Dragon and Herdsman

DRAGON AND HERDSMAN

TIMOTHY ZAHN

For Jack and Marna—

For their help in the care and feeding

of our own personal herd

  Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 1

A light breeze was blowing softly through the streets of Avrans City on the world of Bigelow, making the cold night air feel that much colder. Huddled in a darkened doorway, Jack Morgan shifted restlessly in his sleep, pressing himself a little deeper back against the ancient stonework here at the edge of the city's Old Town.

Draycos, pressed in two-dimensional form against the boy's back, arms, and legs, felt yet another shiver ripple through the skin beneath him. Reflexively, he lifted himself slightly away from the skin, turning part of himself three-dimensional. That would at least create a thin insulating layer to protect Jack from the wont of the cold.

"Uh-uh," Jack murmured.

So he wasn't asleep after all. "Sorry," Draycos murmured back as he lowered himself flat again. He was a poet-warrior of the K'da, and part of his job was to protect his host as best he could. It bothered him terribly that he hadn't been able to lift a claw to ease Jack's discomfort these past few nights.

But as usual in these matters, Jack was right. If he was going to play the part of a homeless street kid, he had to play the part completely. Huddled against the night in the shadow of a mercenary recruitment center, they couldn't take the chance that someone with sharp eyes would notice something odd. And a fourteen-year-old boy sleeping all warm and peaceful in thin shirt and slacks would definitely be odd.

Shifting his position on Jack's skin, Draycos peered out through the open shirt collar toward the recruitment center, a one-story white building across the street and two doors down. If the pattern of the past six nights was repeated, two men wearing the uniforms of the Malison Ring mercenaries would arrive soon to get the center ready for the morning's activities.

Three nights ago, Jack had begun shambling over to them as they arrived, trying to beg some spare change. The men had, naturally, told him to get lost. Last night one of them had added to the script by aiming a kick at Jack's rear that had nearly connected.

Tonight, the script was going to change completely.

Draycos shifted his gaze back down the street, marveling yet again at the delicious irony the universe had played. For the past three months, ever since this unlikely partnership had been thrust upon them, he had been trying to teach Jack the way of the K'da warrior. The way of honor, and service, and trust.

It hadn't been easy. Jack had been raised by his uncle Virgil since the age of three to be a thief and con man, taught to care only about himself. The concept that there were standards of right and wrong that didn't change with mood or situation was completely new to him. But Draycos had kept at it, showing in both word and deed that a true warrior tried always to do what was right, whether it gained him anything or not.

Down deep, Draycos knew Jack had a good heart. But eleven years of habit were hard to break.

Making it that much harder was the presence and influence of Uncle Virge, the shadow personality that Uncle Virgil had left imprinted on the Essenay's computer before he died a year ago. Uncle Virge had the same me-first philosophy as the real Uncle Virgil, and he'd been fighting Draycos's efforts every step of the way.

And then, even as Jack began making his first genuine progress in the K'da way of thought, the universe had handed them a gift. In the midst of Jack's ordeal as a slave on the planet Brum-a-dum, a small and nearly forgotten act of mercy had unexpectedly paid off. It had paid off big.

Now, at last, they had all the pieces of the puzzle. It was members of the Malison Ring mercenary group who had intercepted and destroyed Draycos's advance team of K'da and their symbiotic hosts, the Shontine. They were working with the assistance and financial support of the powerful Brummgan Chookoock family, with the whole conspiracy under the direction of the renegade Arthur Neverlin, once second-in-command of the megacorporation Braxton Universis.

And lurking behind them all were the Valahgua, the deadly enemies whom the K'da and Shontine had left their homes to escape in the first place.

Neverlin wanted to destroy Cornelius Braxton and take over Braxton Universis. The Malison Ring and Chookoock family presumably wanted a share of the plunder from the approaching refugee ships.