Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (28 page)

The even bigger question was whether they could get up there to
find out.

"The entire wall's about thirty feet tall, which puts that wave
trough between twenty and twenty-five," Alison went on. "First thing to
do is see if you can jump that high."

"I'll try." Crouching down, Taneem gathered herself and leaped.

Alison held her breath. The K'da soared upward, and with a faint
scrabbling of claw against ceramic she caught the edge of the wave. For
a second she hung there, then stirred and pulled herself up and
disappeared into the trough.

Alison looked around. There were no aircars or other ground
vehicles visible. Apparently, her escape was still undiscovered.

Which wasn't surprising, actually. Frost was busy organizing the
Semaline attack force, and Alison doubted that anyone else in the house
knew about his order to kill her. Until the colonel started wondering
why Dumbarton and Mrishpaw hadn't shown up to give him the good news
about her death, she was unlikely to be missed.

There was a flicker of motion, and she looked over as Taneem
dropped again to the ground. "I think there is enough room for us," she
reported. "Though it is filthy with feathers and bird droppings."

"That's okay," Alison assured her. "Now the big question: can you
carry me that high?"

"No," Taneem said, ducking her head apologetically. "I could lift
you perhaps half that distance, but not the entire way."

Alison chewed at her lip. Desperate needs, the old saying
whispered through her mind, called for desperate measures. "Halfway it
is," she said. "Help me get Dumbarton and Mrishpaw out of the car."

It took some creative maneuvering, plus a lot of grunting, but
within a few minutes Alison and Taneem had the two mercenaries out and
settled under one of the nearby shrubs. "Here's the plan," Alison said,
doing a quick search of the unconscious bodies. Neither was carrying a
gun, but Mrishpaw had a slapstick belted at his side. Pulling it from
its holster, she held it up. "We're going to back the car up a ways and
get in. I'm going to wedge the accelerator with this, and we'll charge
full-bore toward the wall."

"
Toward
the wall?" Taneem asked, her neck arching.

"Straight toward it," Alison confirmed. "With the wall curved that
way we should run up along it like a Great Galaxy Romp roller coaster
heading into a crazyloop. You'll be holding on to me, and when the
car's at its highest point, you'll jump us toward the lip. If we do it
right, we should land nice and neat inside the trough."

Taneem's tail was lashing agitatedly at the air. "I can't do
that," she said, her voice trembling. "No. I can't."

"We have to try," Alison said firmly. "We don't know the grounds.
The Brummgas do. They'll know about any other place we might find to
hide. This is the only spot they might not think of."

"But we could be killed." Taneem looked up at the frozen white
wave above them. "Draycos could do it—he has the strength and skill.
But I'm not like him. I can't."

"Taneem." Reaching over, Alison put her hand on the side of the
K'da's snout and pulled her head gently around to face her. "Earlier
today, I didn't think I could figure out the safe," she said. "But you
had faith in me, and I did it. Well, I have faith in
you
. You
can do this. I know you can."

Taneem's glowing silver eyes stared unblinkingly into hers. Alison
held her gaze, mentally crossing her fingers. Then, the K'da gave a
little sigh. "What was it Uncle Virge said back there?"

" 'You're out of your apple-buttered mind'?"

"That was it." Taneem sighed again. "Very well. Live or die, we
will try it."

Alison ran the car fifty yards back and pointed it at the wall.
"We'll aim to hit it at a slight angle," she told Taneem as she found a
good spot to wedge the slapstick against the accelerator. "That way,
it'll hopefully go flying a different direction than we do."

"That would probably be best," Taneem agreed from behind her, a
hint of dark humor peeking through the tension in her voice.

Alison smiled to herself. Taneem was still young, and still very
much unsure of herself. But she had spirit, and she had courage.

Actually, in many ways she reminded Alison of herself.

"Okay," Alison said, pulling her feet up into a crouch on the seat
and reaching down with the slapstick. "Ready?"

Taneem wrapped her forelegs tightly around Alison's chest beneath
her arms. "Ready."

Bracing herself, Alison jammed the slapstick against the
accelerator.

The car leaped forward. Alison steered with one hand, holding
herself steady against the dashboard with the other.

The wall rushed toward them. Letting go of the wheel, Alison
grabbed tightly to Taneem's forelegs. If this didn't work . . .

And with a crunch of metal and plastic, they hit the wall.

The car leaped upward beneath them, the force throwing Alison off
balance and nearly tossing her out of the vehicle. The wall and land
and sky twisted dizzyingly, and she was yanked off her feet as Taneem
leaped. For a frozen fraction of a second she seemed to be drifting
through the air, feeling her body turning sideways. The pressure of the
K'da forelegs around her torso abruptly vanished—

With a teeth-rattling thud against her back and legs and head, she
slammed against something hard.

And as the stars cleared away from her vision, she found herself
looking down at the ground far below.

"Taneem?" she croaked. The word came out with a grunt of pain; she
hadn't realized just how hard she'd hit the ceramic.

"Here," Taneem's voice came from her shoulder. "I realized
suddenly that we would not both fit side by side."

"Good thinking," Alison said. The words came out easier this time.
Carefully shifting her throbbing shoulder blades, she took stock of her
situation.

Taneem had been right about there being enough room up here. But
only just barely. Instead of lying flat in the trough, as Alison had
expected, she found herself lying mostly on her right side with her
body angling backward against the upwardly curving part of the wall.

It wasn't nearly as stable a position as she'd hoped for. As it
was, leaning just a little too far forward would move her center of
mass over the edge, and she would be on her way to the ground twenty
feet below and either a broken back or a full set of broken ribs.

Worse, lying half upright like this also meant she wasn't as well
hidden as she'd hoped to be. Someone standing at the very base of the
wall and looking up would have no trouble seeing that
something
was up here.

But with their stolen car now lying upside down at the base of the
wall a dozen feet away it was too late to change plans. The noise of
the crash had probably triggered alarms all the way back to the house,
and within minutes hordes of ugly Brummgas would be converging on this
spot.

Within minutes, hordes of ugly Brummgas were.

There was nothing subtle about their arrival, either. They swarmed
in full force, with lights and noise and ground cars and the sounds of
air support overhead. Most of them were Brummgas, but there was a
scattering of humans among them.

Including Gazen, the slavemaster she'd had her run-in with a few
nights ago. He wandered around the edge of the activity, his posture
one of brooding watchfulness. He had his snub-nosed laser rifle slung
in military ready position over his shoulder.

For perhaps ten minutes the guards wandered around the area,
examining the car and the tire tracks on the wall, their big feet
stomping over any of the more subtle clues Alison might have left
behind. One of them spotted Dumbarton and Mrishpaw, and the center of
activity shifted for a minute while they bundled the unconscious
mercenaries into one of the cars and sent them back to the house.

Their attention returned to the wall and car for another few
minutes. Then, at a command from one of the humans, they split into two
groups, one heading north toward the slave area, the other heading
south toward the gate.

One of the humans stayed where he was, standing by the overturned
car. As the noise of Brummgan feet faded into the night, Alison could
hear him talking softly on his comm clip.

"—thought she could ram it through the wall, I suppose," he said.
"Pretty stupid. Or just desperate . . . No, I sent them out in both
directions. Whichever way she went, she has to be on foot. Shouldn't be
too hard to pick up . . . Yes, sir, I told them you wanted her alive if
possible."

The man glanced to the side as another figure came into Alison's
view beneath the overhang. It was Gazen, still wandering thoughtfully
around. "No, sir, no sign of anyone else . . . Yes, sir, I'll keep you
posted." He touched his comm clip, turning it off.

"You're wrong, you know," Gazen told him. "He's here."

"Who, Morgan?" The other man snorted. "That would be a neat trick."

"Morgan specializes in neat tricks," Gazen countered mildly.

"Well, if he's here, we'll get him," the other promised, his voice
dark. "We'll get both of them."

"And the dragon?" Gazen asked.

"Him, too." The other gave an audible sniff. "Unless you'd rather
we save him for you."

"Don't worry about it," Gazen said. His voice was still mild, but
Alison could hear a grim anticipation lurking beneath it. "When he
shows himself the next time, I'll be there."

"Yeah," the other man said. "Whatever." Brushing past Gazen, he
disappeared out of Alison's sight. A moment later she heard the sound
of a car heading north.

Gazen remained where he was, watching the other's departure. Then,
slowly, he turned around in a complete circle. Once, he glanced up
toward the wall's overhang, and Alison tensed. But he was looking above
the spot where the car had crashed, and there was nothing there for him
to see. "Come on out, dragon," he murmured aloud as he lowered his eyes
again. "Come on out. Time to play."

Alison felt Taneem stirring against her skin. Gazen stood there a
moment longer, then turned and headed north. He passed almost directly
beneath Alison and disappeared, his footsteps fading into the night
murmurs.

Alison silently counted out fifteen minutes. "Taneem?" she
whispered at last.

A bit of weight came onto her shoulder, and a K'da tongue flicked
past her cheek. "He's gone," Taneem confirmed. "All of them are gone."

Alison took a careful breath. "Well," she whispered. "It worked."

"It would seem so," Taneem agreed cautiously. "What now?"

Alison chewed at her lip. They certainly couldn't stay here
forever. "Hang on," she said. "I'm going to try something."

Carefully, she started to lift her knees. The movement shifted her
center of mass toward the edge, and for a second she thought she was
going to fall. Hastily, she put her legs back down. She waited a moment
for her heart to settle down again, then tried lifting just one knee.

Again, her center of mass shifted, but not nearly as far or as
alarmingly. Drawing the knee toward her chest as far as she dared, she
planted it against the inside of the lip and carefully pushed.

It worked. As she straightened her leg, the rest of her body moved
a few inches down the trough. "There we go," she told Taneem, trying to
keep her voice light. "It's not fast, but it'll get us there."

"Where will it get us?"

"To the slave areas," Alison said. "That's our best chance of
finding food and shelter until the Malison Ring reinforcements Uncle
Virge called get here."

"But won't the Brummgas search that area?"

"Trust me," Alison said grimly as she pushed herself another few
inches north. "At the rate we're going, they'll have had time to search
the whole place twice before we get there." She screwed up her nose as
a small feather tickled her face. "I just hope we're not pushing out a
trail of feathers even the Patri Chookoock could follow."

"They are surely used to seeing feathers below the wall," Taneem
pointed out. "And there should be enough breeze to keep them spread
out."

"If not, there's nothing we can do about it," Alison said. "And
there's always the chance they won't even bother looking very hard for
me. Now that Neverlin has what he wants, he and Frost could easily be
gone by morning."

"With the information they need to destroy Draycos's people."

Alison winced. That was, unfortunately, the downside to this whole
thing. "We've got over a month before they arrive," she reminded
Taneem. "And there's still one safe that has all of that same
information. We just have to figure out how to get to it."

"There are many parts of this that I don't understand," Taneem
said. "But you have never lied to me before. I will trust you."

Alison gazed out into the night, her throat tight. "Thank you,"
she managed. "We'd better stop talking now. If we happen on any
patrols, it would be nice if we know it before they do."

Privately, Draycos had expected it to be at least a week before
the Golvin guards relaxed their watchfulness enough for him to risk
another midnight excursion. To his mild surprise—and to Jack's obvious
relief—barely two nights later, the K'da judged the time was right.

Man, are these guys amateurs
, Jack's scornful thought
echoed through Draycos's mind as the boy peeked out between the doorway
streamers.

Draycos lifted his head from Jack's shoulder, brushing aside the
partially open shirt with his snout. The two Golvins were seated side
by side at the foot of the bridge, clearly visible in the moonlight,
paying no real attention to the area around them as they chatted
casually together in low voices. Their small bows rested against the
sides of the bridge, the quivers propped alongside them.
I told you
these weren't a warrior people
, he reminded Jack.