taneem was there, all right, balanced on the Kapstan's portside wing. Her hind claws were dug into the metal for support, her forepaws slashing away at the side hatchway. Another minute, and she would be through.
"Have they attacked her?" Draycos asked anxiously from his side.
"They don't have to," Jack said, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Because Frost had clearly anticipated this move. Even as Jack and Draycos watched helplessly, the transport began to rise straight up into the air.
Locked up safe and sound in his transport, Frost was simply going to go high enough to ensure that his attacker couldn't survive, then turn over and dump her off.
"They will pay for this," Draycos said, his voice crackling with anger and bitterness. "All of them. They will pay with their lives."
"That won't help Taneem," Jack snarled back. The Kapstan was a hundred feet up now and still rising. "Think, blast it. There must be something we can do."
"How about a net?" Alison suggested from Draycos's other side. "Cut one of these vine me
shes and use it to catch her."
"No time," Jack said. "Besides, as long as he stays over the river there's no place for us to anchor it."
"Probably why he's still there," Alison growled. "Any chance she'll know how to hit the water safely?"
"At the height they are at there is no safe way," Draycos said grimly. "As Jack said, it will be like striking concrete."
"Yes," Jack said slowly as an idea suddenly came to him. "If she hits the water."
Alison frowned at him. "What—?"
"Rope," he snapped, shoving her halfway around and grabbing at her pack. Getting it open, he scooped out her coil of rope. "Come on, Draycos."
Jack sprinted upstream, his feet making huge splashes at the edge of the water as he ran. "What are you going to do?" Draycos demanded from behind him.
"You'll see," Jack said, dropping his own pack off his shoulders as he ran, craning his neck to look up. Frost was still over the same spot, and still rising. They had to be getting close to two hundred feet by now. Jack looked down at the water, trying to estimate the current—
"Here," he decided, splashing to a sudden halt and flicking his wrist to send the rope uncoiling into the trees. "Grab the other end and hold on," he told Draycos as he tied the other end around his waist. Taking a deep breath, wondering if this was as insane as it seemed, he threw himself into the river.
The water was icy cold, but he hardly noticed. Kicking out, he sliced his arms hard into the surface, swimming for all he was worth.
"There!" he heard Draycos shout from behind him.
He paused and looked up. The K'da was right: Jack was now directly beneath the Kapstan. He turned around, treading water, putting his back to the low waves threatening to splash into his face.
And then, abruptly, the transport did a sudden midair roll around its long axis, dropping its portside wing to vertical. For a few seconds Taneem's claws held her to the wing. Then her grip gave way, and she tumbled off and dropped toward the water.
Jack swore under his breath, splashing himself into final position as he watched her fall. She had flattened out, he saw, turning her belly downward and stretching her legs out sideways in an instinctive skydiver's minimum-speed posture.