Dragon and Herdsman

Which wasn't to say she wasn't working some private agenda of her own, Jack reminded himself. Somewhere along the line, that agenda could easily branch off from his.

Still, there had been that look on her face when Colonel Frost came on the comm. She apparently didn't want to see him any more than Jack did. "Close enough," he told the dragon, starting forward again. "Let's do it."

"Jack—"

"Later," Jack said as he reached the clearing and again threaded his way through the lethargic Erassvas.

Alison was busily stuffing the contents of the two travel bags into a pair of lightweight backpacks when he reached her. "You get your booby trap set?" she asked.

"Booby crap?"

"Isn't that what you stayed behind for?" she asked, frowning up at him briefly before returning to her sorting. "To slow them down a little?"

"I was going to," Jack lied. Clearly, his brain was still only working at half speed. "But I figured the Erassvas might get caught before Frost's thugs got here."

"Probably right," she conceded. "Maybe we can do something further on. Give me a hand."

"Sure." Jack dropped to his knees and started sorting a pack of ration ban into the two bags.

And as he did so, he felt a breath of hot air on the back of his neck. Twisting his head around, he found himself nose to muzzle with the gray-scaled K'da he'd noticed earlier.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alison snatch her gun from its holster. "Easy," he said quickly. For a long moment the silvery eyes stared into his, as if the K'da was trying to work out who exactly this new creature was and what it was doing in its nice quiet forest. Then, the eyes blinked slowly, and the head turned away, and the K'da wandered off.

Alison let her breath out in a huff. "I sure hope you're right about them being well fed," she said, setting the gun down on the grass beside her.

Jack gazed at the gray dragon as it sniffed along the edge of a fallen tree, an uncomfortable feeling stirring inside him. If Frost was one of Neverlin's partners, he would know all about K'da. Including the fact that Jack had one with him.

Which meant that when Frost and his men saw the Erassvas and their little group of Phookas . . .

"You think we can get this done today?" Alison's voice cut into Jack's musings.

"Sorry." Shaking the thought away, he got back to his packing.

But the thought refused to leave. Frost, Neverlin, the K'da . . . and by the time Jack and Alison had the backpacks sealed, he knew what he had to do.

"Okay," Alison said, hoisting her pack onto her shoulders and bouncing it once to settle it into place. "I thought we'd head west to the foothills we saw from orbit. They looked pretty rocky—there should be some caves in there where we can hole up."

"Sounds good," Jack said, bracing himself. Alison was not going to like this at all. "But we're taking the Phookas with us."

To his mild surprise, she didn't explode in anger or disbelief. She just stood there, one hand gripping her backpack strap, staring at him. "And how exactly do you propose we do that?"

It was, Jack decided, a very good question. Unfortunately, he hadn't yet come up with an answer for it. "I'll go talk to Hren," he said, taking a couple of steps back and turning around. He spotted the big Erassva at the far side of the clearing and headed in that direction.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Draycos asked from his shoulder.

"You want to leave your fellow K'da to the mercenaries?" Jack asked.

"Perhaps they would be better off dead," Draycos muttered, his voice dark.

Jack looked down at him. "You really believe that?"

Draycos sighed, a touch of warm dragon breath across Jack's chest. "No, of course not," he said reluctantly. "What is your plan?"

"Still working on it," Jack said between clenched teeth. Fifty K'da wandering around, plus however many were currently riding their Erassva hosts. Call it sixty or seventy. If he wanted all the K'da, that meant sixty or seventy Erassva hosts as well, all of them bulling their way through the forest. It would leave a trail Frost's men could follow in their sleep.

Unless . . . "Draycos, how long does a K'da have to stay on his host?" he asked.

"He can stay on as long as he wishes," Draycos said, sounding puzzled.

"I know he can," Jack said. "But how long does he have to? An hour? Two hours?"

"No more than an hour to fully recover," Draycos said, suddenly thoughtful. "Perhaps less."

"So that means each Erassva should be able to carry seven K'da," Jack said, trying to work it out in his still-sluggish mind. "One hour on, six hours off."

"Yes, that may work," Draycos said slowly. "Though it would be safer to include a margin of error."

"Okay, we'll put six with each Erassva then," Jack agreed. "Any idea how many there are?"

"Sixty," Draycos said. "I counted them."

"So we'll need ten Erassvas," Jack concluded. "Unless you think I should take a few of them myself."

"We would still need ten Erassvas," Draycos said. "Besides, I must be free to act at any time."