Dragon and Slave

CHAPTER 7

Draycos waited until everyone in the long hut was asleep. Then, sliding off Jack's arm, he dropped to the rough wood of the floor. Senses alert, he padded silently between the rows of cots to the door.

The door had been left open a few inches for ventilation. He looked carefully at the door jamb, mindful of the sorts of alarms and tripwires he and Jack had found in the gatekeeper's house. But there was nothing like that here.

He poked his head halfway through the gap and stood motionless for a minute, watching and listening and tasting the outside air. There were no guards or patrols nearby, at least none he could detect. Shouldering the door open, he slipped down the steps and out into the night.

There were no outside lights, either. But between the starlight and the glow in the sky from the city to their west, there was enough light for K'da eyes to see by.

There was an even brighter glow coming from the direction of the slaveowners'

mansion. Draycos bared his teeth toward it, the tip of his tail twitching with contempt and disgust. Every thread of his being longed to take on the Chookoock family and their despicable slave trade.

But this was not the time to bring justice to these people. His task tonight was much simpler: to learn the enemy's territory. He began with the slave colony itself, circling each of the two long sleeping huts and then briefly nosing around the other buildings. In one of the smaller structures he could hear running water and the sounds of someone moving around.

Maerlynn, he decided, sacrificing some of her precious sleep time to wash Jack's clothing. The other buildings all seemed to be deserted.

Next, he extended his search beyond the buildings, moving out in a standard spiral pattern. Remembering their aerial survey from the Essenay, he made a point of watching for concealed guard posts, especially in the forest areas.

Again, nothing. He ran across an occasional hut nestled into the trees along the way, each one about three times the size of last night's hotbox. But there was no scent of Brummga near any of them. It was as if the Chookoock family, having purchased these people's bodies and minds and souls, simply expected them to stay where they'd been put.

On the other hand, he had to admit, where else was there for them to go?

The nearest section of the perimeter wall was to the northwest. He set off through the forest in that direction, running lightly across the matted leaves, dodging around trees and bushes. Every hundred paces he stopped to listen and smell for patrols or guard stations. But still there was nothing.

The ground near the wall included several rolling hills. Choosing one that would give him a good view, he moved to the edge and climbed the tallest tree he could find. If his estimate was correct, he should now be high enough to look down on the wall and into the center of the curving X-shape. Moving carefully out onto one of the upper branches, he pushed aside the leaves.

And got his first really good look at the barrier he and Jack were going to have to cross.

It was every bit as impressive as he'd expected. The antiaircraft lasers Uncle Virge had warned them about were there, all right. He could see the larger lenses of long-range weapons set into the white ceramic every ten feet or so, with the smaller lenses of shorter-range lasers arrayed between them. Between the lasers were long, narrow grooves that were most likely the flame jets Uncle Virge had also mentioned.

Long-range lasers for high-flying aircraft. Short-range lasers for smaller, lower-flying vehicles that might try to slip through the ten-foot gap between the larger weapons. And flame jets to kill anyone who tried to simply climb over the wall.

The Brummgas seemed to have covered all their bets here. But as Uncle Virge might say, that only meant it was time to cheat.

Because if the fire from the flame jets could be blocked, even for a single minute, Jack might have time to scramble over without harm. And in a forest, the obvious candidate for such a barrier was a tree.

He worked his way around to a different side of his tree and studied the edge of the forest. But no. The Brummgas had been smart enough to cut back the forest along the whole length of the wall. Not very far, but far enough. No one would be able to chop down a tree and have it fall across the wall.

A pity, too. Barely a hundred yards away he could see a hill that was actually taller than the wall. A tree cut from there would have been perfect.

Or could it still be done?

For another minute he studied the tall hill. If he and Jack cut down one of the trees and rolled it to the base of the wall...

But again, no. Any tree thick enough to block the fire would be too heavy for him to lift to the top of the wall. If Jack still had the climbing gear he'd used at the gatekeeper's house, they might have been able to rig something up.

But Gazen had taken that away with the rest of Jack's burglar equipment. And Draycos somehow doubted he and Jack would have time to search the mansion for it.

Could Uncle Virge do something, then? Use the Essenay to haul a tree trunk or ceramic bar to the top of the wall to block the flame jets? But that assumed the Chookoock family had no defenses against an attacker who was too clever to simply try to fly over their wall. Surely they'd planned for something like that.

Regardless, he couldn't risk the Essenay to find out. So the wall was a dead end. But then, he reminded himself as he climbed head-first down the tree, he'd expected it to be. Time to try a different approach.

Maerlynn had called the barrier between the slaves and the Chookoock family grounds a thorn hedge. With the darkness, and his own limited viewing angle beneath Jack's shirt, Draycos hadn't noticed any thorns as they were driven through the gap the night before. But as he approached the hedge this time he could see that the name was quite accurate.

In fact, the hedge was almost an encyclopedia of thorn types. There were rows and rows of tiny ones, the kind that would snag and tangle clothing. There were extra-long ones, sturdy enough to stab all the way through Jack's palm should he be careless enough to hit it hard enough. And there was just about every other length in between.

Draycos arched his tail as he studied it, marveling at the design. Either the Brummgas had interwoven several different types of thorn bushes and vines together to create the hedge, or else they'd genetically combined all the various thorn types into a single, incredibly nasty plant. Either way, it made for a serious barrier.

He followed the hedge to where it ended against the wall, then traveled its length all the way in the other direction. There were, he discovered, only three openings in the thorns. Two of them were wide gateways, clearly designed for cargo vehicles. They straddled roads that headed into the lumbering and mining areas. Both of those gaps were protected by smaller versions of the metal-and-ceramic gate Gazen had brought them through into the Chookoock family grounds. The third was the smaller gap the Brummgas had driven through on their way to lock Jack into the hotbox.

A gap with no guards and no gate. Open, inviting, and apparently unprotected.

Right.

He eased toward the gap with the same caution he would use in approaching a dozing Valahgua assault battalion. Twenty feet away, he spotted the sensor disks along the sides, half hidden behind clumps of leaves. Another five feet, and he was able to see the connecting wires woven in among the branches. Another five, and he could hear the faint hum of the electronics.

He didn't dare go any closer. Clearly, the opening was a trap, designed to lure in any slave who might be thinking of sneaking into areas where he wasn't supposed to go.

But then, a poet-warrior of the K'da hardly needed to use an opening to get over a ten-foot hedge. Neither did a human boy with a K'da warrior as an ally.

Moving away from the gap, he headed eastward. A hundred yards in that direction was a low bush a few feet from the hedge. Draycos maneuvered his way carefully between bush and hedge, fully aware that the longer thorns might be able to slide between his golden scales and draw blood. Rolling onto his side, he extended his claws and began to cut his way into the hedge.

It was a slow, delicate operation. The hedge was a confused tangle of branches and vines, and he often had to cut each one in three or four places to free the piece he needed to move.

Even trickier was the need to work behind the first layer of branches, leaving that group intact. It might be days before he and Jack were ready to move, and he couldn't afford some sharp-eyed Brummga noticing a growing hole in the hedge.

He couldn't even cut the front layer away, work behind it, then wedge the branches back into place. Most plants changed color or texture after they'd been cut, and that would be as much of a giveaway as an open hole.

He worked for about an hour, until the tingling in his scales warned him that the time was approaching when he would need to return to his host. Stuffing the pieces of hedge he'd cut under another bush, he headed back to the slave colony.

All was as he'd left it, except that the sounds of washing had ceased.

Slipping through the open door of the long hut, he returned to Jack's cot.

The boy was sleeping soundly, his mouth hanging slightly open. Stepping to his side, Draycos touched a forepaw to his hand and slid up his arm in two-dimensional form. He traveled along the arm, toward his usual position across Jack's back, arms, and legs.

And as he did so, there was a soft grunt from the next cot.

He froze in place, his eyes darting that direction. The Dolom girl, Lisssa, was propped up on her elbow. Staring into the darkness in Jack's direction.

Draycos felt his breath catch like ice in his lungs. Had she seen him come in?

Worse, had she seen him climb onto Jack's body?

He held still, silently cursing his carelessness. Yes, he was tired and hungry; but that was no excuse. He had a duty to his people to survive, and to keep his existence a secret.

For a long minute, Lisssa didn't move, either. Then, blinking twice, she lowered herself back onto her cot. A minute later, her slow breathing showed she was again asleep.

Carefully, Draycos finished positioning himself across Jack's back. He still wasn't sure what, if anything, the Dolom had seen, but it now seemed unlikely she had seen anything too obvious. Surely she would have screamed the hut awake if she had.

Wouldn't she?

On the other paw, she was an alien, of a type he had never met or studied.

Perhaps screaming simply wasn't in her species' makeup.

He gave up the effort. Whatever came of this, if anything, it would probably wait until morning. He and Jack would deal with it then.

Nestling himself against Jack's skin, feeling the renewing energy flowing from his host, he fell asleep.