Jack snarled one of Uncle Virgil's favorite curses, his eyes darting to the floor and the tables. The floor? Too crowded. He'd never make it around everyone and catch up with her. Not with the lead she already had.
The tables, then? Leap up onto one of them, bound across to the next, and so on to the door? But there were just as many people around the tables as there were in the narrow aisles between them. And the tables were loaded with dishes and cups besides.
No, there was only one way to stop her now. Only one person who could catch her before she blew the whistle and brought the whole Chookoock family down on them.
"Draycos," he hissed. "We haven't got a choice." The dragon didn't answer, but Jack could feel him coil himself to spring. Jack braced himself, wondering dimly what all the scoffers would say when the golden dragon actually appeared.
Then, from the direction of the doorway came a sudden squawk. There was a second squawk; and to Jack's amazement, Lisssa reappeared in the doorway. She hesitated, as if unwilling to continue; and then a large human hand appeared from the darkness and shoved her roughly all the way inside.
And stepping into the hut behind her—
"Here you go, Jack," Fleck called cheerfully across the room as he gave Lisssa another shove. "This what you were looking for?"
CHAPTER 31
Jack felt his knees go suddenly weak. Fleck. Bright red sash across his chest.
Slapstick at his side. Full authority of the Brummgas at his back.
But he, Jack, had Draycos. A single command, and the K'da warrior would leap out of his collar and tear Fleck into small, bloody pieces—
"Here," Fleck said, flipping something small toward Jack.
Automatically, Jack reached out and caught it. It was a comm clip, one side colored and shaped just like a Dolom scale. "What's this?" he asked, frowning up at Fleck again.
"This—" Fleck shook Lisssa's arm "—is a Brummgan spy. Gazen gives them special privileges in exchange for information." He spun Lisssa around and gave her a final shove that landed her on one of the benches. "I've suspected her for a long time." "Ask if she communicated with them," Draycos murmured in Jack's ear.
"Was she able to get off a message just now?" Jack asked.
"I don't think so," Fleck said. "But my guess is they already know something's up. If we're going to go, we'd better be quick."
Jack blinked. " 'We'?"
"Sure." Fleck smiled tightly, sending a look around the room. "Like Jack said," he went on, raising his voice. "Anyone else hate this place enough to go with us?"
"It's a trick," someone growled. "Fleck's one of them, too."
"None of the rest of us carry weapons," someone else added pointedly.
Fleck didn't even bother to glance that direction. He started toward Jack, the crowd melting away from in front of him.
And as he got within arm's length he drew his slapstick.
Jack tensed. But Fleck merely turned the weapon around and handed it to him, handle first. "I'm willing to take a chance," the big man said, looking around the room again. "How about you?"
For a moment the room was silent. Then, in twos and threes, the slaves began murmuring quietly among themselves. "If this is a trick," Jack said quietly to Fleck, "I'll make it my business to be sure you're the first one in the Brummgas' line of fire."
"It's no trick," Fleck said, just as quietly. "Strange things have been happening around here lately. Odd footprints in the dirt. Odd activity by the Brummgas at night. Someone carefully cutting their way through the thorn hedge."
He must have seen something in Jack's face, because he smiled suddenly. "Oh, yes, I knew about that. The Brummgas tried to keep it quiet. But I knew."
He nodded fractionally to the side. "And now we've got Noy coming back from an isolation hut with stories about gold dragons."
"What do you think it all means?" Jack asked, keeping his voice even.
"Maybe it's nothing but wishful thinking," Fleck said bluntly. "Maybe you're just a con man playing on old legends and gullible types like Muskrack who find omens in everything they see or hear. Maybe all you're doing is trying to turn us into a distraction so you can sneak out alone." He paused, his eyes steady on Jack.
"I came back to get Noy," Jack told him. "I just thought some of the rest of you would like to get out, too."
Fleck snorted under his breath. "And maybe you're such a good con man that you can sound as honest as you're sounding right now."
Jack felt a stirring of anger. Here he was, risking his own life and freedom for these people. Living up to the K'da warrior ethic that Draycos was always prattling on about. And all Fleck could think about was that it might be a con?
"Look, Fleck—"
Fleck stopped him with an upraised hand. "All I know is two things," he said.
"One, that none of this strange stuff happened until you showed up. And two—"
He looked at Noy. "There's no way that kid came up with that poem on his own.
No way. Something big is going on, and I'm willing to take a chance on it." His eyes drilled into Jack's face. "Just remember one thing. I'm the one responsible for these people. It's my job to keep them in line so that the Brummgas will stay off their backs. If you're spouting smoke... you understand me?"
Jack swallowed. "Perfectly."
"Jack, may I have a word with you?" Draycos murmured at his ear.
Jack took a deep breath. "I'm going to take a quick look outside," he told Fleck. "Be right back."
He could feel the slaves' eyes following him as he made his way to the door.
Maybe they were wondering if he'd given up on them and was heading out on his own.
Good. A little pressure might help them make up their minds.
He'd half expected to find a ring of armed Brummgas waiting outside. But the night was quiet. "I know what you're thinking," he told Draycos before the dragon could say anything. "And I suppose it is stupid to trust Fleck. But as near as I can read him, he seems okay."
"I agree," Draycos said calmly. "There is no reason for him to have stopped Lisssa if he was on the Brummgas' side."
"Unless it's a setup," Jack said, as the thought suddenly struck him. "Maybe Lisssa never was a spy."
"No," Draycos said. "I had not thought of it before, but when she came to the frying pan to offer you food, I did not smell any paint on her. Yet she implied Her Thumbleness had brought her into the house for that purpose."
"Right," Jack said, nodding. Now that Draycos mentioned it, he hadn't smelled anything, either. "So she was a spy. Good. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"I merely wondered if you had considered the extra problems involved in bringing such a large group of slaves with us," the dragon said.
Jack looked sideways down into his collar. "I thought you were the one who hated slavery so much."
"I did not say I did not approve," Draycos said, a little huffily. "I merely asked if you had considered the problems."
Behind Jack, the meal hall door opened. Jack turned to see Fleck come out, a small group of slaves behind him. "All set," Fleck said. "This is it."
Jack felt his throat tighten. Of the hundred and fifty slaves inside, no more than twenty had elected to come. "This is it?"
"Life inside the wall is a known," Fleck said grimly. "Life outside is an unknown. What can I say?"
"Even when that known is slavery?"
"This is the group," Fleck said. "Take it or leave it."
Jack looked them over. Muskrack the Parprin was there, he saw. So were Maerlynn, and Noy, and even Greb and Grib.
His mind flashed back to Maerlynn's comment that first night in the slaves'