Dragon's Blood (12 page)

Some of the hatchlings began to give mock battle, prancing around their hens and stepping on one another's dragging wings. The all-orange dragonling seemed the most ferocious, and it already could trickle straggles of fog from its nose slits when approaching an enemy. But it was the deep mustard dragon that had the best control of its wings. It could hover for several heartbeats above the ground, confounding its broodmates.

The lethargic hens occasionally stuck out their massive paws to separate two fighters when the going got too rough and the agonized peeping of a loser become too harsh on the ear. More often it was the bond boys who did the separating, with the prod-sticks. In the end, only the orange, the yellow, and one of
the gray-brown hatchlings were awake, pawing at the hens' tails while their brothers and sisters curled up under the hens' outspread wings to sleep.

Jakkin felt an elbow in his side and, turning his head, came face-to-face with Errikkin. "Back so soon?"

Jakkin nodded.

"I thought you might want the whole day off. Considering..."

"Considering?" Involuntarily, Jakkin looked down to check Errikkin's shoes. He was barefoot, one leg stuck through the gap in the fence.

"Considering ... you know." Errikkin grinned and punched Jakkin's bag.

"Hey," called Slakk across the yard, his voice disturbing several of the sleeping hatchlings who stirred next to their hens. "Empty your bag again?"

"Oh, considering," mumbled Jakkin. They were talking about Akki. They thought he had spent the day with her. He was suddenly sure that neither of the two of them had been spying on him. Flushing with guilt, he climbed down from the fence and started to
walk back to the bondhouse to get his basket.

"Wait," said Errikkin, "don't go yet. I have something to ask you. I know you'll probably be the first of us to fill your bag..." Errikkin stumbled over his words.

Jakkin was cold; his words came out in icy formality. "What makes you say that?"

Errikkin did not seem to notice his coolness. "You got extra gold for the roundup and now that everyone knows you're almost a man, you'll probably have other extras as well. It's only natural."

"Oh." Jakkin felt ashamed. He had thought again, for a moment, that Errikkin had been the spy. In a rush of companionship compounded in equal parts of relief and chagrin, he put his arm over Errikkin's shoulder. "Ask away, you baggy bonder. Ask—and it shall be given unto you."

Errikkin flushed. "Well, I was wondering. When you become a master, I'll still be in bond. I can't seem to save anything. I mean, I love the stews. And the pits." Errikkin's hands went up in mock dismay. "And if you have extra gold and all. Well, I mean, would you consider buying
my
bag? I'd rather work
for you than old Sarkkhan. I mean, not that he's a bad master. It's just that I don't really
know
him. He's never here. And I do know you. And..." Errikkin smiled and shrugged.

Jakkin was stunned. Slowly he pulled his arm away from Errikkin and looked at the ground.

"Fewmets," said Errikkin. "I hope I didn't say anything to make you mad."

Jakkin looked up again and said, as much to Errikkin as himself, "I never considered. I never considered—" he began. "I mean, I never thought that once I was a master, it meant I could own bonders. I don't think I want that. I don't think I want that at all."

"Well, what did you think being a master meant?" asked Errikkin, incredulously.

"I thought it meant, well, being free. And doing
what
you wanted
when
you wanted. Like sleeping late. Or like training your own dragon. Or—"

Slakk, coming up behind them, overheard only part of the conversation and interrupted. "And how could any of us train a dragon on our own, unless it's a feral? And
you
should know the results of that piece of folly better
than any of us. Didn't your father get gaffed by a feral yellow in the sands? I'd rather be a live bonder than a dead master, any day."

"You're going to be a dead bonder if you don't get back up on that fence," came a voice behind them. It was Likkarn, his eyes red with weed tears. "You, too, Jakk-boy. If you're here, your Bond-Off is over. Keep an eye on those hatchlings, or by the time I'm through with you, you'll stink as bad as a drakk." He jabbed a prod-stick at them.

The boys went back to the fence, but Jakkin couldn't stop thinking about all that had been said. It was only at dinner, after the broods had been herded back into the barn, that he realized he hadn't tried to match up the shoeprints with any of the bonders' feet. In fact, except for one quick peek at Errikkin's bare feet, he hadn't even looked. He would have to find out who had been spying—and quickly.

A
LL THE WAY
back to the oasis that evening, Jakkin tried to sort things out. Then it occurred to him that returning to the bondhouse late at night afforded him the greatest of opportunities. He would simply take off his sandals before entering the sleep room and quietly match up his shoes against the others. The sleeping bonders would have their sandals neatly lined up by their beds. If he was quick enough, and silent, he could know in minutes who the possible suspects were. Except for Likkarn and Jo-Janekk, who had single rooms. He would have to think of another method for them.

Jakkin was so deep in thought, he almost tripped over the brown mound of dragon waiting for him.

"Fewmets, you nearly killed me," he complained. But the use of the word "you" confused the little dragon, and it sent tendrils of color questing into his mind.

Immediately contrite, Jakkin knelt down by the dragon and cradled it to him. "I'm sorry, thou mighty one." The snatchling nuzzled his bond bag and licked him under the chin. Then it butted him in the chest, and the force of its blow knocked him over.

"Is that how thou treats a friend?" Jakkin asked, pretending anger. But the dragon could hear the laugh in his mind over the false anger of his words, and it blew several small strands of smoke at him. Then it turned and trotted across the dune toward the weed and wort patch.

Jakkin followed. "Art hungry again, thou bag of lard? I shall go through this patch of weed too quickly if thou canst not control thyself." He laughed out loud, both at his own awkward use of
thou
and at the dragonling who waited, jaws wide, by the patch.

Quickly Jakkin stripped the largest leaves from two stalks, pleased to see new buds growing from the stalks he had plucked earlier. Bonders said, "Springtime is sprout
time," meaning dragons and weeds both grew incredibly fast in the spring. And watching his own snatchling, now as high as his thigh, Jakkin could believe it. The little dragon followed him closely back to the shelter, where Jakkin got out the bowl and the bone knife.

Sitting in the sand, Jakkin began the work of crushing the leaf veins, with the dragon snuggled, mouth open, by his elbow. Jakkin had to push the hatchling away. "Move, thou wonder worm, otherwise I cannot get thy dinner ready." The dragon moved inches away, then settled down again, nose in the sand. Stretched out, the dragon was as long from tip to tail as Jakkin was high. Its wings, which that afternoon had still looked crumpled and weak, were already beginning to take on the rubbery sheen of maturity. In the fading sunlight, the dragon's skin was a mud brown color, but when Jakkin squinted his eyes and took a closer look, he could detect a reddish glow beneath. Jakkin thought:
Another boy seeing that ugly brown skin might have taken the snatchling to the stews right away. It would mean a few coins. Maybe even more than a few. The younger the dragon, the more coins.
"
The meat is sweeter nearer the egg," as the stewards like to say.
And besides, training a fighter was sure to be a long, uncertain process, a year at least till a dragon's first fight.

Suddenly the enormity of what he had done by snatching the dragon was borne down on him. A year. A year of sneaking out by himself and hiding the dragon in the sands. A year of training it in secret. A year ... But what was a year to a bonder? Just never-ending days of work. In the nursery the seasons were struck off in threes: the season of stud, the season of eggs and hatchlings, the season of training the new fighters and selling the rest. And Jakkin's part of the year was only dust and fewmets, fewmets and dust. But this year, the year of Jakkin's dragon, things would be different. He finished crushing the juice out of the leaves and poured some of it into the dragon's mouth. The snatchling lapped it eagerly and waited for the rest. Around its muzzle, drops of the red liquid still glistened.

"See that thou turneth that color all over," said Jakkin sternly, drizzling the rest into the dragon's open maw.

The hatchling's tongue licked away the last of the juice, and its tail twitched in reply.

***

L
ATER THEY PADDLED
together in the warm spring, watching the sun go below the horizon. The sky seemed stained with blood. As he floated on his back in the spring, the bond bag heavy on his chest, Jakkin felt surprisingly at peace. He closed his eyes and let the light rainbows of the dragon's mind float by his closed lids. Mauve and pink and a color slightly paler than eggskin arced across the dreamscape. It was an unruffled reflection of the little dragon's world.

Suddenly the rainbows broke apart in a fever of tiny slashing red streaks and Jakkin heard a screaming hiss. He opened his eyes and automatically clutched the bond bag with his right hand. A dark shadow was crossing the red-drenched sky, and Jakkin saw eight feet of outstretched wings and talons fixed for battle. It was a male drakk. The water of the spring mirrored the blood color of the sky. The dragon was nowhere to be seen.

Above the spring the drakk began circling, catching the currents of air and dipping first one wing and then the other. Its body sensors picked up the scent of dragon. But it could not trace the dragon smell on water; what it caught was the odor of the hatchling that still clung to the sand and the reeds.

"Where art thou, beauty?" Jakkin called to the dragon, desperately afraid.

In answer, down by the kkhan reeds, from under the water, an earth-colored mound rose up, shaking itself furiously. The hatchling had sensed the attack and had escaped underwater, where the drakk could not find it.

Stay in the water,
Jakkin thought at the hatchling, wondering if, in its fear, the young dragon would even hear him.
Stay
under
the water, my wonder worm.
Then he scrabbled onto the bank and ran, crouching over, to the shelter. He knew that any minute the drakk might make a slashing run at him. Without his clothes he had no defense at all. But the drakk, intent on the dragonling below, paid him no mind.

Frantically he dressed in his shirt and short bonder's pants, which would afford him only slight protection. On the floor of the
shelter lay his old shirt, the one he had left for his snatchling. It smelled strongly of dragon. He put it on. Two layers were surely better than one. He picked up the bowl and the bone-handled knife. Then, taking a deep breath, he plunged back outside.

The circling drakk cast continually for the scent of its prey. Suddenly the dragon smell was strong again, emerging from the shelter. The drakk took aim at the smell, trying to distinguish the unfamiliar outline with its nearsighted eyes. It swept its wings back along its sides, cutting off the sensors, and dove.

Jakkin heard the cleaving of air above him and looked up just in time. He raised the wooden bowl as a shield. The rush of the drakk's attack knocked him down and its wings scraped across his face, but the thick bowl blunted the drakk's first charge, breaking off one of its talons.

Hissing furiously, the drakk winged away, banked sharply, and turned back for a second run.

Jakkin planted himself firmly in the sand, knife raised, and waited.

The drakk dove again but pulled up short.
Standing up straight, Jakkin's outline was nothing like a dragon's. The confused drakk veered away at the last moment, but not before Jakkin's knife had sliced into its wingtip. Hissing in pain, the drakk charged again, heedless of the lies its eyes told. It raked the air above Jakkin's head with its razor talons.

Jakkin lifted his arm and plunged the knife upward. The blade slid through drakk feathers and cut into the air. The drakk's talon found his wrist and left a cruel gash in it along the inner arm, nearly to the elbow crease. If the one talon had not just been broken, it would have taken his hand off at the wrist.

Jakkin screamed in pain and fell to the ground as the drakk wheeled back above the treeline. His involuntary cry called the dragon out of the water, and it ran to him, its tail lashing in dismay.

"Go back!" Jakkin shouted. "To the water. Go back." But the little dragon stood by his side and urged him up with its nose.

Jakkin stood unsteadily, dizzy with pain, just as the drakk started down again. He leaned against the dragon, trying at once to shield it and to use it as a support. He held
the knife in his other hand and waited. He knew that he would have only one more chance at the horror, and he knew he dared not fail.

The drakk dove. Its hissing preceded it and its snaky head was as straight as a spear. It counted on the hypnotic effect of its milky eyes to keep its prey still.

Jakkin thought at his dragon,
Do not look straight on it. Look to one side. And when I move, move away from me. But not till I cry it.
Only the faintest wisp of color came back in reply, and Jakkin prayed that the hatchling understood.

He could feel his jaw tighten and a sickness compounded of pain and fear growing in his belly. What he had felt on the roundup was nothing compared to this. And he knew that if he and the dragon died out in the sands, they might never be found. He remembered his mother crying over his father's bloody corpse. No one would cry over his.

The diving drakk seemed to hang in the air, unmoving, yet careening toward him at a speed too fast for reckoning. Jakkin stood still for moments, for hours, for eternities. Then
at the last minute, he shoved the dragon one way, threw himself the other, screaming, "Move. Move, thou beauty!"