Dragon and Herdsman

"So let us do it," Draycos decided. "Put your back against the wall."

Jack shifted around and pressed his back against the side of the cell. He felt the dragon shift around on his skin, lifting his two-dimensional form through the extra dimension and leaning over the barrier.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, all at once, there was a sudden movement against Jack's back, and Draycos was gone.

Jack took a careful breath. There was no way of knowing whether or not the trick had been successful. Still, it had felt about the same as the time it had happened accidentally. He hoped that meant Draycos was all right.

Jack had just moved away from the wall when, across the room, the two guards quietly collapsed onto the floor.

Jack stared at them in disbelief. Draycos hadn't even made it out of the office yet. How could he have—?

And then, as Jack's suddenly sluggish brain tried to figure it out, he caught a hint of a familiar odor wafting toward him.

Someone was pumping sopor mist into the room.

Jack twisted back around, holding his breath as he pounded three quick times against the sidewall. If he and Draycos fell asleep before they could get back together, the commandant wouldn't need Neverlin or anyone else to tell him something strange was going on.

Jack had lifted his hand to hit the wall again when the universe went dark.

CHAPTER 3

The room beside Jack's cell was a cramped junior staffers' office, with desks and chairs for three people and a single window opening out the rear of the building. Draycos had only just started looking for something to attract the guards' attention when he heard Jack's pounding on the wall.

He leaped across the room and pressed one ear against the door. Had the mercenaries decided to begin the interrogation?

And then, seeping in under the door, he caught a whiff of something he'd smelled once back at the Whinyard's Edge training camp. It was sopor gas, a weapon used to put enemies to sleep.

Quickly, he took a deep breath, filling his lungs to full capacity before the gas could become thick enough to affect him. Then, carefully, he eased the door open a crack.

The two guards across the outer room were already asleep, lying crumpled on the floor. No one else was visible. Frowning, he pulled the door the rest of the way open and slipped around the corner to look into the cell. Jack was alone, and fast asleep.

There was no time now to try to figure out what was going on. He had to get Jack out of here, and the sleeping guards across the outer room were his best chance of doing that. If one of them had a key, he could perhaps get Jack out through the office window before he himself ran out of air.

He was crouching for a leap across the room when there was a click and the outer double doors began to swing open.

Draycos twisted around, darting instead back into the office. He flicked his tail at the edge of the door as he passed, trying to swing it closed.

But he missed, and then it was too late. He felt the subtle air currents as the far door swung all the way open, and heard the soft sounds of someone jogging quickly toward Jack's cell.

For a moment the footsteps seemed to falter. Then, they continued on.

Only now they seemed to be coming straight toward the half-open office door.

There was no time for anything clever. Draycos leaped to the far side of one of the desks, landing as silently as he could. He wormed his body past the chair and ducked out of sight.

He was barely in time. The steps paused, and the office door swung all the way open.

Draycos froze in place. Now, too late, he wondered if the intruder might have an infrared scanner that would penetrate the material of the desk. The other stood in the doorway for perhaps five seconds, and Draycos caught the slightly sinister hiss of a full-helmet gas mask. Then, to his relief, the footsteps headed away toward Jack's cell.

Silently, Draycos rose from his hiding place and padded back to the door. With the other's full attention on Jack, it was time for him to make his move. He eased one eye around the edge of the door—

And felt his tail stiffen in stunned surprise.

It wasn't Arthur Neverlin or one of his Brummgan thugs, as he'd first feared. Nor was it some local Malison Ring soldier who'd decided to go ahead and start Jack's interrogation on his own. It was, instead, possibly the last person Draycos would ever have expected to see again.

It was Alison Kayna.

A kaleidoscope of memories rippled through his mind as he ducked back out of sight. Alison had been the very best of the teenaged recruits whom Jack had joined in his infiltration of the Whinyard's Edge. She'd been smart, resourceful, and far more skilled than a raw recruit should have been. Especially one who was no older than Jack himself.

She and Jack had also been among the handful of those recruits who'd been marked for death. Only by working together had they managed to escape.

Now, against all odds, here she was in the middle of a Malison Ring office.