Dragon and Herdsman

The word was barely out of his mouth when the first of Alison's tangler cartridges sizzled its way upward, catching the nearest soldier squarely across his chest. The white threads whipped out, entangling him and the two men beside him, as the shock capacitor sent a jolt of current through all three of them. Still firing, she moved sideways beneath the dropping men, methodically plastering the entire group. A couple of seconds later, the now-unconscious soldiers had been turned into something a giant spider might have wrapped up and tucked away for a future meal. "Is that it?" Alison called.

Draycos looked up, listening for the sounds that would indicate more soldiers were on the way. But he didn't hear any.

What he did hear was the faint noise of drumming hooves below him. Hooves that were rapidly coming closer.

He turned his head back toward the ground, trying to locate the sound. From the west, he decided. A moment later he spotted a small group of bodies racing toward them. "Alison!" he called again. "A group of horn-headed plant-eaters are coming toward you."

"I hear them," she called back, turning to face that direction. "Sounds like a stampede."

"Get everyone on the eastern sides of the trees where they'll be safer," Draycos ordered. He was catching more glimpses now through the branches as the animals approached. There seemed to be just five of them, running as if a demon was pursuing them.

A demon, or perhaps one of the Kodiak predators. Draycos shifted his attention to the trail of scattered leaves swirling behind them, searching for signs of pursuit.

And because he was looking in the wrong direction, he was caught completely by surprise when the five animals burst into view beneath him.

He'd been right the first time. They were indeed fleeing from demons.

Only the demons weren't behind them. They were riding them.

"They're on the animals!" Draycos barked. "Tangle the animals!"

But it was too late. The five Malison Ring soldiers had already leaped backward out of their makeshift saddles, hitting the ground running. As the hornheads sped mindlessly on, the soldiers trotted to a halt, swinging their weapons up into firing position.

One of them staggered and collapsed unconscious as Alison got him with a tangler round. But before she could get off a second shot she was forced to dive for cover as two of the others sent machine-gun bursts spattering through the bushes beside her. She made it behind a tree, pressing herself against the trunk as the two soldiers continued to fire. The other two looked straight up at Draycos, still clinging to his ropes.

And with the bitter sense of having been caught like a freshly trained recruit, Draycos realized he was trapped. There was no cover anywhere around him, nowhere he could leap to or climb to in time. Nowhere at all he could go.

Except down.

Bracing himself, he let go of the ropes.

The first burst of machine-gun fire sliced through the area he'd just left. He tucked his legs and tail close in toward his body as he dropped, trying to make the smallest possible target of himself. Below him, the tangler-webbed group was slowing as the sensors in their quick-drop harnesses spotted the ground approaching and put additional friction on the ropes. Another salvo of machine-gun fire shot past, closer this time, one of the rounds twitching across the tip of Draycos's left ear.

And as he reached the falling soldiers, he snapped his legs out and grabbed hold of the webbing on the far side, putting the webbed group between him and the two gunners.

But the gunners weren't going to be thwarted so easily. Both continued firing, sending short bursts past either side of the group, pinning Draycos in place while they waited for their moving target to stop moving.

A second later it did just that. The webbed soldiers hit the ground, toppling over in a confused tangle of torsos and legs and tangler thread. Draycos dropped flat behind them, pressing himself against the ground as he again used their bodies for cover.

But that cover wasn't going to last long. One of the two mercenaries continued to fire bursts across the left side of Draycos's shelter, blocking any escape in that direction, while the other began circling to Draycos's right. Unless the K'da did something, and fast, in another few seconds he would be directly in the second soldier's line of fire.

And he would die.

He risked a look around the mass of bodies, wondering if Alison might be in a position to counterattack. But she was pinned down the same way he was, with one of her pair of soldiers raking her tree with fire while the other circled to the side to try to get a clear shot.

And then, even as Draycos braced himself for a desperate and almost certainly fatal dash for safety, over the stutter of the machine guns he heard a war whoop.

He turned his head. Jack was charging across the battle zone toward him, firing his tangler wildly at the soldiers as he ran, screaming defiance at the top of his lungs.