There was no answer. "Draycos?" he repeated, twisting around.

The dragon was gone.

"Draycos!" he called as loudly as he dared, his eyes darting around the darkness. The K'da had vanished, all right. Probably gone ahead to check on the intruders.

Jack hissed between his teeth. Suddenly, he felt very exposed out here, standing in the faint glow from the Argus monitors. He stepped away from them as quiedy as he could, cringing every time his feet crunched into the leaves.

A few feet away was the tree stump Draycos had been perched on earlier. He dropped down behind it, clutching the flash rifle as if his life depended on it. Which it probably did.

All right, Jack, calm down, he told himself sternly. Three of them wasn't too bad, if that was all there were. It could be just a quiet scouting party, with none of them actually looking for a fight.

If that was all there were. He looked over his shoulder at the Argus monitors, but here at the stump he was too far away to see them clearly. What he needed was to be over there watching the monitors, with Draycos nearby to protect his back.

Except Draycos was off who knew where. Doing who knew what.

Blast the dragon, anyway. Of all the times for him to run off and play soldier.

And then, from somewhere ahead, somewhere very close ahead, came the soft sound of a footstep.

Jack froze in place, hardly daring to breathe. Draycos? was his first, hopeful thought.

But no. The dragon was a lot quieter than that.

There was another footstep, and another pause. Jack stared into the darkness, straining so hard his eyeballs hurt. In the faint light from the stars overhead the forest was little more than a jumble of dark gray shadows crisscrossed by even darker black ones.

The sound came again.

He had it placed now. It was just behind a tall bush about ten feet directly ahead of his stump.

Had the intruder spotted him? That was the big question. It didn't seem likely to Jack that he would still be moving forward if he had. After all, he had no way of knowing that the sentry on duty was a scared fourteen-year-old with ten whole days of combat training under his belt.

Unless the one behind the bush was only a decoy. Unless his job was to deliberately make enough noise to draw Jack's attention while someone off to the side leisurely lined up a rifle on him.

Jack crouched a little lower behind the stump, trying hard to become part of the decaying wood. It was a useless attempt for someone shaking as badly as he was. Carefully, he eased his flash rifle around to point toward the bush.

Now what?

Sure, he could fire. But if this one was only a decoy, the shot would show them exactly where he was. In that case, Jack himself probably wouldn't live long enough to even see the first guy hit the ground.

But if he didn't shoot, and this one was out there alone ...

Draycos! he thought desperately toward the woods. Where are you? I need you!

Where was the blasted dragon, anyway?

There was another footstep. Swallowing hard, Jack got his finger on the trigger.

And suddenly, an animal the size of a large frog came hopping out from behind the bush.

Jack's breath went out in a silent whoosh, every muscle in his body suddenly turning to jelly. The frog jumped again, its landing sounding exactly like a cautious human footstep.

He really, really didn't like the woods.

A flicker of motion caught the corner of his eye. He glanced up—

And twitched violently as Draycos dropped into a crouch at his side. "You're going to give me a heart attack yet," he growled at the dragon. "I swear—"

"Quiet," Draycos bit out. "They are coming. You must retreat."

Jack's muscles went tight again. "There are more than three of them?"

"There are eight," Draycos said. "All wear the shoulder emblem of the Shamshir. You must warn the others."

Jack felt cold all over as he stared frantically into the night. Three of them might have been a scouting party. Eight of them meant an attack.

And attackers, he knew, always started by silencing the sentries.

He jerked as Draycos's snout jabbed impatiently into his ribs. "What?" he gasped.

"Did you not hear me?" Draycos demanded. "I said you must warn the others."

"I can't," Jack hissed. "They didn't give me a comm clip."

"I know that," Draycos said, his voice impatient. "You must leave here and go to them."

Jack shuddered. The thought of eight guns pointed at his back ... "I can't," he said. "I'll never make it."

Draycos lifted his head to the level of Jack's face. The bright green eyes bored into his face, the tip of the long snout nearly touching his nose. "Listen to me, Jack," the dragon said. "They are coming. They are not yet close enough to harm you. But they soon will be if you do not leave. You must go now."

Jack peered out into the shadows. Draycos was right, he knew.

But his legs still refused to move.

Because what if the dragon was wrong? What if he'd missed one or two of the enemy on his scouting trip? What if there was someone right now hiding in the trees, waiting for him to give away his position?

"Jack?"

Jack clenched his teeth together. No, the dragon was right. He'd been in this same kind of situation before with Uncle Virgil. If he just sat here, sooner or later he would lose by default.

Besides, how much more conspicuous could he be than sitting here with a bright, gold-scaled dragon standing beside him?

"Okay," he breathed. Slowly, cautiously, he stood up into a crouch and backed away from the stump.

No one shot at him. He kept backing up, passing the Argus monitors. Draycos stayed by the stump, his tail arched, his ears pointed skyward as he listened. Jack reached the first group of trees and passed between them.

Only then did Draycos turn and bound silently toward him. He reached Jack's side, then stopped and turned around. "Keep moving," he ordered, his ears lifting again. "I will guard you from any approach."

Jack kept going, walking as quickly as he dared. The night seemed alive around him, and he could feel a thousand hidden eyes staring in his direction. Three more times along the way Draycos caught up with him, and each time then stayed behind as guard. Wishing fervently he'd listened to Uncle Virge and come up with a better way to trace those blasted Djinn-90 pursuit fighters, Jack kept moving.

There was no one manning the defense position on this side of the camp. For a moment, as he passed the foxhole, Jack was tempted to jump in. He could activate the weapons there and spray the woods behind him with gunfire. That ought to discourage the Shamshir soldiers.

But he was only tempted for a moment. It might discourage them, but it might also start them shooting back at him. The longer he could put that off, the better.

Especially if he could get someone else to do both the shooting and the being shot at. Directly ahead was one of the big tents, the ones he'd decided earlier were sleeping quarters. Panting a little from the long uphill climb, he stumbled to the door and pulled it open.

It was a sleeping tent, all right. There were twelve sets of bunk beds arranged around a small table with four matching chairs. The chairs were empty.

So were all the bunks.

For a long moment Jack just stood there staring. Twelve bunk beds. Twenty-four beds. All empty.

All of them?

All of them.

He stumbled back outside, to find Draycos lurking beside the corner of the tent. "You did not alert them?" the dragon asked.

"There isn't anyone to alert," Jack told him tightly. "They're gone."

The dragon's long neck arched back. "Gone? Gone where?"