Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier (15 page)

"Maybe," Jack said. "I don't know. But according to Uncle Virge's
history lessons, people sometimes treated regular soldiers the same way
when they were in a war the people didn't like."

"That is wrong," Draycos said firmly. "The soldiers deserve the
respect and honor of the people they defend. If the war is wrong or
misguided, the people's objections should be directed at the leaders."

"Hey, I'm just telling you how it is," Jack said. "I don't write
the history, I just report it."

"I understand," Draycos murmured.

He hopped up onto his stump again, peering off into the night.
Jack found himself studying the dragon's silhouette, a black shadow
against a slightly lighter background. "It was different for you,
wasn't it?" he asked. "I mean, your people were fighting for their
lives. That must make a difference."

"It does," Draycos agreed. "There were still objections at times,
of course, but they were settled by the leaders."

"Pretty quickly, I'd guess," Jack said. "Did all of you have to
become warriors?"

"All had to have soldiers' training," Draycos said. His voice was
soft and oddly distant. "Those who did not serve directly were required
to fill support positions. There was no other way."

"I suppose," Jack said. So when Draycos called himself a
poet-warrior it wasn't really that big a deal? Or was it maybe the poet
part he was so proud of? "So basically any K'da can do what you do?"

The dragon seemed to draw himself up. "Not at all," he said
stiffly. "All indeed can become soldiers. But not all are warriors."

Jack frowned. "What's the difference?"

"A warrior of the K'da is a special person," Draycos explained,
and there was no mistaking the pride in his voice. "He or she has
certain inborn talents and abilities, plus the desire to turn those
talents in the direction of protecting the K'da people. We are found at
an early age, and offered this position."

The tip of his tail twitched. "No, Jack. One without poetic talent
may be able to make two sentences rhyme on occasion. But you would not
call him a poet, with the true gift of poetry. So is the difference
between soldier and warrior."

Jack nodded. He'd tried writing a poem once, back when he was ten.
The result had been pretty pitiful. "So how old were you when they
started your training?" he asked. "You said once you were younger than
I was when you had your first battle."

"That is true," Draycos acknowledged. "I was not yet a warrior at
that time, though, but was still in training. My full training lasted
nearly four years."

"Four
years'
?"

"Yes," the dragon said. "Though I was of course a soldier during
much of that time. We could not afford for warriors-in-training to
merely be students during a war for survival."

"Yeah," Jack murmured. Four years, compared to the ten days he'd
just gone through. "I guess I must seem pretty pathetic to you. I'm
barely even a soldier, let alone a warrior."

"You do as well as your abilities allow," Draycos said
diplomatically. "Your talents lie in other areas."

"Right," Jack said with a sigh. "And I bet you'd trade three of me
right now for a single good soldier."

"Perhaps that could be arranged," the dragon suggested dryly.
"Shall I go get Alison?"

Jack glared at him, a waste of effort in the darkness. "Very
funny."

From behind them came the faint sound of lifters. "There goes the
Lynx," Jack commented, turning to look.

But nothing could be seen though the trees. The sound changed
pitch as the transport shifted to horizontal motion and headed away
from the camp. Jack looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of it through
the trees. Again, nothing. "Could you tell which direction it was
headed?"

"From the sound, it appeared to be traveling southwest," the
dragon said.

"Back to Mer'seb," Jack said. Somehow, the sound of the departing
shuttle made the darkness out here seem a little deeper. "Well, good
luck to them. They're sure not going to find a welcome carpet spread
out."

"Do you refer to the citizens?" Draycos asked. "Or do you expect
another Shamshir attack?"

"I was talking about the people," Jack said. "But as long as
you've brought it up, I did overhear Lieutenant Basht telling someone
they'd found two Shamshir mercenaries in one of the buildings. They'd
been knocked cold, but weren't hurt otherwise. Your handiwork?"

"Yes," Draycos said. "The tides of warfare flowed to my advantage."

"Whatever," Jack said. "How come you didn't kill them?"

The dragon's tail arched. "There was no need. I wished merely to
halt their attack. That I did."

"Yeah, but they'd already killed about ten Edgemen," Jack pointed
out. "I thought you didn't approve of killers."

"I do not approve of murderers," Draycos corrected. "There is a
difference between murder and warfare."

"That's not what some of our people say," Jack told him.

This was, he realized dimly, a pretty stupid argument to be having
at a time like this. Especially out here, with him wearing a soldier's
uniform and carrying a soldier's gun.

But there was something about the darkness and the noises that was
making him unusually talkative tonight.

Or maybe it was the silence between the noises that he was trying
to fill. "There are people—a lot of people—who think warfare is just
the government's way of—"

"Quiet!" Draycos cut him off. He twisted his head away from Jack,
his pointed ears suddenly standing straight up.

For a second, Jack stared past him into the darkness. There was
nothing out there he could see. Then, suddenly, his brain caught up
with him, and he turned instead to the Argus monitors.

The dragon was right. Something had moved into view on one of the
monitors. The image was fuzzy, but it definitely had the basic shape of
a human being, and it was moving toward the camp.

Moving toward Jack.

He flipped up the schematic showing where the Argus eyes were
positioned, his pulse thudding hard in his neck. Okay; this was Eye
Number Three. That was
there;
which meant the figure coming
toward him must be
there
. . .

He didn't realize Draycos had moved to his side until the dragon
spoke. "They are approaching," he murmured, his breath warm on Jack's
ear.

Jack's pulse picked up speed. "
They
?" he muttered back.
"There's more than one?"

The dragon's tongue flicked out at one of the other monitors.
"There," he said. "And there," he added, pointing to another.

Jack gripped his flash rifle like he was trying to squeeze it in
half. There were two more figures, all right, half hidden behind rocks
or trees. Even as he focused on one of them, it moved away from its
hiding place and crossed quickly to another one. "How many are there?"
he asked.

There was no answer. "Draycos?" he repeated, twisting around.

The dragon was gone.

"Draycos!" he called as loudly as he dared, his eyes darting
around the darkness. The K'da had vanished, all right. Probably gone
ahead to check on the intruders.

Jack hissed between his teeth. Suddenly, he felt very exposed out
here, standing in the faint glow from the Argus monitors. He stepped
away from them as quietly as he could, cringing every time his feet
crunched into the leaves.

A few feet away was the tree stump Draycos had been perched on
earlier. He dropped down behind it, clutching the flash rifle as if his
life depended on it. Which it probably did.

All right, Jack, calm down
, he told himself sternly. Three
of them wasn't too bad, if that was all there were. It could be just a
quiet scouting party, with none of them actually looking for a fight.

If
that was all there were. He looked over his shoulder at
the Argus monitors, but here at the stump he was too far away to see
them clearly. What he needed was to be over there watching the
monitors, with Draycos nearby to protect his back.

Except Draycos was off who knew where. Doing who knew what.

Blast the dragon, anyway. Of all the times for him to run off and
play soldier.

And then, from somewhere ahead, somewhere very close ahead, came
the soft sound of a footstep.

Jack froze in place, hardly daring to breathe.
Draycos
?
was his first, hopeful thought.

But no. The dragon was a lot quieter than that.

There was another footstep, and another pause. Jack stared into
the darkness, straining so hard his eyeballs hurt. In the faint light
from the stars overhead the forest was little more than a jumble of
dark gray shadows crisscrossed by even darker black ones.

The sound came again.

He had it placed now. It was just behind a tall bush about ten
feet directly ahead of his stump.

Had the intruder spotted him? That was the big question. It didn't
seem likely to Jack that he would still be moving forward if he had.
After all, he had no way of knowing that the sentry on duty was a
scared fourteen-year-old with ten whole days of combat training under
his belt.

Unless the one behind the bush was only a decoy. Unless his job
was to deliberately make enough noise to draw Jack's attention while
someone off to the side leisurely lined up a rifle on him.

Jack crouched a little lower behind the stump, trying hard to
become part of the decaying wood. It was a useless attempt for someone
shaking as badly as he was. Carefully, he eased his flash rifle around
to point toward the bush.

Now what?

Sure, he could fire. But if this one was only a decoy, the shot
would show them exactly where he was. In that case, Jack himself
probably wouldn't live long enough to even see the first guy hit the
ground.

But if he
didn't
shoot, and this one was out there alone .
. .

Draycos
! he thought desperately toward the woods.
Where
are you? I need you
!

Where
was
the blasted dragon, anyway?

There was another footstep. Swallowing hard, Jack got his finger
on the trigger.

And suddenly, an animal the size of a large frog came hopping out
from behind the bush.

Jack's breath went out in a silent whoosh, every muscle in his
body suddenly turning to jelly. The frog jumped again, its landing
sounding exactly like a cautious human footstep.

He really,
really
didn't like the woods.

A flicker of motion caught the corner of his eye. He glanced up—

And twitched violently as Draycos dropped into a crouch at his
side. "You're going to give me a heart attack yet," he growled at the
dragon. "I swear—"

"Quiet," Draycos bit out. "They are coming. You must retreat."

Jack's muscles went tight again. "There are more than three of
them?"

"There are eight," Draycos said. "All wear the shoulder emblem of
the Shamshir. You must warn the others."

Jack felt cold all over as he stared frantically into the night.
Three of them might have been a scouting party. Eight of them meant an
attack.

And attackers, he knew, always started by silencing the sentries.

He jerked as Draycos's snout jabbed impatiently into his ribs.
"What?" he gasped.

"Did you not hear me?" Draycos demanded. "I said you must warn the
others."

"I can't," Jack hissed. "They didn't give me a comm clip."

"I know that," Draycos said, his voice impatient. "You must leave
here and go to them."

Jack shuddered. The thought of eight guns pointed at his back . .
. "I can't," he said. "I'll never make it."

Draycos lifted his head to the level of Jack's face. The bright
green eyes bored into his face, the tip of the long snout nearly
touching his nose. "Listen to me, Jack," the dragon said. "They are
coming. They are not yet close enough to harm you. But they soon will
be if you do not leave. You must go
now
."

Jack peered out into the shadows. Draycos was right, he knew.

But his legs still refused to move.

Because what if the dragon was wrong? What if he'd missed one or
two of the enemy on his scouting trip? What if there was someone right
now hiding in the trees, waiting for him to give away his position?

"Jack?"

Jack clenched his teeth together. No, the dragon was right. He'd
been in this same kind of situation before with Uncle Virgil. If he
just sat here, sooner or later he would lose by default.

Besides, how much more conspicuous could he be than sitting here
with a bright, gold-scaled dragon standing beside him?

"Okay," he breathed. Slowly, cautiously, he stood up into a crouch
and backed away from the stump.

No one shot at him. He kept backing up, passing the Argus
monitors. Draycos stayed by the stump, his tail arched, his ears
pointed skyward as he listened. Jack reached the first group of trees
and passed between them.

Only then did Draycos turn and bound silently toward him. He
reached Jack's side, then stopped and turned around. "Keep moving," he
ordered, his ears lifting again. "I will guard you from any approach."

Jack kept going, walking as quickly as he dared. The night seemed
alive around him, and he could feel a thousand hidden eyes staring in
his direction. Three more times along the way Draycos caught up with
him, and each time then stayed behind as guard. Wishing fervently he'd
listened to Uncle Virge and come up with a better way to trace those
blasted Djinn-90 pursuit fighters, Jack kept moving.

There was no one manning the defense position on this side of the
camp. For a moment, as he passed the foxhole, Jack was tempted to jump
in. He could activate the weapons there and spray the woods behind him
with gunfire.
That
ought to discourage the Shamshir soldiers.

But he was only tempted for a moment. It might discourage them,
but it might also start them shooting back at him. The longer he could
put that off, the better.