Dragon and Herdsman

CHAPTER 8

Hren, of course, didn't.

"You want to take our Phookas?" the big Erassva asked, blinking his eyes a half-dozen times as he stared at Jack. "But why?"

"Because there are bad men who want to hurt them," Jack said for the third time. "I want to take them into the forest where they'll be safer."

"But why would anyone want to hurt them?" the big Erassva persisted, still blinking. "They don't hurt anyone."

"I know that," Jack said. "As I said, these are bad men."

One of Hren's hands slipped into his robe and began restlessly stroking his shoulder where the K'da head draped over his skin. "Yet you are a good man?"

"I try," Jack said, feeling sweat collecting beneath his collar. They didn't have time for this. "You have to believe me when I say I care as much about your Phookas as you do."

Hren shook his head slowly. "They cannot go alone," he said, his forehead creased with concentration. "Not even with you."

"Yes, I know," Jack said. "I'll also need ten Erassvas to come with us. Maybe you'd be willing to be one of them?"

For a long moment Hren stood without speaking, still stroking his K'da as he gazed out into space. Then, abruptly, the look of concentration disappeared. "Then we must go at once," he said, hauling his bulk to his feet. "I will gather the other"—he held out his hands, frowning hard at the fingers—"the other nine," he concluded. "We will meet you there." He pointed to the far side of the clearing, where Jack could see the entrance to another path.

"Thank you," Jack said. "One other thing. My friend Alison must not be allowed to see how the Phookas come onto and off of your skin."

"Why not?"

"Because she won't understand," Jack told him. "The whole thing may terrify her, and cause her to abandon us and run off. We can't let that happen, for her sake as well as ours. Can you make sure the Phookas and other Erassvas understand that?"

Hren eyed Jack closely. "You have many secrets, young Jack," he said. "Perhaps too many. Very well. I will make the arrangements."

Alison was still standing where Jack had left her. "Well?"

"He's coming," Jack said, grabbing his pack and hoisting it onto his back. Settling it in place, he walked over to a pair of K'da who were probing with their muzzles at the base of a patch of reedy plants. "And he's bringing a few more of the Erassvas to help."

"To help with what?" she called after him. "Breaking trail?"

"They'll meet us at that path," Jack said, ignoring the comment. The two K'da, he saw now, were busily gobbling down some small lizards they'd flushed from the reeds. "Okay, Phookas," he said soothingly, waving his hands in a sweeping motion that probably looked as ridiculous as it felt. "Time to go. Come on—that way."

The two dragons paused in their meal long enough to bring their heads up and look blankly at him. Then, without budging an inch, they returned their attention to the lizards. "Draycos?" Jack muttered. "You people have a 'mush' command or something?"

"Try pulling gently against their crests, at the point where they descend from the back of the head down the neck," Draycos suggested.

"Okay," Jack said doubtfully. Stepping between the two K'da, he got a hand behind each of their crests. Trying not to think about Uncle Virgil's old warning about never bothering a dog when it was eating, he gingerly applied some pressure.

The two K'da looked up again, and Jack had the distinct feeling that they were mildly surprised at the liberty he was taking with them. But neither seemed inclined to run or, more important, to bite.

"A little harder," Draycos said.

Setting his teeth. Jack did so. This time, to his amazement, the K'da stood upright and began walking in the direction he was pulling. "I'll be fraggled," he muttered, keeping the pressure steady as he settled in between them.

"So that's the technique, huh?" Alison said from behind him.

"It'll do for a start." Jack said, looking around. Unfortunately, it was going to take way too long to get sixty K'da moving this way. "What we need is the head Phooka," he said, searching his memory. Uncle Virgil had often used animal and nature examples and analogies in his training. "The bellwether, I think it's called."

"The one everyone else follows," Alison said, nodding. "Great. Any idea how we figure out which one that is?"

"Give me a minute," Jack said, doing a slow turn to give Draycos a good look. "Mm?" he murmured toward his shoulder.

"There," Draycos murmured, his tongue lifting slightly from Jack's skin to point at a large emerald green K'da with three smaller dragons of different colors following closely behind him. "Try him."

"Let's try him," Jack said, pointing to the green dragon.

"I'll go," Alison volunteered. "You might as well get those two on the path."

She headed off. "Jack, I must speak to you," Draycos said as the boy got his two K'da moving again. "We cannot follow Alison's plan of hiding in the foothills."

"Why not?" Jack asked.

Draycos hesitated. "Because there is a chance the Essenay is still intact and functional."

Jack felt his chest tighten. "Why didn't you say so before?" he demanded.

"I tried, but you gave me no opportunity," the dragon said. "Do you remember my telling Uncle Virge to use the Saga of Fristra?"

Jack nodded. "You called out one of your fancy K'da maneuvers, then said that."

"Correct," Draycos said. "Fristra was a young Shontin who was trapped by enemies at the edge of a grassy cliff. With no other hope of escape, he set fire to the grass, and under cover of the smoke leaped into the river below."

"That last explosion, and then the ship disappeared," Jack said slowly, thinking back. "And he was just about over the river, wasn't he?"

"Yes," Draycos said. "The questions are two. First, could the Essenay survive such a dive into the water? And second, would it be able to conceal itself afterward from the transport's sensors?"

"Yes to the first, I think," Jack said, his pulse pounding with new hope. He should have known Uncle Virge wouldn't have gone so easily. "The Essenay was pretty tough to begin with, and Uncle Virgil put a lot of money into building it up. And I'd say a probable yes to the second, too. You've seen the chameleon hull-wrap in action. It's as close to invisibility as you can get."

"Yes, I know," Draycos said. "My question was whether the hull-wrap would work in water, or whether there would be some sort of bubble effect that would be detected."

"No idea," Jack admitted. They reached the edge of the clearing and he shifted grips on his two K'da to guide them through the opening in the bushes. "As far as I know, Uncle Virgil never tried hiding in water. But remember how busy that river is. All chat churning white water and floating silt would work in his favor."

"Agreed," Draycos said. "Then we are left with only the question of what precisely Uncle Virge will do once Colonel Frost turns his attention to us."

"Well, he won't just charge to the rescue, that's for sure," Jack said, chewing at his lower lip. "That Kapstan can probably outgun him four to one. My guess is that he'll stay underwater and try to move downriver."

He looked down at his chest. "Which is why you don't want to hole up in the foothills, isn't it?" he said with sudden understanding. "You want us to make for the river and try to link up with the Essenay there."

"Exactly," Draycos said. "Provided Alison's friends don't arrive first, of course."

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to hold my breath on that one," Jack said grimly, trying to remember the geography they'd seen on their way in. The river cut straight through the middle of the forest, which meant that as long as they kept going north they were bound to hit it.

That was the good news. The bad news was that he also remembered it being a good fifty-mile trek.

Fifty miles of unknown territory and unknown dangers, with sixty barely sentient K'da and ten wide-bodied Erassvas to drag along with them.

"Gangway." Alison's voice came from behind him. Jack turned, and saw her guide the green dragon through the bushes.

And behind them in more or less single file was the rest of the herd.

The herd. Jack felt an unpleasant shiver run through him. Draycos had so often pointed out what a proud and noble people the K'da were. Yet here, through some horrible twist of fate, they'd been reduced to something no better than animals.

Maybe Draycos had been right. Maybe they would be better off dead.

"Well?" Alison prompted.

Jack took a deep breath. "Right," he said. Stepping to the other side of the green dragon, Jack got a grip on the K'da's crest. "Let's go."

The first hundred yards were easy. The Erassvas had obviously been all through this area; the path meandered around in what Jack was starring to realize was typical Erassva fashion. A dozen somewhat narrower trails led off the main path in various directions where one or two of the big aliens had gone exploring for berries and other food.

At the end of that hundred yards, though, the trail came to an abrupt halt at the edge of a twenty-foot cliff. "Well, we needed to head west sometime anyway," Alison said as she and Jack surveyed the drop-off. "Let's go back to that last left-hand bunny trail and see how far it'll take us."

"Sounds good," Jack agreed. He hadn't had a chance yet to tell her about the change in their travel plans, but there would be time for that once they'd gotten past this cliff. "Go ahead and check it out. I'll bring Greenie and follow—"

"Jack?" Colonel Frost's voice came suddenly from his left shoulder. "Can you hear me?"

"Don't answer," Alison said sharply.

"I know," Jack said, double-checking that the comm clip's transmitter was still off.

"I know you can hear me Jack," Frost went on. "I'm sorry about your uncle—I really am. Please believe me when I say that we really did want him alive. But he took one gamble too many. I'm afraid he and your ship are both gone."

Jack set his teeth firmly down on his tongue. Frost was trying to goad him into talking, he knew, hoping for some anguished cry of anger or denial or defiance that could be traced.

But he wasn't going to fall for it. Draycos's trick had worked, he told himself firmly, and the Essenay was safe. It had to be.

"Just one of the many hazards of carrying missiles aboard a ship that was never designed for them," Frost said. "Those were highly illegal for you to have, by the way."

Jack looked surreptitiously at Alison. She was gazing back at him, a thoughtful look on her face that he didn't care for at all.

"Sadly, there's nothing any of us can do about that now," Frost said. "Except, of course, to make sure you and your K'da don't suffer his same fate."

"Better turn it off," Alison said. "Out here in the middle of nowhere, even electronics as small as a comm clip can sometimes be detected."

"Yeah, that part of Sergeant Grisko's training I remember," Jack said. He switched off the comm clip, cutting Frost off in midsentence. "We'd better get out of here."

"Right," Alison said. "You take Greenie and get everybody moving down the path. I'll hang back a ways and play rear guard."

Beneath Jack's shirt, K'da claws brushed lightly but urgency at Jack's skin. "Better idea: you take them," he said, thinking fast. "Now that we're out of the main Erassva stomping grounds, I can go ahead and set that booby trap I was going to use earlier."

A slight frown creased her forehead, but she nodded. "Okay, but don't be too long," she said. Getting a grip on the green K'da's crest, she turned him around and started maneuvering her way back though the crowd of K'da and Erassvas that had gathered behind them.

"Is something wrong?" Hren asked as Alison and Greenie reached the side trail and started along it. He didn't seem particularly worried, merely curious.

"A small change in direction," Jack assured him as he passed the other. "Stay with Alison and help her keep the Phookas together."

"I will," Hren promised.

Jack reached the back of the crowd and continued on. A wide S-curve later he was out of their sight. "Okay, buddy, we're on," he murmured.

There was a surge of weight against his shoulders, and Draycos leaped out of his shirt. "What is the plan?" the dragon asked, his gold scales glistening in the sunlight filtering through the mass of branches high above them.

"The plan is to keep Frost and his band of pirates from catching us," Jack told him grimly. "I just wish I really had something to use as a booby trap, like Alison thinks I have."

"You do," Draycos said. "You have me."

"Yeah, I figured you'd say that," Jack said grimly. "Problem is, they know about you now. That means no more sneak attacks."

"Perhaps," Draycos said calmly. He rose partially up on his hind legs, his neck stretching upward as he tried to look past the bushes and branches. His tongue flicked in and out of his mouth a few times as he smelled the air. "I may yet have a few surprises for them. What will you do while I am gone?"

Jack made a face at the other's implied order that he stay back here where it would be safer. But Draycos was right. He hardly needed Jack's help at this sort of thing, and the boy would just be in the way. "I thought I'd try to hide the spot where we left the path," he said.

"Good," Draycos said. "I will be as quick as I can."

Turning, he headed back toward the clearing, moving like a whisper of breeze through the grass and bushes.

Taking a deep breath, Jack moved to the side of the path and began gathering loose branches and small shrubs to hide their path. "Warrior's luck," he murmured to the empty air.