Dragon and Judge

  "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 Dray-cos was of Langston sitting cross-legged near the door, one of the bows in his hand, gazing thoughtfully out into the night.

  * * *

  Chapter 28

  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 droppe
d 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.,