Dragon and Herdsman

There were voices coming from the helmet comm, but it was impossible to make out the words through the ringing in his ears. Pulling off the helmet, he tucked it under his arm and gave his ears a careful rub. His hearing was starting to come back, fortunately. Still rubbing at his ears, he turned toward the north.

And sprawled flat on his back as a pair of glowing silver eyes appeared squarely in front of him.

"Blast it," he muttered, scrambling back to his feet. It was the gray female Phooka, of course, the one Draycos had dubbed Taneem. "Don't do that."

Taneem cocked her head quizzically to the side and started to back up. "Wait a second," Jack said, stepping toward her as an idea started to sift through his still-dazed brain. The soldiers near Alison's position had said they had Draycos pinned up a tree.

But if they now saw Draycos on the ground running away . . .

"I need you to do something for me, Taneem," he said, gingerly cupping his hand under the Phooka's triangular jaw. She twitched a little at his touch but didn't try to pull away. "I need you to run north—that way"—he pointed—"until you find your other people and the Erassvas. Can you do that?"

She cocked her head again, her glowing eyes steady on him. Then, abruptly, she turned and bounded off through the trees.

"Right," Jack muttered under his breath. Whether she'd understood any of that or not, at least she was headed north. Now if she would just keep going past the Malison Ring soldiers and not get distracted by a pretty butterfly, this might work.

He could only hope she would also run past the soldiers fast enough to keep herself from getting shot.

But there was nothing he could do about that now. Settling the helmet back onto his head, trying to listen to the chatter through his still-ringing ears, he headed after her.

There was a flat crack, and even at his distance Draycos felt a ripple of the shock wave roll over his scales. From the sound and the lack of flame, he guessed it had come from a concussion-type grenade.

And it seemed to have come from near the spot where he'd left Jack.

Had the boy been captured?

He hissed in frustration. But whatever had happened to Jack, there wasn't anything Draycos could do about it right now. The soldiers below continued to plaster his tree with gunfire, the machine-gun rounds slowly but steadily chipping away at the edges of the trunk.

So far, Alison's own gunfire was keeping them from leaving their positions and coming around to where they could get a better shot. But sooner or later her weapon would run dry, or reinforcements would arrive, or the hail of metal would simply chew away enough of the tree for them to get to him.

They were making considerable progress toward that last goal, in fact. Already a couple of inches on each side of the trunk had been splintered away, forcing him to tuck his legs more tightly against his body to stay clear. Other rounds were hammering against the back of the tree, and he could only imagine how much more damage was being done back there. Two to three more minutes, if they didn't run out of ammunition, and they would start hitting him.

Unless . . .

He twisted his head around to look upward along the trunk. It was tall enough, he decided, and in the faint and sputtering light of the gunfire it looked like the top section was leaning the right way.

There was one way to find out for sure. Turning to face downward again, he made sure he had a solid grip on the trunk with his hind paws. Then, extending his forepaw claws, he began digging into the trunk in front of him.

By the time the flying splinters began jabbing against his scales, he'd carved a groove perhaps two inches deep into the wood. That might not be deep enough; but whether it was or not, he'd run out of time. Digging his foreleg claws into the tree beneath the groove, he leaned forward, pushing as hard as he could against the upper part of the tree with his hind legs.

Nothing happened. Setting his jaw, he pushed again. Still nothing. Even with the tree as badly damaged as it was, he simply didn't have the leverage to break the top section free.

And then, as he tried to think of something else to try, there was a startled shout from below him. The gunfire faltered; and then, to his surprise, it started up again at full force.

But this volley wasn't directed at him and his tree. Instead, it seemed to be concentrated on something at ground level.

Jack? Hissing helplessly between his teeth, Draycos forced himself to look.

But it wasn't the boy he spotted running at full speed through the trees. It was, instead, one of the Phookas.

How the creature had ended up here in the middle of the battle he couldn't guess. But for the moment, that didn't matter. What mattered was that with the mercenaries' attention distracted, he finally had a chance to move.