He wasn't nearly as quiet as Draycos, or at least it didn't sound like it in his own ears. Still, he managed to reach a spot where he could see the creek without having drawn any obvious attention from the hidden soldiers. The rippling noise from the water and the general background of insect chirps and animal rustlings probably helped cover the sound of his approach. And, of course, the soldiers were almost certainly not expecting anyone to show up until morning.
The minutes dragged by. Jack peered into the gloom, trying to spot the enemy positions. But the soldiers were too well camouflaged. He just hoped they hadn't spotted him and were even now creeping stealthily toward him.
Something moved at the corner of his eye. He jerked, trying to bring up his tangler—
"Shh," Draycos warned, catching Jack's gun hand with his paw.
Sternly, Jack ordered his heart back to normal. "Don't do that," he whispered.
"My apologies," the dragon said. "Give me the rope."
Jack unlooped the rope from his belt. "I made a lasso with a slipknot in the end for you," he said, handing it over.
"Thank you," Draycos said. "Stand ready."
With the lasso end gripped between his teeth, the K'da slipped toward the creek. Jack gave him a few seconds, then carefully stood up into a crouch behind one of the trees, making sure he had a solid grip on the rope. Draycos was in combat mode, his gold scales turned to black, and even knowing he was there Jack couldn't see him.
Of course, the waiting soldiers would undoubtedly have infrared and starlight vision enhancers. Jack hoped the dragon was being especially careful.
More minutes went by. Jack kept his eyes on the stream, wondering if this was actually going to work. The dummy seemed to be taking way too much time getting down here, and he wondered uneasily if it might have gotten snagged on something at the bottom of the creek.
And then, there it was: a reed poking out of the water, making its slow way downstream. And as Jack listened, he could hear the stealthy hiss of someone breathing through it.
He frowned. Breathing?
But even as the question arose, so did the obvious answer. Draycos, hidden in the bushes beside the stream, was making the breathing noises, trying to attract the soldiers' attention without being too obvious about it.
For a minute Jack wondered if maybe the dragon was being a little too subtle. The reed was still moving, drifting its way downstream, and still there was no reaction from the other side.
And then, one of the shadows across the creek seemed to shiver. A second later, it had resolved itself into the figure of a soldier. Holding his machine gun ready, he stepped warily to the water's edge and leaned over the creek, peering down at the dummy beneath the surface.
And as a warbling K'da battle cry shattered the nighttime quiet, Draycos leaped across the stream.
The soldier jerked back, trying to bring his gun to bear on the dragon who had suddenly appeared. But Jack's tangler shot got there first. In the darkness he couldn't see the threads as they wrapped themselves around the soldier, but the flash of the cartridge's capacitor was all he needed to know the shot had been squarely on-target. The man teetered and started to fall.
But before he could do so, Draycos reached him. Sailing over his shoulder, the dragon dropped the loop of his lasso neatly over the other's shoulders as he passed. "Now!" he shouted as he hit the ground and spun around. He leaped up onto the-soldier's back, his claws digging into the other's battle vest. Jack gave a sharp tug on the rope—
And as the quick-release knot came free and the tree snapped back toward vertical, the lassoed soldier was yanked off his feet and dragged into and across the stream. He shot through the reeds at the edge, plowing his way through bushes and drifts of dead leaves as he was pulled across the ground. He and Draycos shot past, and Jack ducked away from his tree and sprinted after them.
Sounds of sudden commotion could be heard from the far side of the stream as he reached the unconscious soldier and braked to a halt. "Here," Draycos said, lifting the other's over/under machine-gun/tangler combination. "Hold out the stock."
Jack unfolded the metal shoulder stock and held it out. Draycos's claws slashed once, and the stock with its hidden tracker was no longer attached to the weapon. "Ready," Jack said, dropping the severed metal onto the ground and looping the gun's strap over his shoulder.
Draycos bent down and slid his paws beneath Jack's shoes, and a second later Jack found himself flying high into the air straight up into the branches of one of the bushier trees.
He caught a branch with each hand, the gun banging against his back as he got his balance. "Clear," he called down softly as he worked his way quickly over to the trunk, wincing as the tangle of branches grabbed his sleeves and scratched his face. "Watch yourself."
His only answer was the sound of splashing from the direction of the creek as the other soldiers charged to their comrade's rescue. Peering down, Jack found that Draycos had vanished. "And happy hunting," he murmured to himself. Lifting the gun, making sure it was on its tangler setting, he waited.
They came in pairs, the first two soldiers moving swiftly but quietly through the trees, their guns swinging back and forth and up and down as they searched for their quarry. Twice one of them looked up into Jack's tree, his gun lifting as he did so to point in the same direction. But Jack had moved to the far side of the trunk, and there apparently wasn't enough of him showing through the branches for them to spot.
The two soldiers headed toward the man Draycos had captured. As they did so, Jack saw two more pairs coming in behind them and to either side, staying back and watching for trouble.
Unfortunately for them, trouble was already watching them. Smiling tightly, he lined up the muzzle of his borrowed tangler on the first of the closest pair and squeezed the trigger.
The mercenaries were good, all right. Even before the cartridge hit, both men reacted to the sound of the shot, swinging their guns upward and firing in unison. But the branches that had hidden Jack from their sight now also protected him from their fire. As his shot hit its target and dropped the soldier to the ground, their own cartridges exploded into a snarled mess in the branches.
But only one of the soldiers was down, and the other now knew exactly where Jack was. With a hoarse shout to his comrades, he opened fire, plastering the tree with tangler threads. Still shooting, he began to circle, trying to get a clear shot. Two of the other soldiers rushed up to join him, and now there were three tanglers firing at Jack instead of just one. The last pair stayed well back, where they could cover the rest of the group.
And with nowhere to run. Jack was now the proverbial sitting duck.
"Come on, dragon, move it," he muttered, wincing back from the soldiers' shots as he tried to fire back. But the one clear shot he'd had was long gone, and all he succeeded in doing was plastering the nearest branches with tangler threads of his own.
Which might not be such a bad thing, he realized suddenly. If he could make himself a nice little cage of tangler threads, he would be more or less safe. At least until they gave up on taking him alive and switched to machine-gun mode.
He fired a few more rounds into the branches around him, shifting his aim to keep up with the circling soldiers. Between his shots and theirs, it was getting increasingly difficult to see what was going on down there. He could only hope that Draycos would spot the two soldiers standing distant guard, their eyes on the trees and ground-hugging bushes.
And with Jack's own thoughts and attention on those same trees and bushes, he and the soldiers were all looking in the wrong direction when the K'da made his move.