Dragon's Blood (2 page)

It was the wellspring that had helped him
decide to steal an egg. It could provide shelter and the promise of provisions. And so Jakkin had spent every free moonrise and Bond-Off at the oasis, planting a small patch of blisterweed and burnwort along the side of the spring, milking plants near Sukker's Marsh for the seeds. It had taken him the better part of the year to sow enough to provide an adequate crop for his worm.

Jakkin walked along the weed and wort patch. In the moonlight the plants sent up smoke ghosts, a healthy sign. He knew better than to touch the growing red stalks, for they could leave painful burns. Only when the plants stopped smoldering and leafed out could they be touched safely: milked for seeds, picked and crushed for dragon food, or rolled for smokers like old Likkarn, who could not do without the weed.

Jakkin looked at the weed patch critically. He was pleased. There should be more than enough for his snatchling, especially since a dragon did not start eating until it had shed its eggskin, after three or four days. By then the plants would be ready, their pale red jagged-toothed leaves veined with the protein-rich sap that showed up a deep maroon in maturity.

Glancing quickly at the sky, Jakkin saw that the second moon, Akka, had already chased its older brother, Akkhan, across to the horizon. There they sat like giant eggs on the rim of the world. Soon they would seem to break apart, spilling a pale glow across the line where land and sky met, a cold false dawn. Once that happened, there would be four hours of Dark-After, those wretched hours when it was too cold for a human to stay out unsheltered in the sand.

In the daylight the reeds could house a hatchling, keeping its sun-sensitive eggskin shadowed as easily as a hen dragon could. And once the dragon was fully scaled out, the sun could not harm it.

But the reeds were useless as protection at night. For dragons it did not matter. They did not mind the cold. But Jakkin knew he would have to hurry back, whisking away his returning tracks, before Dark-After settled its icy hold on the world.

J
AKKIN WAS INTO
the deepest part of his sleep, dreaming of great eggs from which red curls of silent smoke rose, when the clanging of the breakfast bell woke him. Automatically he reached under his bed and with one arm dragged out his tunic and pants. Still lying down, eyes closed, he maneuvered into his clothes. Then he sat up on the side of his bed and thrust his feet into his sandals, oblivious of Slakk's legs hanging down from the upper bunk.

"Look out, worm waste," Slakk called, and jumped, just missing Jakkin. "I almost landed on your head this time." He turned and punched Jakkin's bag companionably. "I swear, you're less awake than any bonder I
know. What's the matter? Empty bag?" As if punctuating the question, he took another poke at Jakkin's bag, which clinked a quick answer. Dark, ferret-eyed Slakk bent down to tie his sandals, still talking in his insistent, whiny voice. "Less awake each day. Wonder what he's doing out half the night. Is it the pits, I ask? He doesn't answer. The stews? Will he respond? How about..." He stood, facing Jakkin again.

Jakkin grunted. Let Slakk think what he will. The image of the spirals of smoke signaling from the weed and wort patch filled his mind. Jakkin gave a second meaningless grunt and stood. He always found it hard to speak before he had gulped down his first cup of takk.

"Leave him alone, Slakk," called out the boy in the next bunk. "You know how he is in the morning." The boy leapt down from the bunk with an easy grace and put his hand out to Jakkin. "Never mind this talking lizard, silent one. I'll lead you straight to the takk pot. Then, perhaps, you will honor us with your words."

Jakkin refused Errikkin's hand but Errikkin was not insulted. He was never insulted. It was impossible to make him be anything but pleasant, a trait that annoyed Jakkin. He tied his sandals and then the three of them went toward the common room, with Slakk in the middle holding a nonstop monologue about pit fighting. The monologue ended only when they were seated at their table.

There were twelve tables in all, and almost all were filled. Jakkin, Slakk, and Errikkin sat with six other young bonders.

There were three girls' tables. The rest of the tables were for the older bonders, most of whom, for one reason or another, had never been able to fill their bags with enough gold to buy their way out of bond. Only one table held both free men and women: those who were walking out together or pair-bonded, and Akkhina—little, lithe, black-haired Akki, who should have been at the baggeries, Slakk said, but who preferred working around dragons and choosing her own men. Slakk always said that with a sly smile, as if there were more he could tell if he wanted, as if he had spent time with her. But Jakkin was sure it was all posture and bluff. Though Slakk was
sixteen, Jakkin doubted he had ever been near a girl, any girl, not even a girl from the local baggery.

The table was set with bowls, cups, and cutlery. Unlike some breeders, Master Sarkkhan had always supplied knives as well as forks and spoons to his bonders. They were well fed and well kept, and there was rarely a fight. In the center of each table stood the takk pot, full of the rich, hot, wine-colored drink. The cook, old Kkarina, made it as thick as the mud of the stud baths; she claimed that if it were any thinner it lost much of its protein and all of its taste. Platters of lizard eggs, boiled in the shell, and heavy slabs of lizard meat sat next to the takk pot. The boys wasted little time heaping their bowls.

Jakkin was suddenly starving. He wondered if it was because of his late nights or his fears.

"I bet it's Bloody Flag and Blood Brother today," said Slakk, his mouth full of the juicy meat. "It's that time again.
Fewmets,
I hate that Brother. His is always the messiest stall, and besides, he loves to nip."

"I'll take him for you," said Jakkin. The
first cup of takk had restored his tongue and burned courage through his body. "He never nips me."

"None of them ever nip
you,
" said Errikkin pleasantly. "You've got something. Trainer blood. Like your dad. I bet even old Sarkkhan himself doesn't have your touch."

Jakkin looked down into his second cup of takk and stirred it slowly with a spoon. The deep red drink moved sluggishly. He knew that Errikkin was just being agreeable again, saying something to please, but it was something that Jakkin felt, too. Still he didn't dare voice it aloud. Bragging, like regrets, filled no bag.

"Will you take Brother to the bath, too?" Slakk never strayed far from his own concerns in any conversation. "His skin is getting flaky—the scales don't shine. We noticed it last time, Errikkin and me. And old Likkarn says..." Slakk spit expertly between his outspread second and third fingers, the sign of dragon horns. None of the boys liked Likkarn, who was in charge of the bonders. He was too fussy and unforgiving, and quite brutal in his punishments. "Old Likkarn says,
'Scales like mud, little stud; scales like the sun, fine work done.' Old Likk-and-Spittle's full of such stuff."

Jakkin smiled into his cup.

"Hush" Errikkin hissed. "He might hear you. Then where would we be?"

"Nowhere that's any worse than where we are now," replied Slakk.

Errikkin's concern was a formality. Likkarn was too many tables away to hear Slakk's complaints and Jakkin's replies, or to register Errikkin's desperate hissing. He sat with the older bonders and the free men, the ones who really ran the dragonry for the often absent Sarkkhan. They spent each morning meal working out the day's schedule, which Likkarn then scripted. Every bonder knew his or her own mark, and the marks of individual dragons, but beyond that few of them knew how to read. Or write. Likkarn, so the gossip ran, knew how to write because he had been born free. And he scripted each day's schedule with an elegant hand, though given the bonders' illiteracy, that was more ritual than anything else. Likkarn would read the day's work sheet out loud as the others filed out the door,
and then hang the assignments on the wall. Even though he was a weeder, he was tolerated by Sarkkhan because he could read and script. Few bonders could read and fewer still could script. It was something taught only to free men and women.

The boys got up together. Errikkin was in the lead, Jakkin next. Several of the smaller boys slipped in between him and Slakk.

Slakk whispered at Jakkin's back, "Was I right? The schedule. Was I right?"

Jakkin checked the marks next to his name and Slakk's, reading them upside down on the chart in front of Likkarn. Jakkin's mother had taught him to read early, before they had been in bond. He could still remember the chanting tone she adopted for drilling his letters. Jakkin had practiced faithfully, to honor her memory. The few coins he ever spent went for books, which he kept hidden with his clothes under his bed. His ability to read, which he did not trouble to hide, was one of the things that Likkarn hated. The old weeder jealously guarded his right to script the schedule. He needn't have bothered. Jakkin could read—but he could not write.

Turning, Jakkin called lightly over the heads of the younger boys, "You were right, Slakk."

Likkarn scowled and read off Jakkin's duties anyway, his voice edged with anger. "'Jakkin: Bloody Flag and Blood Brother. Stalls and baths.' And be sure they're quieted down. If any of them hackle, you're in for it."

"Don't forget"—Slakk's whine began before they were out of the door—"you promised. You promised you'd take—"

Jakkin nodded and walked quickly to get away from Slakk's voice. He willed himself to remember the oasis and the sounds in the incubarns. He was halfway to the stud barn when Slakk caught up with him.

"You did promise, you know."

"Oh, lizard lumps, shut up already. I know I promised." Jakkin rarely got angry with anyone except Slakk. Then, at his friend's crestfallen look, Jakkin was immediately contrite. "I'm sorry, Slakk. I didn't mean to yell. I'm just..." He stopped, horrified with himself. He had been about to confess to Slakk how tired he was and why.

Errikkin turned back and interrupted them.

"It's just been too many days since your last Bond-Off," he supplied. He put his arm over Jakkin's shoulder. "That's all."

Jakkin nodded. They all accepted that explanation and went on to the barn.

The stud barn was twice as high as the bondhouse, to accommodate the size of the big male dragons. Inside on the south wall were individual stalls that simulated the pumice caves where mature males lived in the wild. Since the males paired off when it was not rutting season, leaving the hen dragons to raise the hatchlings, the studs had linked stalls throughout the barn. An unpaired stud often went into a decline and was not good for mating. The north wall stalls were used for the male pit fighters.

In the center of the barn was the great hall, where hen dragons in heat were brought to the studs. The hall was an arena-sized courtyard, without a roof, to accommodate the frantic, spiraling courting flights. It had a soft, mossy floor for the act itself.

Throughout the barn was a system of stone dikes that carried water in from, and out again to, the Narrakka River. It was triple forked inside the building. One fork funneled
drinking water into the individual stalls and a clear, flowing drinking stream into the mating hall. The second funneled out wastewater that had been used for cleaning the barn. The third fork ran directly into the baths, those tremendous pools of mud in which the dragons rolled and sank up to their eyes, to be cooled after mating or fights or twice a month in off-rut. The third fork also filled the cisterns in the shower room, with runoff back into the outlying swamps.

The boys went into the barn, and the deep, cool, musky air assaulted them. Jakkin breathed deeply and smiled. Dragon smells and dragons. They were really what he loved most in the world.

"Phew," said Slakk. "The first thing I am going to do when I buy out of bond is to celebrate the end of this smell. I'm never going to work with dragons again."

"What will you do, then?" asked Errikkin. "What else do you know?"

"I know food," Slakk answered. "I might apprentice to a cook. Or run a baggery.
That
might be a job for a man. Anything but being a slave to a worm."

Jakkin shook his head and was just going
to reply when an incredible roar filled the hallway. It began on a deep bass note and wound its way up and up, without hesitation, until it screamed out its defiance beyond human hearing.

"That's Blood Brother," Jakkin remarked. "He knows it's his turn."

"Just as long as he doesn't hackle," said Errikkin.

"All roar and no fight," sneered Slakk. "That's why he's here. After his first two wins, he refused to go into the pit again."

It was a cynical assessment of the great dragon's skill, but even Errikkin had to agree. Blood Brother's history was known even to the stallboys. Two tremendous fights with older, cunning dragons, and the next time the trainers had tried to lead Brother into the nursery truck to drive to a pit, he had simply collapsed at the barn door. A ton of fighting dragon lying on the ground was not something that could be moved easily. Likkarn had tried the prod-sticks and even a shot with the stinger, set below Stun. But Brother would not move until the truck had driven off without him. Only then had he stood and moved placidly back inside the barn on his own.

"But he's a fantastic stud," Jakkin reminded them. "His hatchlings have won in pits all over the world."

Slakk shrugged and Errikkin smiled. Then the three of them padded down the hall to the dragon stalls.

B
LOOD
B
ROTHER TURNED
his great black shrouds of eyes toward the boys, but in the neighboring stall Bloody Flag continued to munch mindlessly on blisterwort. Brother showed his annoyance by shifting his weight back and forth and houghing.

Jakkin ran his fingers through his hair, then touched the dimple on his cheek that was as deep as a blood score. He always did that when he was nervous, and though he never would have let Slakk and Errikkin know it, Blood Brother was the one dragon he did not wholly trust. Brother was so unpredictable—one minute almost thrumming, that deep-throated purr that a contented dragon used; the next sending warning straggles of smoke
through his slits. Still, it did not do to let a dragon know how nervous you were. Some bonders claimed dragons could smell fear on you. Jakkin supposed that was how his father had been killed by the feral in the sands. Besides, all dragons, he reminded himself with the conventional trainer's wisdom, all dragons are feral, even though they have been domesticated for over two centuries. And especially dragons like Blood Brother.