Dragonback 04 Dragon and Herdsman

  "We could have gotten ourselves ready for an ambush," Jack countered.

  Draycos twitched his tail in a negative. "There was no indication that the vehicle was landing nearby. It was also not flying directly overhead, but instead along a course a kilometer or more to the east of our path."

  "So either they were out looking for us," Jack said slowly, "or else they already knew where we are and were setting up another picket line in front of us."

  "The latter would be my guess," Draycos said. "I thought that once it's full night I would scout ahead."

  "Sounds good," Jack said. "Only this time you're going to have company."

  "Jack—"

  "No argument," Jack said firmly. "I need to know what's going on out there. Anyway, you'll be there with me. What can go wrong?"

  The dragon sighed. "Very well. Do you wish to tell Alison, or shall I?"

  Jack looked across at Alison. "Let's let her sleep," he decided. "But you'd better make a pass around the area before we go. Make sure no one's close enough to sneak up on the camp."

  The forest was alive with the same nocturnal creatures Draycos had seen on their two previous nights. Fortunately, there were no hunting mercenaries among them.

  Nor did he see or smell any of the creatures Jack had dubbed Kodiaks, or the horn-headed plant-eaters whose presence might attract such predators. The only even mildly dangerous creatures were small predators similar in size to the heenas he and Jack had encountered at the Vagran Colony spaceport soon after they met.

  Unlike the heenas, though, these animals hunted alone instead of in packs, and seemed to concentrate their efforts on small rodentlike creatures. The likelihood that they would take on a group of Phookas, Draycos decided, was small enough to safely ignore.

  He returned to the encampment to find Jack ready. "I thought we'd take about a hundred feet of rope, my tangler, and my knife," the boy said. "You think of anything else we need?"

  "I believe that's most everything we have, actually," Draycos pointed out. "The area appears to be secure. Let us go."

  They set off through the woods. Only a little of the starlight overhead made it through the forest canopy, but that was enough for Draycos to find his way without difficulty. Jack, for his part, held on to Draycos's tail and let the K'da guide him.

  They'd been hiking for perhaps forty minutes when they reached the mercenaries.

  "I don't see anything," Jack whispered as they lay side by side behind a wide tree trunk.

  "They are there," Draycos assured him, flicking out his tongue as he tasted the air. "There is a hidden ground line of seven men, approximately fifty feet apart, stretched directly across our path."

  "I hear running water," Jack said. "Another creek?"

  "A fairly wide one, yes," Draycos confirmed. "The soldiers are hidden on the far side."

  "So we come strolling up to get a drink, and they pop us," Jack said. "There's probably a gap in the trees right over the stream, too, so you can't use the skyway and jump them from behind."

  "Yes, there is a gap," Draycos confirmed. "But even if there weren't, I could not easily use such a frontal attack. A few yards behind each man is a second soldier, hidden off the ground in one of the trees."

  "Sounds like the same setup you ran into our first day out of the box," Jack said, a frown in his voice. "Don't these people learn?"

  "Of course they learn," Draycos said. "But they have no way of knowing that I've seen this particular ambush strategy."

  "Ah—right," Jack said, nodding. "That group was waiting northwest of us, while we were heading north. We never even got near it."

  "And so they try again," Draycos concluded, tasting the air a few more times just to be sure. But there were no other surprises waiting for them.

  At least none that could be detected by K'da senses. If there were more subtle booby traps around, it would be up to Jack to find and disarm them.

  "So what do we do?" Jack asked.

  Carefully, Draycos lifted his head for a better view. There were, he saw, bushes and stands of reeds all along their side of the stream. Plenty of cover for a hunting K'da to creep in close. The stream itself was fairly wide, and seemed to be flowing reasonably slowly. From the calmness of the surface, he guessed the stream was at least a couple of feet deep.

  He lowered himself back down. "Come," he said, gesturing behind them. "I have a plan."

  Together, he and Jack backed away from the ambush line. "We will need a dummy," Draycos said when it was safe to talk. "Can you construct something from branches and vines?"

  "Probably," Jack said. "You want human or K'da?"

  "Human will do," Draycos said. "Give me the rope. I'll be back soon."

  With the rope coiled beneath his left foreleg, he headed a few yards farther back from the enemy until he found one of the slender, rubbery trees that had begun cropping up during the day's travels. Near its base another tree's roots had looped their way up into the air before disappearing back underground. Picking the thickest of the roots, he tied one end of his rope to it. With the other end clenched between his teeth, he started up the rubbery tree.

  He was no more than fifteen feet up when he felt the trunk starting to bend under his weight. He kept going, digging his claws into the soft bark to keep from being dumped off, until the tree was bending over so far that he was climbing nearly horizontally, lying the other end of rope there, he headed down.

  Once back on the ground, he spent a few minutes pulling the rope through the root loop, bending the treetop back down again. It was a tricky job, requiring all his strength to keep the rope from being yanked out of his muzzle and paws as the tree bowed over and the tension on the rope increased.

  Finally, he judged he'd pulled enough of it through. Holding the rope tightly between his teeth, bracing his hind legs against the root loop, he slipped a section of the rope through another nearby tree root and secured it with a quick-release knot. Then, carefully, he eased off his grip.

  There was a sharp jerk as the bent tree readjusted itself, startling a group of birds who had been picking seeds or insects out of the topmost branches. They all flew off madly together in a tight cluster, sending the treetop swaying in the opposite direction and putting a twitch of extra tension on the rope and knot.

  But the knot held, and the branches settled down. Now, one good tug on the loose end of the rope would release the knot and let the tree straighten up again, pulling the rope through the looped root as it did so.

  Back on the planet Sunright, he'd pulled a version of this trick on one of the Whinyard's Edge soldiers. This time, though, he wasn't looking for a prisoner for interrogation.

  This time, it was going to be a prelude to combat.

  Gathering the rest of the rope into a loose coil, he returned to where he'd left Jack. "Mortimer's all ready," the boy said, holding up the Jack-sized stick figure he'd made from branches wrapped and held together with vines. "What do you think?"

  "It looks just like you," Draycos said.

  "Thanks," Jack said dryly. "You can probably find a reed down by the creek to use as a breathing tube."

  Draycos frowned at him. "How did you know I was going to send the decoy down the stream?"

  "Didn't you—?" Jack broke off. "No, I guess you didn't tell me. Huh. That's weird."

  "Great minds thinking alike, no doubt," Draycos said. "Though you have no doubt already deduced it, let me tell you the rest of the plan."

  It took only a minute for him to fill Jack in. "Yeah, that's more or less what I was expecting," the boy said. "We're starting to think alike, all right. Not sure whether that's good or bad."

  "For the moment, let us assume it's good," Draycos said. "Now help me get—what did you call it? Mortimer?—help me get Mortimer on my back. Then carefully—carefully—move up into position."

  "Don't worry about me," Jack said. "You just watch yourself, okay? I'm the one they don't want to kill."

  "That thought had occurred to me," Draycos agreed grim
ly. "I shall be back as quickly as I can."

  CHAPTER 19

  Draycos headed off, moving silently through the shadows, the dummy wedged firmly onto his crest.

  Jack waited until he was out of sight. Then, tucking the end of the rope securely into his belt, he drew his rangier and started back toward the creek.

  He wasn't nearly as quiet as Draycos, or at least it didn't sound like it in his own ears. Still, he managed to reach a spot where he could see the creek without having drawn any obvious attention from the hidden soldiers. The rippling noise from the water and the general background of insect chirps and animal rustlings probably helped cover the sound of his approach. And, of course, the soldiers were almost certainly not expecting anyone to show up until morning.

  The minutes dragged by. Jack peered into the gloom, trying to spot the enemy positions. But the soldiers were too well camouflaged. He just hoped they hadn't spotted him and were even now creeping stealthily toward him.

  Something moved at the corner of his eye. He jerked, trying to bring up his tangler—

  "Shh," Draycos warned, catching Jack's gun hand with his paw.

  Sternly, Jack ordered his heart back to normal. "Don't do that," he whispered.

  "My apologies," the dragon said. "Give me the rope."

  Jack unlooped the rope from his belt. "I made a lasso with a slipknot in the end for you," he said, handing it over.

  "Thank you," Draycos said. "Stand ready."

  With the lasso end gripped between his teeth, the K'da slipped toward the creek. Jack gave him a few seconds, then carefully stood up into a crouch behind one of the trees, making sure he had a solid grip on the rope. Draycos was in combat mode, his gold scales turned to black, and even knowing he was there Jack couldn't see him.

  Of course, the waiting soldiers would undoubtedly have infrared and starlight vision enhancers. Jack hoped the dragon was being especially careful.

  More minutes went by. Jack kept his eyes on the stream, wondering if this was actually going to work. The dummy seemed to be taking way too much time getting down here, and he wondered uneasily if it might have gotten snagged on something at the bottom of the creek.

  And then, there it was: a reed poking out of the water, making its slow way downstream. And as Jack listened, he could hear the stealthy hiss of someone breathing through it.

  He frowned. Breathing?

  But even as the question arose, so did the obvious answer. Draycos, hidden in the bushes beside the stream, was making the breathing noises, trying to attract the soldiers' attention without being too obvious about it.

  For a minute Jack wondered if maybe the dragon was being a little too subtle. The reed was still moving, drifting its way downstream, and still there was no reaction from the other side.

  And then, one of the shadows across the creek seemed to shiver. A second later, it had resolved itself into the figure of a soldier. Holding his machine gun ready, he stepped warily to the water's edge and leaned over the creek, peering down at the dummy beneath the surface.

  And as a warbling K'da battle cry shattered the nighttime quiet, Draycos leaped across the stream.

  The soldier jerked back, trying to bring his gun to bear on the dragon who had suddenly appeared. But Jack's tangler shot got there first. In the darkness he couldn't see the threads as they wrapped themselves around the soldier, but the flash of the cartridge's capacitor was all he needed to know the shot had been squarely on-target. The man teetered and started to fall.

  But before he could do so, Draycos reached him. Sailing over his shoulder, the dragon dropped the loop of his lasso neatly over the other's shoulders as he passed. "Now!" he shouted as he hit the ground and spun around. He leaped up onto the-soldier's back, his claws digging into the other's battle vest. Jack gave a sharp tug on the rope—

  And as the quick-release knot came free and the tree snapped back toward vertical, the lassoed soldier was yanked off his feet and dragged into and across the stream. He shot through the reeds at the edge, plowing his way through bushes and drifts of dead leaves as he was pulled across the ground. He and Draycos shot past, and Jack ducked away from his tree and sprinted after them.

  Sounds of sudden commotion could be heard from the far side of the stream as he reached the unconscious soldier and braked to a halt. "Here," Draycos said, lifting the other's over/under machine-gun/tangler combination. "Hold out the stock."

  Jack unfolded the metal shoulder stock and held it out. Draycos's claws slashed once, and the stock with its hidden tracker was no longer attached to the weapon. "Ready," Jack said, dropping the severed metal onto the ground and looping the gun's strap over his shoulder.

  Draycos bent down and slid his paws beneath Jack's shoes, and a second later Jack found himself flying high into the air straight up into the branches of one of the bushier trees.

  He caught a branch with each hand, the gun banging against his back as he got his balance. "Clear," he called down softly as he worked his way quickly over to the trunk, wincing as the tangle of branches grabbed his sleeves and scratched his face. "Watch yourself."

  His only answer was the sound of splashing from the direction of the creek as the other soldiers charged to their comrade's rescue. Peering down, Jack found that Draycos had vanished. "And happy hunting," he murmured to himself. Lifting the gun, making sure it was on its tangler setting, he waited.

  They came in pairs, the first two soldiers moving swiftly but quietly through the trees, their guns swinging back and forth and up and down as they searched for their quarry. Twice one of them looked up into Jack's tree, his gun lifting as he did so to point in the same direction. But Jack had moved to the far side of the trunk, and there apparently wasn't enough of him showing through the branches for them to spot.

  The two soldiers headed toward the man Draycos had captured. As they did so, Jack saw two more pairs coming in behind them and to either side, staying back and watching for trouble.

  Unfortunately for them, trouble was already watching them. Smiling tightly, he lined up the muzzle of his borrowed tangler on the first of the closest pair and squeezed the trigger.

  The mercenaries were good, all right. Even before the cartridge hit, both men reacted to the sound of the shot, swinging their guns upward and firing in unison. But the branches that had hidden Jack from their sight now also protected him from their fire. As his shot hit its target and dropped the soldier to the ground, their own cartridges exploded into a snarled mess in the branches.

  But only one of the soldiers was down, and the other now knew exactly where Jack was. With a hoarse shout to his comrades, he opened fire, plastering the tree with tangler threads. Still shooting, he began to circle, trying to get a clear shot. Two of the other soldiers rushed up to join him, and now there were three tanglers firing at Jack instead of just one. The last pair stayed well back, where they could cover the rest of the group.

  And with nowhere to run. Jack was now the proverbial sitting duck.

  "Come on, dragon, move it," he muttered, wincing back from the soldiers' shots as he tried to fire back. But the one clear shot he'd had was long gone, and all he succeeded in doing was plastering the nearest branches with tangler threads of his own.

  Which might not be such a bad thing, he realized suddenly. If he could make himself a nice little cage of tangler threads, he would be more or less safe. At least until they gave up on taking him alive and switched to machine-gun mode.

  He fired a few more rounds into the branches around him, shifting his aim to keep up with the circling soldiers. Between his shots and theirs, it was getting increasingly difficult to see what was going on down there. He could only hope that Draycos would spot the two soldiers standing distant guard, their eyes on the trees and ground-hugging bushes.

  And with Jack's own thoughts and attention on those same trees and bushes, he and the soldiers were all looking in the wrong direction when the K'da made his move.

  He appeared behind the three soldiers still shooting
into Jack's tree, boiling up without warning from a drift of dead leaves that had hidden him from both eyes and infrared detectors. Before they could even react, his forepaws took out two of them, slapping against the sides of their heads hard enough to send them cartwheeling in opposite directions.

  The third was faster than the others. He swung around and dropped to one knee, trying to swing his gun around to this new threat. But Draycos was already in motion, leaping over the soldier's gun and past his shoulder. The dragon's tail whipped around the man's neck as he passed, gagging him as it slapped across his windpipe and yanked him backward off-balance. The action also brought Draycos's own momentum to a sudden halt, dropping him to the ground behind the man.

  Draycos had just hit the matted leaves when the two remaining soldiers opened fire with their tanglers. The first shot, aimed where Draycos would have been if he'd continued his arcing leap, missed completely, zipping past to explode its netting over one of the distant bushes.

  The second shot, instead of missing, clipped the corner of the kneeling soldier's arm. Some of the threads whipped around his face and chest, Draycos managing to snatch his tail out of the way just in time. The rest of the threads spread out harmlessly though the air over the K'da's head.

  Not enough of the threads were wrapped around the soldier for the shock capacitor to knock him out. But it didn't matter. Draycos had already twisted around, slapping the side of the man's neck with one paw as he snatched the tangler from his hands with the other. As the stunned soldier toppled over, Draycos dived to the side, staying behind him so as to use his body as a shield against the two remaining gunners. Flipping the barrel of the tangler up over the other's ribs, Draycos fired.

  But the two soldiers weren't there anymore. They had ducked to either side, taking cover behind nearby bushes as Draycos's shots went harmlessly past.

  They were fiddling with their weapons, probably switching to machine-gun mode, when Jack maneuvered the barrel of his own weapon through the mass of tangler threads around him and nailed them both.