"Even if it means Draycos's people—your people—will die?"
Taneem seemed to brace herself. "The K'da warrior ethic requires that we do what is right," she said quietly, the words almost swallowed up by another burst of distant gunfire. "No matter what the advantage or cost to ourselves."
Alison grimaced. She'd called it, all right. Death and glory, and honor and pride. Draycos had indoctrinated the young K'da, but good. "Lucky for us, we're not K'da warriors," she reminded Taneem. Putting the sound of gunfire to her left, she headed off southward through the forest.
Taneem's head rose from her shoulder. "Then we are going to abandon them?"
"Well, we're certainly not going to charge straight into the Brummgas' guns," Alison said. "If we're going to do anything, we're going to try to be clever about it."
"Then you do have a plan."
"I said if we do anything," Alison cautioned. "Let's first figure out the lay of the land."
"But the fire is coming from the slave compound," Taneem said, flicking her tongue past Alison's chin toward her left.
"One more good reason not to go there," Alison said.
"But—"
"But mostly we're not going there because that's not where the Brummgas have their main attack line," Alison interrupted her. "The ones making all the noise in the compound are just there for show. Their job is to drive any potential rebels or escapees through gaps in the hedge into the real trap."
"Which is where we are going?"
"Which is what we're going to take a look at, anyway," Alison said. "Here we are. Everybody off."
Ahead, the hedge loomed over them, ten feet of densely tangled branches and long thorns. "You wish to go over it?" Taneem asked doubtfully as she leaped off Alison's skin.
"Not over," Alison corrected her. "Through. Get those K'da claws working."
Taneem gave a little hiss of malicious satisfaction. Lifting her forepaws and extending her claws, she set to work.
Two minutes later, she had carved out a hole big enough to sidle through. "Great," Alison said. "Now, we're going to head southeast—quietly—toward where the Brummgas should have set up their lines."
Taneem nodded and headed off at a brisk trot, her ears cocked, her tongue flicking out with every other step. Trying to suppress her own misgivings, Alison followed.
They didn't have far to go. Flickers of laser fire were coming from a line of bushes and small fountains scattered around the north end of the slaveowners' section of the grounds. The nearest firing position was no more than thirty yards away, with the entire combat line stretched across nearly four hundred yards. In the dim light, Alison could make out the hulking forms of some of the nearer Brummgas hunched over their weapons.
They weren't firing at random, either. To the north, at the base of the hedge, Alison could see the shadowy figures of Stronlo's would-be escapees. Some were still coming, zigzagging in an effort not to be shot. But most were flat on their faces, pressed helplessly against the grass. From the slave compound behind them, in mocking counterpoint to the silent lasers, came more loud volleys of gunfire.
Alison felt her throat tighten, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. So the trick had worked. The roving Brummgas in the compound had forced Stronlo's slaves to make their move, and now they were trapped.
With a sigh, she trotted to a halt. "So that's it," she murmured. "I'm sorry, Taneem—"
But Taneem hadn't stopped. In fact, she had picked up speed. "Taneem!" Alison snapped. "Come back!"
The K'da ignored her. To Alison's horrified disbelief, she gave a shrill warbling scream and aimed herself at the nearest Brummgan firing post.
And charged.
Jack had made it perhaps fifty feet up the light shaft when he heard the sound of rapid footsteps far below. "Langston?"
"Quiet," the other whispered urgently.
But it was too late. Even as Jack craned his neck to look, he saw the outline of a Golvin head appear in the opening in his former apartment far below.
The Golvins had found them.
And with that, Jack knew with a wave of utter weariness, it was all over. The Golvin would run and tell the One, and the One would tell Frost's men, and they would come and get him.
They would possibly kill Jack. They would certainly kill Draycos.
"Port side near the nose," Langston murmured. "Hatch opens outward."
Jack frowned as he blinked back sudden tears. "What?"
"The hatch," Langston said. His hand appeared from below, dropping the Judge-Paladin hat and food onto Jack's chest. "Good luck."
And before Jack could even form a coherent question, Langston flipped his bow over. With the bow tips clattering along the stones and his feet running backward along the far wall, he dropped rapidly down the shaft.
"Langston!" Clenching his teeth, Jack flipped his bow over as well. If Langston was going to die, he wasn't going to die alone.
But even as he started to slide down the shaft, a pair of K'da forelegs folded themselves off his arms to catch firmly against the side walls. No, Draycos's thought whispered in his mind.
"We have to help him," Jack insisted.
He is a true warrior, Jack, Draycos said, his tone firm yet somehow gentle. He has made the decision to sacrifice himself for us, and for the K'da and Shontine people who stand at risk. Our job now is to make certain his gift was not in vain.
Tears flooded into Jack's eyes, tears of guilt and anger and hopelessness. Draycos was right, of course. But that didn't make it any easier.
Come, Draycos said, shifting his grip on the side walls. I will help you.
That's all right, Jack said, turning his bow back right side up again. I can do it.
Shaking away the tears, his ears burning with the sounds of destruction still going on around him, he resumed his climb.
The first group of Brummgas never had a chance. There were three of them, and before their pea-sized brains could register what was happening, Taneem had leaped like a gray Fury into their midst.
The attack was probably nowhere near the level of Draycos's own warrior skill. But in the white-hot fury of Taneem's righteous anger, skill and training didn't seem to matter that much. Even as Alison broke out of her paralysis and ran to her aid, the K'da's claws and tail and jaws lashed out, sending Brummgas reeling backward or laying them flat out onto the ground.
In bare seconds, it was all over. Taneem shook herself once as she stood over her defeated enemies, then found the next group with her eyes and again charged.
But this time it would be different, Alison knew with a sinking heart. Taneem's first attack had succeeded largely through the element of surprise.
But that surprise was gone now. The rest of the battle line had been alerted, and Alison could see shadowy Brummgan forms turning as they recognized the new threat coming in along their flank.
The next nearest enemy firing position was over fifty yards away over open ground. Long before Taneem reached it, Alison knew, the combined laser fire would cut her to smoking ribbons.
Unless the K'da had help.
Taneem was perhaps halfway to her next target when Alison reached the remains of her first. So far none of the Brummgas had opened fire, but any second now that would change. Ignoring the scattered bodies, Alison scooped up one of the laser rifles and snapped it up to her shoulder.
And stopped, her mouth dropping open in astonishment.
The Brummgas were running. All of them, along the entire line, were abandoning their weapons and their posts and lumbering south toward the main house as fast as their tree-trunk legs would carry them.