"Thank you," Jack said, rather pleased by it himself. "And the missing line was the message?"

"Exactly," Draycos said. "The complete first stanza that I spoke should have been: 'Until the brave achieve their rest, the warrior must put forth his best. Come here to me, my oldest friend, and to the last our home defend.' "

Jack thought back. "The third line was missing," he said. " 'Come here to me, my oldest friend.' "

"Correct," Draycos said. "Uncle Virge is not precisely my oldest friend, but it was the closest line I knew to what we needed."

"Definitely close enough," Jack agreed. "Especially since he's pretty much my oldest friend. What about the others? Uncle Virge said something next about warfire?"

"'The warfire blazes all around, the killing fields do beckon,' " Draycos recited. " 'How shall my warrior friend be found? By curve or straight-line reckon?' "

" 'How shall my warrior friend be found,' "Jack repeated the missing line. "He wanted to know where we were."

"Correct," Draycos said. "As you can see, he understood quickly what I was doing."

"Uncle Virgil always was a smart old fox," Jack agreed. "Your next one was shorter, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Draycos said. "It was the only one that did not come from one of my poems. I created it on the moment to identify the place where we were headed."

Jack gazed out at the stars, thinking back. The dog tells all; the fires blast. Until the fury's spent at last. It didn't make any more sense to him the second time around than it had the first. "You got me," he said.

"Think of the words," Draycos suggested. "Think of where we are going."

"I still don't—"Jack broke off. "You're not serious. 'Dog tells'? Dahtill? Dahtill City?"

"It was the best I could create," Draycos said apologetically. "I hoped he would understand."

"I guess he didn't," Jack said. "You still had a lot more to say to each other."

"True," the dragon conceded. "His next stanza was a question. 'You speak in riddles in my ear. What do you say, what do you mean? While all is dark and dank and drear, how can one silence fears unseen?' "

" 'What do you say, what do you mean?'" Jack murmured. "I don't blame him."

"I then tried to give him a useful clue," Draycos said. " 'By what foul deed is treason learned? By what hand are we crushed? The mines collapse, the cities burned, the fields and vineyards hushed.'"

"The mines collapse, the cities burned," Jack said, nodding. "A city with a mine beside it."

"He understood then, but was not absolutely certain," Draycos said. " 'We sought the city of our foe. They held it strong against our might. But through the desert we did go, and took it ere the fall of night.' "

"The city of our foe," Jack said. "That covers Dahtill City, all right, and probably fifty others along with it."

"But no other is so near to us," Draycos pointed out. "And none that I know of is associated with an important mine. At any rate, I told him he was correct. 'The scoffers say we face the night, that none shall from that road return. But I say that your word is right; the scoffer's words and fears I spurn.'"

But I say that your word is right. "I just hope he really did get the dog-tell pun."

"We shall soon find out," Draycos agreed. "At any rate, he then told me he was leaving."

" 'The world will tremble, warns the foe,' " Jack quoted, just to show he could do it. " 'And all will fall like burning leaves.' Next?"

"'But I must to my friends now go,'" Draycos supplied the missing line. " 'To stand, though none endure to grieve.' "

For a moment the cockpit was silent. "Well, if it doesn't work, it sure should have," Jack concluded. "Pretty classy."

"Thank you," the dragon said.

"You're welcome," Jack said. "I hope you've got an equally clever plan for getting the others out."

"Actually ..."

Jack eyed him. "You don't, do you?"

"It is difficult to plan with so many variables," the dragon hedged. "We do not know where our enemies will be positioned."

"I thought they were all going to be out looking for me," Jack reminded him.

"Some may be," Draycos agreed. "But others will have stayed behind. At any rate, even the searchers may have returned by this time."

"In other words, you're going to wing it."

The tip of the dragon's tail twitched. "That is not precisely how I would have phrased it," he said. "But it is basically accurate."

Jack sighed. "I thought so."

Chapter 25

With Dahtill City five more minutes away, Jack took the Lynx down to treetop height. "I take it we're not jumping out this time?" he asked Draycos.

"Correct," Draycos called from the back, where he was rummaging through the various storage lockers. "We may require this vehicle to move the prisoners. Is its ventral armor as strong as that of the Flying Turtle we used earlier?"

"They're similar models, so probably," Jack said. Not that any amount of armor would do them any good if the Shamshir knocked out the lifters. "Any luck back there?"

"Very little," Draycos reported. "The soldiers must have taken most of the weapons with them on their search for you. I have found only two small MP-50 machine guns, with two spare clips each."

Killing weapons, the kind Jack had spent his life avoiding. "Nothing else?" he asked. "No sopor gas or slapsticks or anything like that?"

"The only other weapons are nine Class II explosive grenades," Draycos said. "There are no nonlethal weapons of the sort you prefer. I am sorry."

Jack grimaced. "Me, too. Well, I guess we'll have to do what we can. Maybe we can just pin the Shamshir down while Uncle Virge swoops in and—"

"What was that?" Draycos cut him off.

Jack threw a quick look toward the horizon, then checked his sensor displays. There was nothing unusual that he could see. "What was what?"

"A small flash of light directly ahead," Draycos said, covering the length of the transport in two bounds to land at Jack's side. "There—it came again."

"I didn't see anything," Jack said, learning forward and staring out into the night. "What did it look like?"

"Like the discharge of a Gompers flash rifle," Draycos said. "As if far in the distance—"

And then, faintly, it came again. A flicker of light, like a small flash of lightning coming from below the horizon. "You mean like that?" Jack asked.

"Exactly," Draycos said. "There—another."

"Someone's doing some shooting," Jack muttered, watching the flashes. "A lot of shooting."

"The Shamshir would not execute their prisoners, would they?" Draycos asked, his voice dark and ominous.

"I hope not," Jack said, studying the flickers of light. There didn't seem to be any pattern to them, no nice neat one-two-three sequence. "Anyway, that doesn't look like a firing squad."

"Then there is a battle," Draycos concluded. "I will fly. You will shoot."

"Wait a second," Jack objected. "I will shoot what?"

"We will know when we arrive," Draycos said, nudging Jack impatiently with the side of his head. "Go. You must prepare."

"But the Essenay's not here yet."

"We have no choice," Draycos said firmly. "We must see what is happening. Go."

Reluctantly, Jack climbed out of the pilot's seat. "I don't like this," he said. "Why don't we land someplace near the city and take a quiet look instead of charging blindly in?"

"There is no time," Draycos said, sliding into Jack's seat and gripping the controls with his paws. "Whether the Agri are fighting the Shamshir, or whether the Whinyard's Edge has launched their own strike, we cannot afford a delay."

"What makes you think that?"

"Call it warrior's instinct." Draycos turned his green eyes on Jack, "Go. Prepare."