What in blazes . . . ?
Alison looked toward the hedge, wondering if the slaves had brought up some unexpected and impossible superweapon. But the ones still on their feet were clearly unarmed, and the ones on the ground were only now warily starting to get up again.
She looked south, wondering if some silent retreat order had been given. But there was no one there, and no indication of any reason for such an order. There was nothing, in fact.
Nothing but Taneem.
And then, finally, Alison understood. The Brummgas remembered Draycos's last visit here, all right. And they'd certainly learned from that experience.
But they hadn't learned how to fight a K'da poet-warrior. They'd learned to run from him.
Alison filled her lungs. "Don't kill them!" she shouted to Taneem as she again started after the K'da. Surrendering and fleeing enemies, she knew, were always to be rewarded with their lives. It encouraged others to do the same.
She needn't have worried. Taneem passed the first running group of Brummgas without a glance, continuing on toward the next. Like a good hunting dog, the K'da was making sure to flush all the birds from their nests.
And then, from one of the groups of bushes, a lone figure stepped out of concealment. A human figure, Alison saw, with a shoulder-slung laser rifle at the ready. "Come on, dragon," he shouted, turning the rifle toward Taneem. "Come and get me."
It was Gazen.
Alison caught her breath. But Taneem didn't even flinch. Breaking from her straight-on charge, she turned sharply south, heading in a big circle across Gazen's line of fire.
"Come on, dragon," Gazen shouted again as he swiveled to keep facing her. He fired twice, his shots scorching the air in front of and behind the running K'da. "Come and face me like a warrior."
Alison braked to a halt and dropped to one knee, bringing her borrowed laser to her shoulder. With Gazen's silhouette partially obscured by the bushes beside him, she knew this would be a very tricky shot.
And she would get only one. As soon as that laser light flashed, he would turn his own weapon on her . . . and unlike Gazen, Alison had no cover nearby to protect her.
But Taneem couldn't circle forever. Sooner or later, Gazen would get tired of trying to taunt her into a direct attack, and he would kill her.
Clenching her teeth, Alison held her breath and squinted down the barrel at Gazen's profile.
And snapped the weapon up and off target as a handful of racing figures abruptly appeared from her left and slammed into Gazen's back. His laser fired once, blasting into the ground in front of him, before he disappeared beneath a mass of bodies.
Stronlo's rebels had arrived.
By the time Alison reached them, it was all over. "I heard you say not to kill them," Stronlo said, his voice grim as he panted for air. "But this one was special."
"I agree," Alison said, looking down at the body that lay motionless on the grass. She was just as glad that the lack of light hid the details. "As far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to him."
"Thanks to you and the dragon," Stronlo said
Taneem came up to them. "Is he stopped?" she asked.
"Permanently," Alison said. "Nice move, by the way. Did you actually see Stronlo coming up behind him, or were you just hoping?"
"Of course I saw them," Taneem said, flipping her tail. "A K'da warrior strives always to do what is right. But that doesn't mean a K'da warrior is stupid."
Alison nodded. "I'll remember that."
"What do we do now?" Stronlo asked.
"We wait." Half turning, Alison gestured toward the wall behind them.
Toward the wall, and the lights of the half-dozen Djinn-90 fighters hovering just beyond its built-in defenses. "The Malison Ring strike force has arrived," she said. "Let's sit back and see what happens."
By the time Jack reached the top of the pillar the sounds of crashing stone and shattered guy wires had ceased. The angled skylight opening was covered with a clear dome to keep out the rain, but Draycos's claws made quick work of the fasteners. A minute later, Jack eased his way to the edge of the pillar and looked down.
To a horrifying sight.
In a dozen places the cropland had been littered by rubble from the destroyed stone arches. The three Djinn-90 starfighters were moving slowly along through the air, their lasers blasting methodically away at the ground ahead of them. Golvins were everywhere, running toward the edges of the canyon like panicked ants.
There were bodies, too. At least twenty of them that Jack could see, either beneath sections of the crushed stone or lying in patches of burning crops.
And at the focus of the starfighters' attack was Langston.
He was sprinting across the ground, zigzagging between stands of plants and leaping over the irrigation canals, dodging the laser blasts as Frost's men herded him toward the nearest canyon wall. Behind the Djinn-90s, a much larger deep-space transport was drifting along, watching the scene like an approving mother wolf.
Jack shivered. "They're going to kill him," he said, the words twisting in his stomach. "As soon as they find out he's not me, they'll kill him."
"Then let us make sure his sacrifice is not in vain," Draycos said from his shoulder. "There—across that bridge."
With an effort, Jack lifted his eyes from the carnage below. His pillar was attached to the next by a stone arch, with another arch leading to the next pillar in line. Beyond that, a set of intact guy wires led the rest of the way to the edge of the canyon.
It would be a tricky climb. Tricky and dangerous both, especially with his muscle fatigue and Draycos's injuries.
But Draycos was right. It had to be done. Setting his foot on the arch, Jack looked over toward his goal, the distant bulge in the sand that hid Langston's wrecked starfighter.
He paused, frowning. There wasn't just one bulge there, he saw now. There were two, one much larger than the other.
He was still staring in confusion when the larger bulge stirred, the sand seeming to melt away from it.
And with a sudden gunning of its lifters the Essenay shot over the canyon rim straight toward him.
The ship was hovering above Jack's pillar, its hatch open, before the transport and starfighters below seemed to catch on to the fact that their quarry was slipping from their grasp. But by then, it was too late. The pillar itself blocked most of their frantic laser fire, and the gap they'd cut for themselves in the aerial obstacles was clear down at the other end of the canyon.
Five minutes later, with the Djinn-90s still trying desperately to close the gap, Jack keyed in the stardrive.
Eight men in Malison Ring uniforms were standing guard at the main gate as Alison led her party across the neatly trimmed lawn toward them. "That's close enough," the sergeant in charge warned, taking a step toward her. His shoulder-slung machine gun, she noted, wasn't quite pointed in her direction. "What do you want?"
"I have a group of slaves here," Alison said, taking another step and then likewise stopping. Behind her, she sensed Stronlo and the others doing the same. "All they want is to leave."
The sergeant shook his head. "Sorry. The Patri Chookoock was kind enough to open his gates and his estate for us. I don't think letting his slaves walk out the front door would be a proper way to repay his courtesy."
"Was it courtesy, or was it bowing to the inevitable?" Alison countered. "I saw the force you brought with you. You could have knocked your own hole in his wall if you'd had to."
In the light from the driveway markers she saw his eyes narrow. "You're not a slave," he said. "Who are you?"
"My name's Alison Kayna," Alison told him. "I'm sort of a negotiator."