Dragonback 03 Dragon and Slave (7 page)

Noy must have seen something in his face. "Don't worry about it,"
he said, very quietly. "No one looks at anyone else here. You learn not
to."

"Yeah," Jack said. On the other hand, he doubted anyone here had a
full-body tattoo of a dragon plastered across his back.

Still, there was nothing for it but to go ahead. He shook out the
sackshirt and laid it out on. the bed. It was exactly what he would
have expected from the name: a sack, open at the bottom, with arm and
head holes cut out at the top.

Noy seemed to be studying a section of floor near the head of
Jack's bed. Bracing himself for the inevitable reaction, Jack pulled
off his soggy shirt.

The boy didn't even look up. Jack glanced around the room,
frowning, as he picked up the sackshirt.

Nothing. No one jumped to their feet, no one stared and pointed,
no one gasped or whistled or snorted or even breathed extra hard. As
far as he could tell, no one even saw him.

He slid the sackshirt over his head, covering Draycos up again. So
they really
didn't
look at each other. He pulled off his shoes
and socks, and was working off his jeans when Maerlynn arrived with a
basket. "Put your clothes in here," she instructed, holding it out.
"I'll have them ready—"

"Five minutes!" a loud voice called from the doorway, cutting her
off.

Jack looked that direction. A large, ugly, deeply tanned man with
a thick gray-black beard was standing just inside the room. He was
wearing the same slightly shabby clothing as everyone else, but with a
bright red sash running from shoulder to waist.

The man glanced around the room, and his eyes fell on Jack. For a
couple of seconds his gaze lingered, as if he was sizing up the
newcomer. Then, without another word, he turned and left.

"That's Fleck," Maerlynn said. "He's what we call a trustee."

"He helps the Brummgas keep us in line," Noy added contemptuously.

"Now, now," Maerlynn said soothingly. "He's a slave just like we
are. We all have different jobs and duties, and that one's his. I was
starting to say, Jack, that I'll have your clothes ready by morning."

"What, in five minutes?" Jack asked.

"That just means lights off," Maerlynn said. "I've been here long
enough to know my way around in the dark. Now, you get yourself some
sleep. You too, Noy."

"Okay," Noy said, moving toward a cot on the far side of the
Jantris. "G'night. G'night, Jack."

" 'Night," Jack said. "And thanks."

He pulled down the thin blanket and got into bed. The mattress and
pillow were lumpy, like they'd been stuffed with wood shavings or
irregularly shaped beans. Still, the cot was long enough for him to
stretch all the way out. That already put it two steps above the hotbox.

He was still trying to hammer out the major lumps when the
overhead lights went out.

The sounds of activity stopped at the same time. Clearly, the rest
of the slaves knew the routine well enough to be ready when bedtime
came.

Ready, and probably eager. After a few days laboring out in the
fields, Jack thought glumly, he would probably be the same way.

Jack had planned to stay awake long enough for the rest of the
slaves to get to sleep, and then discuss the situation with Draycos.
But the hotbox had drained him more than he'd realized, and he found he
simply could not keep his eyes open.

Within seconds, he was fast asleep.

Draycos waited until everyone in the long hut was asleep. Then,
sliding off Jack's arm, he dropped to the rough wood of the floor.
Senses alert, he padded silently between the rows of cots to the door.

The door had been left open a few inches for ventilation. He
looked carefully at the door jamb, mindful of the sorts of alarms and
tripwires he and Jack had found in the gatekeeper's house. But there
was nothing like that here.

He poked his head halfway through the gap and stood motionless for
a minute, watching and listening and tasting the outside air. There
were no guards or patrols nearby, at least none he could detect.
Shouldering the door open, he slipped down the steps and out into the
night.

There were no outside lights, either. But between the starlight
and the glow in the sky from the city to their west, there was enough
light for K'da eyes to see by.

There was an even brighter glow coming from the direction of the
slaveowners' mansion. Draycos bared his teeth toward it, the tip of his
tail twitching with contempt and disgust. Every thread of his being
longed to take on the Chookoock family and their despicable slave trade.

But this was not the time to bring justice to these people. His
task tonight was much simpler: to learn the enemy's territory.

He began with the slave colony itself, circling each of the two
long sleeping huts and then briefly nosing around the other buildings.
In one of the smaller structures he could hear running water and the
sounds of someone moving around. Maerlynn, he decided, sacrificing some
of her precious sleep time to wash Jack's clothing. The other buildings
all seemed to be deserted.

Next, he extended his search beyond the buildings, moving out in a
standard spiral pattern. Remembering their aerial survey from the
Essenay
,
he made a point of watching for concealed guard posts, especially in
the forest areas.

Again, nothing. He ran across an occasional hut nestled into the
trees along the way, each one about three times the size of last
night's hotbox. But there was no scent of Brummga near any of them. It
was as if the Chookoock family, having purchased these people's bodies
and minds and souls, simply expected them to stay where they'd been put.

On the other hand, he had to admit, where else was there for them
to go?

The nearest section of the perimeter wall was to the northwest. He
set off through the forest in that direction, running lightly across
the matted leaves, dodging around trees and bushes. Every hundred paces
he stopped to listen and smell for patrols or guard stations. But still
there was nothing.

The ground near the wall included several rolling hills. Choosing
one that would give him a good view, he moved to the edge and climbed
the tallest tree he could find. If his estimate was correct, he should
now be high enough to look
down
on the wall and into the center
of the curving X-shape. Moving carefully out onto one of the upper
branches, he pushed aside the leaves.

And got his first really good look at the barrier he and Jack were
going to have to cross.

It was every bit as impressive as he'd expected. The antiaircraft
lasers Uncle Virge had warned them about were there, all right. He
could see the larger lenses of long-range weapons set into the white
ceramic every ten feet or so, with the smaller lenses of shorter-range
lasers arrayed between them. Between the lasers were long, narrow
grooves that were most likely the flame jets Uncle Virge had also
mentioned.

Long-range lasers for high-flying aircraft. Short-range lasers for
smaller, lower-flying vehicles that might try to slip through the
ten-foot gap between the larger weapons. And flame jets to kill anyone
who tried to simply climb over the wall.

The Brummgas seemed to have covered all their bets here. But as
Uncle Virge might say, that only meant it was time to cheat.

Because if the fire from the flame jets could be blocked, even for
a single minute, Jack might have time to scramble over without harm.
And in a forest, the obvious candidate for such a barrier was a tree.

He worked his way around to a different side of his tree and
studied the edge of the forest. But no. The Brummgas had been smart
enough to cut back the forest along the whole length of the wall.

Not very far, but far enough. No one would be able to chop down a
tree and have it fall across the wall.

A pity, too. Barely a hundred yards away he could see a hill that
was actually taller than the wall. A tree cut from there would have
been perfect.

Or could it still be done?

For another minute he studied the tall hill. If he and Jack cut
down one of the trees and rolled it to the base of the wall . . .

But again, no. Any tree thick enough to block the fire would be
too heavy for him to lift to the top of the wall. If Jack still had the
climbing gear he'd used at the gatekeeper's house, they might have been
able to rig something up.

But Gazen had taken that away with the rest of Jack's burglar
equipment. And Draycos somehow doubted he and Jack would have time to
search the mansion for it.

Could Uncle Virge do something, then? Use the
Essenay
to
haul a tree trunk or ceramic bar to the top of the wall to block the
flame jets? But that assumed the Chookoock family had no defenses
against an attacker who was too clever to simply try to fly over their
wall. Surely they'd planned for something like that.

Regardless, he couldn't risk the
Essenay
to find out. So
the wall was a dead end. But then, he reminded himself as he climbed
head-first down the tree, he'd expected it to be. Time to try a
different approach.

Maerlynn had called the barrier between the slaves and the
Chookoock family grounds a thorn hedge. With the darkness, and his own
limited viewing angle beneath Jack's shirt, Draycos hadn't noticed any
thorns as they were driven through the gap the night before. But as he
approached the hedge this time he could see that the name was quite
accurate.

In fact, the hedge was almost an encyclopedia of thorn types.
There were rows and rows of tiny ones, the kind that would snag and
tangle clothing. There were extra-long ones, sturdy enough to stab all
the way through Jack's palm should he be careless enough to hit it hard
enough. And there was just about every other length in between.

Draycos arched his tail as he studied it, marveling at the design.
Either the Brummgas had interwoven several different types of thorn
bushes and vines together to create the hedge, or else they'd
genetically combined all the various thorn types into a single,
incredibly nasty plant. Either way, it made for a serious barrier.

He followed the hedge to where it ended against the wall, then
traveled its length all the way in the other direction. There were, he
discovered, only three openings in the thorns. Two of them were wide
gateways, clearly designed for cargo vehicles. They straddled roads
that headed into the lumbering and mining areas. Both of those gaps
were protected by smaller versions of the metal-and-ceramic gate Gazen
had brought them through into the Chookoock family grounds. The third
was the smaller gap the Brummgas had driven through on their way to
lock Jack into the hotbox.

A gap with no guards and no gate. Open, inviting, and apparently
unprotected.

Right.

He eased toward the gap with the same caution he would use in
approaching a dozing Valahgua assault battalion. Twenty feet away, he
spotted the sensor disks along the sides, half hidden behind clumps of
leaves. Another five feet, and he was able to see the connecting wires
woven in among the branches. Another five, and he could hear the faint
hum of the electronics.

He didn't dare go any closer. Clearly, the opening was a trap,
designed to lure in any slave who might be thinking of sneaking into
areas where he wasn't supposed to go.

But then, a poet-warrior of the K'da hardly needed to use an
opening to get over a ten-foot hedge. Neither did a human boy with a
K'da warrior as an ally.

Moving away from the gap, he headed eastward. A hundred yards in
that direction was a low bush a few feet from the hedge. Draycos
maneuvered his way carefully between bush and hedge, fully aware that
the longer thorns might be able to slide between his golden scales and
draw blood. Rolling onto his side, he extended his claws and began to
cut his way into the hedge.

It was a slow, delicate operation. The hedge was a confused tangle
of branches and vines, and he often had to cut each one in three or
four places to free the piece he needed to move.

Even trickier was the need to work behind the first layer of
branches, leaving that group intact. It might be days before he and
Jack were ready to move, and he couldn't afford some sharp-eyed Brummga
noticing a growing hole in the hedge.

He couldn't even cut the front layer away, work behind it, then
wedge the branches back into place. Most plants changed color or
texture after they'd been cut, and that would be as much of a giveaway
as an open hole.

He worked for about an hour, until the tingling in his scales
warned him that the time was approaching when he would need to return
to his host. Stuffing the pieces of hedge he'd cut under another bush,
he headed back to the slave colony.

All was as he'd left it, except that the sounds of washing had
ceased. Slipping through the open door of the long hut, he returned to
Jack's cot.

The boy was sleeping soundly, his mouth hanging slightly open.
Stepping to his side, Draycos touched a forepaw to his hand and slid up
his arm in two-dimensional form. He traveled along the arm, toward his
usual position across Jack's back, arms, and legs.

And as he did so, there was a soft grunt from the next cot.

He froze in place, his eyes darting that direction. The Dolom
girl, Lisssa, was propped up on her elbow. Staring into the darkness in
Jack's direction.

Draycos felt his breath catch like ice in his lungs. Had she seen
him come in? Worse, had she seen him climb onto Jack's body?

He held still, silently cursing his carelessness. Yes, he was
tired and hungry; but that was no excuse. He had a duty to his people
to survive, and to keep his existence a secret.

For a long minute, Lisssa didn't move, either. Then, blinking
twice, she lowered herself back onto her cot. A minute later, her slow
breathing showed she was again asleep.