Dragonback 04 Dragon and Herdsman (20 page)

"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 grimly. "I shall
be back as quickly as I can."

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.