Dragonback 04 Dragon and Herdsman (3 page)

Jack took a careful breath. There was no way of knowing whether or
not the trick had been successful. Still, it had felt about the same as
the time it had happened accidentally. He hoped that meant Draycos was
all right.

Jack had just moved away from the wall when, across the room, the
two guards quietly collapsed onto the floor.

Jack stared at them in disbelief. Draycos hadn't even made it out
of the office yet. How could he have—?

And then, as Jack's suddenly sluggish brain tried to figure it
out, he caught a hint of a familiar odor wafting toward him.

Someone was pumping sopor mist into the room.

Jack twisted back around, holding his breath as he pounded three
quick times against the sidewall. If he and Draycos fell asleep before
they could get back together, the commandant wouldn't need Neverlin or
anyone else to tell him something strange was going on.

Jack had lifted his hand to hit the wall again when the universe
went dark.

The room beside Jack's cell was a cramped junior staffers' office,
with desks and chairs for three people and a single window opening out
the rear of the building. Draycos had only just started looking for
something to attract the guards' attention when he heard Jack's
pounding on the wall.

He leaped across the room and pressed one ear against the door.
Had the mercenaries decided to begin the interrogation?

And then, seeping in under the door, he caught a whiff of
something he'd smelled once back at the Whinyard's Edge training camp.
It was sopor gas, a weapon used to put enemies to sleep.

Quickly, he took a deep breath, filling his lungs to full capacity
before the gas could become thick enough to affect him. Then,
carefully, he eased the door open a crack.

The two guards across the outer room were already asleep, lying
crumpled on the floor. No one else was visible. Frowning, he pulled the
door the rest of the way open and slipped around the corner to look
into the cell. Jack was alone, and fast asleep.

There was no time now to try to figure out what was going on. He
had to get Jack out of here, and the sleeping guards across the outer
room were his best chance of doing that. If one of them had a key, he
could perhaps get Jack out through the office window before he himself
ran out of air.

He was crouching for a leap across the room when there was a click
and the outer double doors began to swing open.

Draycos twisted around, darting instead back into the office. He
flicked his tail at the edge of the door as he passed, trying to swing
it closed.

But he missed, and then it was too late. He felt the subtle air
currents as the far door swung all the way open, and heard the soft
sounds of someone jogging quickly toward Jack's cell.

For a moment the footsteps seemed to falter. Then, they continued
on.

Only now they seemed to be coming straight toward the half-open
office door.

There was no time for anything clever. Draycos leaped to the far
side of one of the desks, landing as silently as he could. He wormed
his body past the chair and ducked out of sight.

He was barely in time. The steps paused, and the office door swung
all the way open.

Draycos froze in place. Now, too late, he wondered if the intruder
might have an infrared scanner that would penetrate the material of the
desk. The other stood in the doorway for perhaps five seconds, and
Draycos caught the slightly sinister hiss of a full-helmet gas mask.
Then, to his relief, the footsteps headed away toward Jack's cell.

Silently, Draycos rose from his hiding place and padded back to
the door. With the other's full attention on Jack, it was time for him
to make his move. He eased one eye around the edge of the door—

And felt his tail stiffen in stunned surprise.

It wasn't Arthur Neverlin or one of his Brummgan thugs, as he'd
first feared. Nor was it some local Malison Ring soldier who'd decided
to go ahead and start Jack's interrogation on his own. It was, instead,
possibly the last person Draycos would ever have expected to see again.

It was Alison Kayna.

A kaleidoscope of memories rippled through his mind as he ducked
back out of sight. Alison had been the very best of the teenaged
recruits whom Jack had joined in his infiltration of the Whinyard's
Edge. She'd been smart, resourceful, and far more skilled than a raw
recruit should have been. Especially one who was no older than Jack
himself.

She and Jack had also been among the handful of those recruits
who'd been marked for death. Only by working together had they managed
to escape.

Now, against all odds, here she was in the middle of a Malison
Ring office.

And for some reason she was trying to get to Jack.

The cell door snicked open. Draycos cased forward for another
look, his brain and muscles frozen with indecision. He didn't have
nearly enough air left for a long fight. But if Alison intended to harm
his host, it was Draycos's duty to do whatever he could to prevent that.

Yet why would Alison want to hurt Jack?

There was another rustle of cloth, and Alison emerged from the
cell, Jack's sleeping form slung over her shoulder in a variant of a
Shontine hunter's lift. Staggering a little under his weight, she
hurried toward the exit.

There was no way Draycos could follow them out, at least not
without Alison spotting him. Fortunately, it also didn't look as if she
intended Jack any immediate harm. That she could have done right there
in the cell.

Which suggested that she'd come in here to help him escape.

There were a lot of questions Draycos didn't have answers for. But
the ache in his lungs was an urgent reminder that he wouldn't be
answering questions or doing anything else if he didn't get himself to
fresh air.

A quick slash of his claws shredded the lock mechanism on the
office window. It probably also set off a dozen alarms, but he doubted
now that anyone in the building was in any condition to hear them. A
tug on the sash and he was outside. Hitting the ground, he spun around
and leaped upward onto the roof.

He paused there a moment to gasp in a few lungfuls of air. Then he
set off toward the front of the building, wondering if there were other
security cameras up here besides the four he'd dealt with.

But whether there were or not, he had no time to look for them. If
Alison got Jack to a vehicle before he could overtake her, he might
never see the boy again. Certainly not before his six-hour time limit
ended and he died.

Fortunately, a burdened fourteen-year-old girl was considerably
slower than an unburdened K'da. Draycos was at the parapet, searching
the street and nearby buildings for signs of trouble, when Alison and
Jack emerged through the front door.

There was a car parked in front of the building, a vehicle that
hadn't been there when he and Jack had broken in. Alison hurried over
to it, opened the back door, and rolled Jack off her shoulder onto the
backseat. One of his legs twitched a couple of times, then kicked out
to flop limply over the edge of the seat. Alison maneuvered it back
inside and closed the door, then went around behind the car to the
driver's side. With one last look around, she got in and reached for
her door handle.

And Draycos leaped.

The timing had to be perfect, he knew, and once he was in the air
there was nothing he could do to alter that timing. But warrior's luck
was with him. Precisely as Alison slammed her door, he landed on top of
the car, absorbing as much of the impact with his legs as he could.

He froze, muscles tensed, waiting for her to realize that the door
had slammed with far more sound and vibration than usual. But with her
full-helmet gas mask still in place, she apparently didn't notice.
There was a hum as she activated the engine, and the car sped off into
the night.

Draycos flattened himself against the roof, closing his eyes to
slits to protect them from the wind rushing against his face. Digging
his claws into the roof as deep as he dared, he held on. If any of
Avrans City's citizens were wandering the streets at this hour, they
were in for a remarkable sight.

Even if they weren't, he was already running out of time. Alison
was driving straight toward the spaceport, and even at this hour the
port would be bustling with people.

He had until they arrived to get out of sight.

Easing the tip of his tail over the edge of the roof beside the
rear window, he rubbed it across the plastic. Those leg twitches he'd
seen had suggested that Jack was starting to wake up. If so, this
should work.

If not, they were in trouble.

Something soft slammed up against Jack's back, and with a rather
foggy jolt he woke up.

He opened his eyes to find himself staring in partial darkness at
an even darker curved surface no more than three feet from his face. He
tried to move his legs, and got a second shock as someone grabbed one
of them and pushed it toward him. There was a slamming sound from that
direction.

And then, all the blurry strangeness came into focus. He was lying
on his back on the rear scat of a car, his knees pushed up toward his
chest. Someone had apparently taken him out of the Malison Ring cell,
and they were about to make a run for it.

Without Draycos?

Jack caught his breath, his hand darting into the opening of his
shirt. The last thing he remembered was dropping the dragon through the
cell wall into the office. Then the sopor mist had come in. . . .

Jack swiveled around onto his side, trying to force numb muscles
to push himself into a sitting position. If he could get the door open,
he might be able to get back in there and find his partner.

Too late. A shadowy figure opened the driver's door and climbed in
behind the wheel, slamming the door hard enough to shake the whole
vehicle. "Wait!" Jack said, his hand fumbling for the handle.

"Relax," a girl's voice came from the front seat. She pulled off a
full-helmet gas mask and tossed it onto the seat beside her.

And Jack felt his mouth drop open. "
Alison
?"

"You were expecting the tooth fairy?" Alison Kayna countered.
"Hang on."

She keyed the engine, and with a lurch they were off. "Wait a
second," Jack protested, trying to get his brain working. If they left
Draycos behind, the K'da would be dead in six hours. "We have to—I
mean, I wasn't done in there."

"Trust me—you were done," Alison countered. "Or do you really want
to be in there when their air system finishes cleaning out the sopor
mist?"

"No, but—" Jack broke off as something flicked past the corner of
his eye. He turned to look just as the end of a whiplike K'da tail
brushed against the top of the plastic.

So that was why the car door had slammed so hard. Most of the
sound and vibration had actually been that of a K'da poet-warrior
landing on the roof.

Clever. Now it was time for Jack to be equally clever and get the
dragon inside.

Fortunately, this one was a no-brainer. "Oh, geez," Jack said,
fumbling at the window release. "Open the window—quick."

"What's the matter?" Alison asked, frowning back over her shoulder.

"I don't feel so good," he said, putting a little grunt on the
last word. "Just get it open."

"Yeah, yeah, right," she said, her shoulder moving as she hit the
control.

The window rolled down, and Jack leaned his head outside. As he
did, he gripped the top of the door with his right hand as if steadying
himself.

And felt Draycos grab the back of his hand and melt onto his skin.

They were safe again. At least for now.

He held his pose another few seconds, just for show, then pulled
his head back inside. "Okay," he said, slumping onto the seat cushions.
"False alarm."

"I'll leave it open anyway" Alison said pointedly.

"Fine," Jack said. "So what in blazes are you doing here?"

"That was
my
question," she countered. "Are you
trying
to make a career out of messing up my life?"

"Seems to me the last time I saw you I was helping
save
your life," Jack growled, annoyed in spite of himself.

"You have an interesting memory," she said. "The way
I
remember it, you didn't do anything for me I couldn't have done myself."

A set of K'da claws pressed in silent warning against Jack's ribs.
He grimaced, but the dragon was right. This wasn't the time for an
argument. "Yeah, whatever," he said. "So how exactly did I mess things
up for you this time?"

"I was trying to join the Malison Ring," she said. "In fact, I was
having my final interview with them yesterday when I overheard someone
saying you'd been spotted in the area."

"And you didn't think about maybe warning me?"

"I would, if I'd known where to find you," she said. "The last
thing I wanted was for them to catch you and start asking questions,
especially about your time in the Whinyard's Edge. So I came by
tonight, hoping I could stop you before you walked into their trap."

"So what happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened?" she retorted. "I was waiting
for you in back, that's what happened. I never figured you'd be crazy
enough to walk in the front door."

Jack grimaced. "Yeah. Well . . . sorry."

She shrugged. "I'll live," she said. "Can I drop you somewhere?"

"I've got a ship at the port," he said. "Docking slot E-7."

She nodded. "Fine."

For a few minutes they rode in silence. Jack wanted to ask Draycos
if he was all right but couldn't risk Alison overhearing his
mutterings. Still, from the way the K'da had moved along Jack's skin,
he certainly seemed to be unhurt.

Ahead, Jack could see the elaborately carved archway marking the
entrance to the spaceport. "Keep an eye out for large men with guns,"
he warned.