Dragon and Herdsman

CHAPTER 12

Silently, the dragon headed off into the woods. Jack gave him a thirty-count to make sure he was out of sight, then headed back to the resting herd.

Alison was sitting with her back against a tree, her gun in her lap. "All quiet on the western front?" she asked.

"Seems that way," he confirmed, carefully filtering the annoyance out of his voice. Alison had gotten into the habit of peppering her conversation with these obscure comments, obviously references to things he'd never heard of.

It was irritating, but he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of letting her know that. He certainly wasn't going to ask what in blazes she was talking about.

"Good," she said. "Does that mean you're over your twitchies?"

"Being cautious in enemy territory is not being twitchy," Jack insisted stiffly. "And, no, I think we ought to stay here a little longer"

Alison peered up at the sky. "If we do, we may be here all night," she warned. "We don't have much daylight left."

"I think it's worth it," Jack said firmly. "I'm staying, anyway."

"Fine," Alison said, resettling herself against the tree. "You're in charge of this expedition. So how about telling me a story?"

Jack frowned. "What kind of story?"

"Colonel Frost called you Jack Morgan," she said. "Two months ago, when we were raw recruits sweating through basic in the Whinyard's Edge mercenaries, they all thought your name was Jack Montana. Was it you or them who got your name wrong?"

Jack hid a grimace. "Them," he said. "Probably a clerical error."

"Yeah, right," she said. "Come on, Jack. Like it or not, we're stuck here together. I need to know that I can trust you."

"Fine," Jack said. "In that case, you can go first."

Alison lifted her eyebrows. "Go first where?"

"You weren't any raw recruit," he reminded her, sitting down facing her with his back to another tree. "You could start by telling me what you were up to that made Sergeant Grisko ready to kill both of us."

She sighed, lowering her eyes. "It was all Dad's idea," she said reluctantly. "He had this crazy notion that merc groups who took teenagers probably didn't keep very good records on them. He figured he could keep indenturing me to one after another, collect the money and then help me get out, and they'd never catch on."

"Cute," Jack said. "More stupid than cute, actually. But no crazier than some of the scams my uncle and I pulled over the years."

"So you are a con artist?" she asked. "That's sort of what I figured."

"Reformed con artist," Jack corrected. "Trying to reform, anyway. So what were you doing in the Whinyard's Edge HQ that night?"

"I wanted to get a peek at their records on me," Alison said. "Just in case Dad's plan hadn't been as clever as he thought. I guess I should have waited until we were on Sunright."

"Or skipped it completely."

She made a face. "Dad wouldn't have liked that," she said. "He's—well, let's not go into that."

"Bad childhood?" Jack suggested.

Alison shrugged. "Mom and Dad and I never stayed in one place very long, if that's what you mean. Other than that . . . I don't know. I don't really have anything to compare it to."

"I know the feeling," Jack said ruefully, thinking back over his own life with Uncle Virge. "What kind of work do your parents do?"

"Whatever they can find," she said. "Dad's always chasing the Big One, as he calls it. The job that'll finally bring him fame and fortune and success."

"I gather he hasn't made it?"

She shrugged again. "There's been some success, I suppose. There hasn't been any fame. There certainly hasn't been any fortune."

Jack nodded. She was being evasive, but he could read between the lines as well as the next guy. Her father was a criminal like Uncle Virgil, though apparently not nearly as successful.

Which was ironic, considering that it was Uncle Virgil's spectacular career that had caught the attention of Arthur Neverlin in the first place, which was what had dragged Jack, and now Alison, into this mess. "Where are your parents now?" he asked. "Are they the ones you're expecting to pick you up?"

She shook her head. "These are some friends of theirs. Actually, I really don't know where Mom and Dad are. Like I say, they move around a lot. What's a K'da?"

With a supreme effort. Jack managed to keep his face expressionless. "A what?"

"A K'da," she repeated. "Frost said he didn't want you and your K'da to suffer the same fate as your uncle. Come on—I've told you about me. It's your turn."

"I have no idea what he meant by that," Jack said, feeling sweat break out on the back of his neck. He'd completely forgotten that last comment of Frost's just before he'd shut down his comm clip. This girl was way too observant for his taste. "Some slang term, I suppose."

She stared hard at him with those dark eyes. Jack held her gaze without flinching, and after a moment her lip twitched. "Fine," she said. "Don't tell me. Can I at least get your real name?"

"Jack Morgan," he said. "Raised by my uncle, Virgil Morgan."

"Virgil Morgan," Alison said thoughtfully. "I've heard that name. One of the great con men and safecrackers of our age, isn't he?"

"Certainly in his own mind," Jack said, feeling a ghostly echo of pain and loss. Even more than a year after Uncle Virgil's death, it still hurt sometimes. "No, that's not fair."

"Not if even half the stories are true," Alison agreed, an odd glint in her eye. "So you're Virgil Morgan's nephew."

"Yes, we've established that," Jack said, eyeing her suspiciously. Was there a hint of actual admiration in her voice? Or was it just more sarcasm? Whatever it was, he didn't like it. "And I'm reformed, remember?"

"Sure," she said, the faint admiration turning to equally faint amusement He liked that even less. "Well. That was fun, but we really ought to try to get a little more distance before sundown."

Ten yards behind her, Jack caught a glimpse of gold dragon scales. "If you insist," he said, wincing as he pushed himself up off the ground. Even during the brief rest break, his leg muscles had stiffened up considerably. "You still want to handle point?"

"I'm still the one with the gun," she said. "By the way, have you noticed that these Phookas can change color?"

Jack's first reaction was to wonder which of these animals could possibly have gotten riled up enough to go into K'da combat mode. He'd seen that effect a couple of times with Draycos, where some of the poet-warrior's heightened blood flow seeped into his gold scales and turned them black.

But a second later he realized what she was actually talking about. As one K'da left his Erassva host and a differently colored one took his place, Alison would naturally interpret that as the original Phooka changing colors. "No, I hadn't," he said. "Interesting."

"You should pay better attention to your surroundings," Alison said reprovingly as she got to her feet. If she was feeling stiff, it didn't show. "And try to keep them quiet. I'm guessing the Malison Ring will make some move before nightfall."

However Draycos had worked his end of the scheme, he'd clearly done a terrific job of it. The group reached the area he'd described as the site of the Malison Ring picket line to find it completely deserted.

Jack had gone perhaps twenty yards past the picket line when, from somewhere ahead and to the right, came a sudden crashing of branches and a distant howl of pain.

Ducking around trees and bushes, he ran toward the sound. Rounding one last stand of reeds, he nearly ran full tilt into Alison as she stood at the edge of another of the sharp drop-offs. "Watch it—watch it," she said, putting a hand out across his chest. "This whole ridge is crumbly."

"What happened?" Jack asked.

"We've lost one," she said grimly, nodding down the cliff. "Take a look. But be careful."

Holding on to a nearby tree branch, Jack eased up to the edge. Thirty feet down a steep slope, a dusky red Phooka was lying on his side, two of his legs thrashing weakly as he struggled to free himself from a tangle of vines. "Did you see what happened?"

"About what you'd expect," she growled. "Stupid thing wasn't watching where he was going and walked off the edge of the cliff. Question is, what do we do about it?"

Jack took a step back and looked around. Draycos was nowhere to be seen, probably still playing shepherd off to the left. "Let's start by asking Hren," he said. "Hren? Hren!"

"Yes, young Jack?" the Erassva's voice called from behind him.

"Come here a minute, will you?" Jack called back. "We've got an injured Phooka on our hands."

The fat alien appeared and stepped to the edge of the drop-off with what seemed to Jack to be a complete lack of caution. "How sad," he said as he peered down. "How very sad."

"Never mind the sadness," Jack said. "How do we help him?"

"Help him?" Hren seemed puzzled. "There is no help for him, young Jack. Not down there. A few hours and he will be gone." He turned to go.

"Wait a second," Jack said, grabbing his arm as he looked down at the injured Phooka. The creature's eyes were half-closed, but even in the fading light Jack could swear he was looking directly at him. "We've got some rope in these packs."

"We'd need more than just rope," Alison said. "These things are heavy, and we'd be dragging him against all that vegetation. At the very least we'd need a block and tackle."

"But we can't just leave him there to die," Jack protested.

Alison shrugged. "I'm open to suggestions."

Jack clenched his hands into fists. There had to be a way to do this. "How about if I go down to him?" he suggested.

"And do what?" Alison asked. "Hold his paw while he dies?"

"I was thinking more about carrying him to safety," Jack growled, pointing past the drop-off. "That cut goes around that low hill over there. If I can get through it, I should be able to get around the hill and meet you a little ways northwest of here."

"And what if you can't get through?" Alison countered. "It wouldn't be safe to leave the rope tied here—we might as well put up a sign telling the Malison Ring which way we've gone. If you can't get through, you'll be trapped."

"I'll get through," Jack said stubbornly, pulling off his backpack. "Just get me down there and take the herd around that hill. I'll do the rest."

"Jack—"

"And we're wasting time and light," Jack cut her off. "Give me a hand with this rope."

Alison hissed between her teeth. "Fine. It's your funeral."

The sky had darkened considerably by the time they were ready. "Just relax and walk your feet down the slope," Alison said, looping the rope around a thick tree trunk and pulling it taut. "I'll ease you down."

"Right," Jack said, doing one last check of the makeshift harness she'd created for him. "Here goes."

Jack had done plenty of climbing in his lifetime, mostly up and down small buildings he was in the process of robbing. But going down this way, at the end of a rope he wasn't controlling, was a brand-new experience.

And definitely not a pleasant one. Muttering under his breath, he waded backward through the vines, trying hard not to get his feet tangled. It seemed like forever before he finally came to a halt beside the injured Phooka. "Easy, fella," Jack soothed the creature as he climbed awkwardly out of his harness.

The soothing tone wasn't necessary. The Phooka had abandoned even his weak attempts at freeing himself, and was lying motionlessly on his side. His eyes were still on Jack, his heaving flanks the only sign of life.

"Jack?" Alison's voice drifted down toward him.

Jack looked up. In the fading light she wasn't much more than a silhouette against the gray sky above her. "I'm here," he called back. "Get going. I'll see you around the other side."

Alison made as if to say something, then seemed to give a reluctant nod. "Be careful." She pulled up the rope, then disappeared away from the cliff.

Jack took a deep breath. When you have a K'da, you're never really alone, he told himself. "Draycos?" he called softly.

"I'm here," the familiar voice came. With a rustle of ferns, the dragon appeared from concealment. "I am not certain this was a wise move, though."

"Yeah, well, rescuing wayward K'da seems to have become my hobby," Jack growled. "Get over here and tell me what's wrong with him."

Draycos's examination was quick but thorough. "His left foreleg is injured," he reported. "It might be broken, but I think it is merely sprained. The left hind leg also seems hurt, but not as badly."

"What are his chances for recovery?"

"Very good," Draycos assured him. "I received a similar sprain during the Havenseeker's crash landing. I needed no treatment to recover."

"Good." Jack held out a hand to the injured Phooka. "Okay, big fella. Come aboard."

The Phooka didn't move. "Well, come on," Jack said, this time reaching down and grasping the uninjured foreleg paw. "You want to stay here all night?"

His only reaction was to try to pull out of Jack's grip. "I don't think he understands what you want," Draycos said.

"Oh, come on," Jack insisted. "He has to understand hosts."

"Yes, but you're not a host," Draycos countered. "At least, not the kind he has always known."

Jack let his breath out in a huff. He should have guessed it wouldn't be this easy. "So what now? We carry him?"

"Or we leave him here to die," Draycos said.

"I was afraid of that," Jack said disgustedly, measuring the fallen Phooka with his eyes. He looked a lot bigger, and a lot heavier, than he had from thirty feet up. "Let's get to it, then."

"Yes," Draycos said, prodding at the Phooka's side with his muzzle. "Can you help me get him onto my back?"

"Sorry, pal," Jack said, pushing at the side of Draycos's long neck. "My job."

"I'm stronger than you are."

"Absolutely," Jack agreed. "You're also the only one who can scout ahead and clear obstacles out of our way." He lifted his eyebrows. "Unless you really want to try cutting vine meshes with him balanced across your back."

Draycos's tail curved unhappily. But he was too smart not to see that Jack was right. "Very well," he said reluctantly. "I will assist you."

"That's okay." Crouching down, Jack got a grip on the Phooka's two uninjured legs. Then, bracing himself, he hauled the creature up and swung him onto his shoulders. "Geez," he muttered as he settled his load into place. "Why couldn't we have found a colony of baby K'da?"

"In a K'da colony, each generation is conceived and delivered together, within a two-year period," Draycos said. "This colony must be in the middle of that cycle."

"I was being rhetorical," Jack said with a sigh. "Don't just stand there. Find me a path."