"With the Phookas?"
"With everything." Jack eyed Draycos. "Well, not with you," he amended. "But with everything else."
"I'm sorry," Draycos said, ducking his head in apology.
"No, I'm the one who should be sorry," Jack said, grimacing. "Everyone's doing the best they can. Even the Erassvas and Phookas. I'm just . . . we've got a whole platoon of K'da here, or we should. Only they aren't good for anything."
"They still have life," Draycos reminded him. "A few days ago that was enough for you to consider them worth saving, even at the risk of your own."
"Maybe I've changed my mind."
"Have you?" Draycos countered. "Or have your thoughts merely been colored by fatigue and fear?"
Jack sighed. "Uncle Virge would have a field day with that one," he said. "But I'm too tired to argue. Which probably proves your point."
"I make no point," Draycos said. "I merely caution against making decisions when one is tired or fearful or angry."
"I know," Jack said. "I just forget sometimes." He took a deep breath. "And things aren't going all that badly right now, anyway, are they?"
"No, they are not," Draycos agreed cautiously. "But at the same time, they are perhaps going less well than you think. While searching for Taneem, I heard the Malison Ring floater moving around somewhere to the west."
Taking up guard position between them and the cave area? Probably. "That's fine," Jack said. "We were planning to change course today anyway. I guess this means we're angling east instead of west. Go get the rope, will you? I'll grab a couple of stretcher carriers."
"Very well." Turning, Draycos trotted back toward where Jack had left his pack.
Jack headed toward the nearest group of Phookas, studying them as he walked. Though all of them had a tendency to wander away from the herd, he knew which ones were the steadier and more obedient of the group. He spotted two of the latter digging at the base of a bush near Hren, and changed direction toward them.
"What now, young Jack?" Hren asked as Jack walked up. Hren's lips and chin were stained with berry juice, but there was nothing comical about his expression. It was about as stiff and angry as Jack had ever seen it. "Do you bring us to yet more danger?"
"There may possibly be more danger, yes," Jack had to admit. "But we'll do everything we can to keep you as safe as possible."
"You will keep us safe?" Hren countered. "You, who brought us into these dangers, now say you will keep us safe?"
"I'm sorry, Hren," Jack said. "If I'd known the bad men behind us would be so persistent . . . look, if we'd left you behind, all the Phookas would be dead. The bad men would have killed them. This was the only way I knew to save them."
"Yet out here they may die anyway."
"But at least now they have a chance," Jack said. "You do care what happens to them, don't you?"
"We care, yes," Hren said. "Do you?"
Jack grimaced. Stupid, useless, pain-in-the-neck animals . . . but Draycos was right. A few days ago, in a better state of mind than he was in right now, he'd considered them worth saving.
More to the point, Draycos considered them worth saving right now. "Yes," he told Hren. "I do."
Hren was silent for a moment. "Then we will continue on," he said. "Even if you have brought us here to die, far from our people and the berries we most love."
"You're not going to die," Jack assured him, wishing he really believed that. "We're not going to abandon you."
"It would seem young Alison has already done so," Hren countered. "Yet hear me: We will not give up our lives easily. Not for any creature."
"I know you won't," Jack said. "You're a strong people, Hren, despite your casual ways. As for Alison, she hasn't abandoned anyone. She's just tired. We'll let her sleep, and she'll be fine." He looked back over toward her.
And as he did so, a flicker of gray caught his eye. Taneem was back from her hunt, strolling casually toward the rest of the group. "There she is," he said with relief. "Taneem! Taneem, come here!"
The gray Phooka didn't answer but kept padding her way through the milling crowd. Jack opened his mouth to call her again.
And stiffened. She wasn't just coming to rejoin the herd.
She was heading straight toward Alison.
"Taneem!" Jack called again, dashing toward her. Whatever the Phooka was doing to Alison, she had to be doing it while she was on the girl's skin. If she got back on—"Taneem! Draycos!"
To his left, he caught a flash of gold scales through the trees as Draycos bounded toward the girl and the gray dragon.
But they were both too late. Taneem got to Alison first and set her paw almost delicately on the side of Alison's neck. An instant later, the Phooka was gone, sliding beneath the collar.
"Blast!" Jack snarled as he braked to a halt at Alison's side. "Can you get her off?"
"No," Draycos said, his voice grim as he peered down into Alison's collar. "Not without Taneem's permission. I am sorry. I should not have left her."
"Don't blame yourself," Jack growled. "I'm the one who sent you away in the first place." He took a deep breath. "Whatever's happening, we'll just have to see it through. Let's get this stretcher rigged and get out of here."
They gathered the Erassvas and Phookas together, and with Alison nestled into her vine hammock between the green bellwether and a dark blue-green Phooka, they headed off.
Draycos didn't have many opportunities to see how things were going at the front. With Jack now having to lead, he had to cover both flanks of the group, watching for trouble as well as keeping the Phookas from wandering too far away.
But even with the bulk of his attention outward, it was quickly apparent that there was less herding necessary than there had been on previous days. On his third great circle around the travelers he made a point of moving in close enough to see what exactly was going on.
And was greeted by an extraordinary sight. The ten Erassvas were all walking closely together just behind Jack and Greenie, playing follow-the-leader as they'd been doing since Alison first set up this particular marching order. What was new was the fact that the Phookas, too, were mostly staying close to both the Erassvas and Jack himself.
Draycos wondered about it as he returned to his outward sweep. Were the Phookas still leery about predators after the previous day's Kodiak attack? That might explain why they were staying close to the boy carrying the guns.
But it hadn't been anyone with a gun who had chased the Kodiak away. Draycos had done that. Yet there was no indication that the Phookas had even registered that fact, let alone were acting on it. It wasn't because of the bellwether, either, the one Jack called Greenie. While the Phookas had always followed him, they had never shown any particular interest in staying close by as they did so.
No, there could be only one reason the Phookas were staying so close to Jack. Somehow, in their dim and undeveloped minds, they had latched onto him as their leader. Their guide.
Their herdsman.
Jack might not think he had the patience to be a herdsman. He might not particularly like the task. But there was no denying that he had a talent for it.
You have many talents, Jack, Draycos had assured the boy earlier. When the time comes, you will find the job that best fits you.
It would be Draycos's job to make sure the boy lived until that time came.
CHAPTER 21
They'd been traveling about two hours when they hit the edge of the bog.
Hit it quite literally, in fact. Jack didn't even spot the silent, algae-covered water until he'd taken his first knee-deep step into it.
"How's it look?" Jack asked as Draycos reemerged from between a pair of droopy-leaved trees, picking his way carefully across a narrow land bridge.
"Like most such places," the K'da replied. "A great deal of water, much of it nearly impossible to see until one is already in it."
"Could you tell how big it is?"
"I estimate it is at least a few miles across," Draycos said. "It wi
ll take the rest of the morning to get around it. Possibly longer."
Jack chewed his lower lip, an idea beginning to play at the edge of his mind. "What if we go through it?"
Draycos arched his neck. "You must be joking. Didn't you hear what I just said? Bogs and swamps, particularly unfamiliar ones, are among the worst places possible for a soldier to make a stand against an enemy."
"Normally, sure," Jack agreed. "But this isn't a normal military situation. Frost wants me alive. He wouldn't dare attack around this much water, even with just tanglers. Maybe even especially with tanglers."
Draycos twitched his tail. "Yet if he should decide to take that risk, we would find ourselves with little maneuvering room."
"Yeah, but his men would be in the same boat," Jack pointed out. "And since you K'da seem to fight as well from trees as you do from solid ground, you'd run rings around them."
Draycos twitched the end of his tail. "I still do not like it."
"Neither do I," Jack conceded. "But Alison's in no shape to fight right now, and I really don't want us to have to face down Frost's men without her. Seems to me that every hour we can keep him off our backs is an extra hour for her to try to snap out of whatever's gotten its grip on her."
He nodded toward the bog. "The only question is whether we can get all the way through without losing anyone. And whether there's more than one way out the other side. Be kind of counterproductive if we went all the way through and then came out to find an ambush all set up and waiting for us."
"As to the latter, I expect there will be multiple exits," Draycos said. "As to the former . . . we will find out soon enough."
The bog was humid, full of buzzing insects, and disgustingly smelly. But aside from that, it wasn't nearly as bad as Jack had expected.
The Erassvas, for all their bulk, turned out to be surprisingly nimble when it came to maneuvering along narrow land bridges. Even when they strayed off the path, they tended to float high enough in the water that it was easy for them to pull themselves back to safety. The insects and odors didn't seem to bother them at all.
Even better, Jack quickly discovered that Greenie had a knack for finding a path through the pools and stands of reeds. After the first mile, in fact, Jack was confident enough of the Phooka's abilities to send Draycos back to the rear of the party to watch for stragglers.
Through it all, Alison and Taneem dozed peacefully.
A little before noon they reached a sort of island amid the stagnant water and Jack called a halt. With Hren's help he got Alison and her vine hammock off the two Phookas and onto the ground.
He was sitting under a tree, munching on a ration bar, when Draycos arrived from the rear. "How are things going back there?" he asked the K'da.
"The mercenaries appear to be behaving themselves," Draycos told him, stretching out on the ground. He looked as tired as Jack felt. "The Phookas are a different story entirely."
"Keeping you busy, are they?" Jack asked, feeling a little guilty. While he'd been plodding more or less straight through the swamp, the K'da had been putting in a lot more miles, much of it probably leaping back and forth between trees.
"In truth, it is not as bad as it could be," Draycos conceded. "They still seem to prefer to stay as close to you as possible. But in this terrain, they are often unable to see you. It is at those times when they have a tendency to wander off."
"Maybe I should try to put myself somewhere in the middle of the group," Jack suggested. "Greenie seems capable enough of finding his own way."
"But without you, I doubt he will continue at the necessary speed," Draycos pointed out. "No, this still remains our best marching order." He looked over at Alison. "Has there been any change in Alison's condition?"
"Not that I could see," Jack said. "She seems to sleep pretty soundly, except when she's dreaming or something. She does a lot of twitching and muttering then."
"Anything you could understand?"
Jack shrugged. "A few words here and there. Frost got mentioned a lot, and so did Neverlin. Braxton's name came up once or twice, too."
"Braxton the man or Braxton the corporation?"
"I couldn't tell," Jack said. "Most of the rest was verbal scribble."
"And Taneem has been with her the whole time?"
"Like a squatter in cheap housing," Jack said sourly. "I'm thinking that the next time she hops off to get a snack, we might want to make sure she stays off. At least for a while."
"I'm afraid you're right," Draycos said regretfully. "I do not understand what is happening between them. Certainly nothing like this ever happens between K'da and Shontine."
"But remember what Alison said," Jack reminded him. "You and the Shontine may already be so much alike that you just connect naturally together—your basic square pegs in the square holes. Taneem's coming from a"—he glanced quickly around to make sure none of the Erassvas were in hearing distance—"from a lethargic slug of an Erassva to a vibrant, smart-mouthed human. Maybe it's taking them both a while to acclimate to the change."
"Perhaps," Draycos said. But he didn't sound entirely convinced. "We can only hope the stress will not damage either of them."
"Yeah." Jack popped the last bite of the ration bar into his mouth. "Let's get Alison back in her hammock and hit the road."
It was late afternoon when they finally reached the end of the bog. "Nice to be on solid footing again," Jack commented as he and Draycos maneuvered Alison out of her hammock onto the ground. "Any sign of the bad guys?"
"I smell no one," Draycos said, his tongue flicking rapidly in and out of his snout. "Perhaps they have lost our trail."
"More likely they just decided they might as well take the rest of the day off," Jack said. "They'll probably be back full strength bright and early tomorrow morning."
"I hope for their sakes—" Abruptly, Draycos broke off, his head twisting to the east.
"What?" Jack asked, his hand going automatically to the machine gun slung over his shoulder.
"A predator approaches," Draycos said, turning to face that direction. "Another of the species we fought yesterday."
"Where?" Jack demanded, scrambling to his feet. One brush with the Kodiaks had been more than enough for him. Glancing down at his weapon, he switched it over to machine-gun mode. It would be risky to use the noisier setting, but he had no intention of trying to restrain such a beast with tangler cords.
"There," Draycos said, his tongue darting out.
"Got it." Lifting the gun, pointing it in the direction Draycos was facing, Jack braced himself.
"What's going on?" Alison murmured.
Startled, Jack looked down at her. Her eyes were half-closed, but she was definitely awake. "Predator on the way," he told her, feeling a flicker of relief. Bringing a comatose girl back to civilization hadn't been something he'd really been looking forward to. "Another of our friendly Kodiaks, Draycos says."
"Got it," she said, fumbling in her holster for her Corvine. The fingers paused, her eyes widening as she suddenly noticed the machine gun in Jack's hands. "What in the—? Where'd you get that?"
Before Jack could answer, there was a rustling in a group of bushes on the far side of the clearing, and a Kodiak lumbered into view.
Jack raised his gun a little higher, setting his teeth together as he aimed at the animal's massive torso. Beside him, he sensed Draycos lowering himself into a crouch, claws digging into the ground as he prepared to spring. "Easy," Alison murmured. "Let him get closer."
Jack nodded silently. The Kodiak took a couple of steps forward, then paused, his head moving back and forth as he surveyed the silent Erassvas and Phookas frozen in place watching him.
And then, to Jack's amazement, the beast turned and clumped back into the trees.
"Well, that was interesting," Alison said, pushing herself to her feet. She swayed a bit, and Jack caught her arm to steady her. "I'm okay," she said as she regained her balance. "What in the world did you say to him?"
"I threatene
d his family, of course," Jack said, peering through the trees where the Kodiak had disappeared. There was no sign of the creature. "What do you mean, what did I say? I didn't say or do anything." He nodded toward Draycos. "Maybe the other Kodiak has been spreading the word about Draycos."
"No," Draycos said, straightening out of his crouch, his tail tip making thoughtful circles in the air. "I believe he was more concerned about the Erassvas."
"You're kidding," Jack said, frowning at the bulky beings. They didn't look any more threatening than they usually did.
"Not at all," Draycos said. "Their odor has changed since last night. I noticed it this morning but assumed it was due to the change in their diet."
Just about the time Hren was warning Jack that the Erassvas wouldn't give up their lives easily, in fact. "You think they've finally gotten roused?"
"Something has certainly happened to them," Draycos said. "And many animals use scent cues to hunt. Perhaps their current odor is one which warns predators away."
"Actually, that makes sense," Alison murmured. "They're such obvious targets they ought to have gone the way of the dodo by now."
"Until something kicks in the adrenaline," Jack said. "Something like the first Kodiak attack yesterday."
"So the first predator gets a free shot at a given group, and everyone else after that has a fight on their hands," Alison concluded. "At least until the Erassvas' biochemistry switches back again. I guess this Kodiak must not have been hungry enough to risk it."
"Maybe," Jack said. "I somehow doubt the mercs will notice the changed attitude, though."
"Or will care even if they do," Alison agreed. "Let me see that gun, will you?"
"Don't worry; we dumped the tracker," Jack assured her, putting the safety back on and handing it over.
"Unless they got cute and threw in a backup." For a moment she turned the weapon over in her hands, poking and prying and peering at its various components. Then, with a grunt, she handed it back. "It's clean."
"Like I already said," Jack reminded her, "So what was this all-day nap of yours all about?"