Dragon's Heart (13 page)

Passing the incubarn, Jakkin barely heard the pipping sounds of dragonlings inside, sounds that would certainly draw in the drakk. He tested the doors, making sure they were all shut tight. Windows, too. After that, he had no other thought than to spread the word.

When he opened the door of the bondhouse, the angry buzz inside told him that the nursery was already on the alert. A huddle of men in the dining room were hunched over a large map. Likkarn was pointing at a spot on it, jabbing his finger angrily, while the men nodded and talked at the same time.

Slakk came toward Jakkin, a bundle of bedclothes over his arms and a stinger slung across his back. He was dressed in boots and hunting leathers.

"I'm off to the incubarn," he informed Jakkin dourly. "Want to come?" He held the door open. "Errikkin's in bed pretending to sleep. He can't stand the buggers. As if the rest of us loved them. Everyone else will be there, though."

"The incubarn stall windows and doors seem tight," Jakkin told him. "I already checked."

"Can't be too careful. Drakk can slip through a fewmetty bunghole."

Jakkin agreed. "Drakk can slip through anything larger than their heads." He touched the blood score on his cheek. "I want to talk to Akki first, then I'll meet you there." He went past Slakk to the door into the women's corridor.

"Akki? But she's gone." Slakk's tone made it sound as if this were somehow Jakkin's fault.

Jakkin turned back. "
Gone?
What do you mean, she's gone? We've only just got here. We haven't been home a week. Gone where?" Though he could guess. His heart seemed to take an extra, stuttering beat in his chest. He was sure Slakk wasn't lying. Slakk's eyes got round and big when he told a lie.

Slakk shrugged. "She grabbed a ride with a big truck going to The Rokk. Driver was tough-looking. Had stayed here overnight. In the big house. Like a visitor. Shaggy black hair. Deep scar." His hand described a hole like a well. "Kay supposedly knew him, or had asked him to come. Or something like that. But
I
wouldn't have gone anywhere with him. And I'm not a girl."

"Thanks for explaining that to me," Jakkin said. He rubbed the scar on his wrist, thinking.
That
description could fit a dozen different men. Slakk wasn't the most observant person.

"When did she go?" he asked.

"This morning, right after we were in the stud barn." Slakk put his head to one side and stared at Jakkin. "At least that's what Errikkin said."

"Why didn't you tell me then?" Jakkin's voice trembled. "I could have stopped her." Though he wondered if she would have listened.

"I didn't know
then,
Jakkin." Slakk turned away toward the door. "Errikkin told me later, as if it was a huge joke. Which I thought it was, at first." He said over his shoulder, "And after, when I knew it
wasn't
a joke, I couldn't find you." He stopped, his brow furrowing like the sands by the oasis after a rush of wind. "Where
were
you?"

Jakkin didn't bother answering, because his head was filled with Akki's name. He cried silently, the sending going farther than any he'd ever tried. Out the door, past the incubarns where several sleeping dragons answered him back with a wail of color. Past the weir, over the sands.

He couldn't believe she'd leave without telling him, without discussing it, without asking him to go along.

Akki...
Maybe it was a last-minute decision, because the truck was here. Maybe she tried to find him. Maybe it was because he'd said they didn't need to do anything, just keep the secret, which he'd only said at the time because he was angry with her.
Well, not angry, exactly, but hurt.
And now he truly believed it was the right thing to do: say nothing, do nothing. But she'd gone, anyway, without a word. And all the time, he'd been playing with Heart's Blood's brood while Akki was leaving in a truck. He cursed himself for being away then, out of sight, out of hearing, out of sending range.

Akki...
Maybe she left because he'd gone off into the oasis without telling her. Or maybe she resented the fact that he loved being back at the nursery, working with the dragons, while she had the more important and harder job of finding out how to save them all. Well, he could tell her now she didn't have to worry, didn't have to go. Could come home.

Akki...
The sending was a red arrow, bound about with gold ribbons, a burst of red fire as bright as dragon's gout, a spray of hot dragon's blood bleeding out of his brain. It traveled along the roadway, north to Krakkow and on past to the great city of The Rokk, which was probably where she was going.
Akkiiiiiiiiiiiii.

Anyone with dragon's ears could have heard it, the pain of it so sharp and true. But wherever Akki was, she was too far away to hear. Too far away to know how hurt he felt.

And how betrayed.

AKKI'S ROOM, which she had shared with Vonikka and Larkki, was at the rear of the bondhouse. The others who inhabited the women's area of the bondhouse were Nakkie and Lakkina, who tended the nursery gardens, and of course little Terakkina, who had her own small room. Kkarina's own suite of rooms was nestled near the kitchen. The rest of the women were paired with men and stayed in other corridors.

When Jakkin got to Akki's room, its door was ajar. He ducked in, looking around for some sign that Slakk had been mistaken. Or had lied. It was not beyond Slakk to lie for effect, or to elaborate on something he'd only half seen or heard. He'd even played a cruel joke or two in his time.

Though the room was a mess of girl stuff—brushes, flower sachets, baubles, rings—it was empty of anything he could identify as Akki's. Hair comb, color bands she put around her braid, even the brush—all were gone. Jakkin remembered that she'd been wearing a gold band at breakfast. And gold was her happy color.

Happy because she was already planning to go?
He felt a sudden heaviness in his belly, as if a stone lodged there. But when could she have made plans?
We've been back less than a week. She said nothing to me about plans to leave.

Jakkin left the room and went down the corridor, slipped through the door and into the men's wing of the bondhouse. He headed directly to the room he shared with the boys.

As Slakk had said, Errikkin was in his bunk, face to the wall, under a blanket, pretending to sleep. But Jakkin could tell that his breathing was irregular, not slow and even, every third breath held, as if expecting a blow.

"So you're not going to help out on the drakk hunt?" Jakkin tried to keep his voice calm, but failed.

Errikkin didn't stir, though his breathing began to speed up.

Still furious about Akki's betrayal, Jakkin grabbed the blanket and ripped it off Errikkin. "What's wrong with you? Why are you acting this way? I thought we were friends." The stone in his belly seemed to jump, and he felt a sharp pain in his chest as if the stone now lodged in his heart.

With slow reluctance, Errikkin turned over. His usually handsome face was blanched and ugly with rage. He said with slow deliberation, "We were friends a year ago.
A year.
I thought you were dead. We had a funeral for you. I mourned. I missed you. I got over it."

"You led the wardens right to us, Errikkin. You mourned because you felt guilty. That's hardly my fault. I forgave you long ago. I got over
that!
"

But Errikkin refused to hear him, saying instead in a low, steady voice, "You chose Akki over me."

"That's not fair..." Jakkin began.
But true,
he thought.
And why would I ever have chosen you?

Errikkin turned back, saying in a voice so low Jakkin almost missed it, "Besides, they don't need me for hunting drakks. Not right now, anyway. The hunt can't start till tomorrow."

All right—act that way.
Jakkin threw the bunched blanket back onto the bed at Errikkin's feet.
We'll never speak of that old, dead friendship again.
He kept his voice equally low and deliberate. "Some of us will be in the incubarn tonight. Keeping watch. Why not come out there?"

Errikkin didn't move. He'd already turned his back on Jakkin, on the room, on the conversation. "I hope you get a good night's sleep out there among the fewmetty dragons and their stink. I'll make do with a real bed."

Stunned by Errikkin's tone, Jakkin gathered up his own bedclothes in one great swoop and hung them around his neck. As he left the room, Errikkin's final words kept resounding in his head. What had he meant? Did he so hate dragons? Or the nursery folk?

Or just me?

***

THE DINING HALL was empty, so Jakkin grabbed a set of leathers and a stinger from the table. He walked quickly out the bondhouse door, and raced through the growing Dark-After. The night was already black, and the cold ran across his body in rivers. Though that didn't bother him, Jakkin didn't dare take his time getting to the incubarn. He had to act as if the cold were brutal and likely fatal if he didn't move fast enough.

The door of the barn had stiffened in the cold, but at last he managed to open it a crack, and while it squalled its protest, he slipped inside. Once again, the heat of the place hit him like a fist.

"Lucky you didn't freeze out there," young Arakk commented, closing the door after Jakkin with a shove of his shoulder.

"Dark-After's only just starting," Jakkin pointed out. "And I had enough blankets and stuff around me to keep me warm for that short dash."

"Yeah—that much cold would make me run fast, too," Arakk said, laughing.

His sunny response made Jakkin smile. Then he walked down to the end of the incubarn, where he peered into Auricle's stall.

"Hello, thou pretty girl," he whispered once he was inside, sending her a shower of gold circles. But halfway down, the shower turned blue, looking more like teardrops. The dragon looked up with her unreadable black eyes.

Glancing around quickly, Jakkin noticed that something was wrong. It took him a moment to realize that the hatchling was gone. He dumped his bedding in the stall. Going over to Auricle, he put a hand on either side of her great head and looked into the black shrouds of her eyes.

"Where is thy hatchling?" he asked, though the hatchling was only hers by adoption.

She sent him a picture of a hand cradling the hatchling. A hand with a gold band around the wrist.

Akki.

"Akki has the hatchling?"

Auricle crowded him, licking his cheek. Her rough tongue nearly took the skin off. She sent him the same picture: hand, gold band, hatchling.

Why would she take the hatchling?

Once again he felt cold. Not the cold of outside, but a different, duller, aching cold. As if the place that had been home was suddenly something else. And the person he'd loved more than anyone had turned into a stranger.
She'd only take the hatchling if she's not planning to come back.

"I'll stay here with thee tonight, girl," Jakkin told the dragon. "After I find out the men's plans. When I return, you and I will talk."

As he left the stall, Auricle's sending answered him. It was a soft picture of Akki's face, her long dark hair wrapping her like a shawl. "
Girl safe. Boy safe. Dragon safe.
"

Safe?
He didn't answer. He didn't know what to say.

***

THE OTHERS
were in the main room of the barn, where buyers were taken while awaiting a tour of the latest hatchlings. The visitors' room was the one comfortable place in the incubarn, with soft chairs and a three-person sofa covered in multicolored eggskin.

A window overlooked the courtyard and Jakkin saw in one quick glance that Dark-After had settled in for the night, spreading itself into every niche and nook and cavity, like old Kkarina in a chair. Balakk was just closing the heavy wooden shutters to help keep out the cold.

In front of the window, arms on his hips, staring out with anger at the blackness, stood Likkarn. Around him, sprawled on the chairs, sofas, floor, the boys and men of Sarkkhan's Nursery seemed uneasy as they awaited their instructions. No women—not even Vonikka and Larkki—had been allowed in the hunt.
Too dangerous,
Jakkin supposed,
though no more dangerous than all that Akki has been through.

Jakkin's entrance into the room stirred them all into action. Some got up, some simply stretched. Balakk began to speak to Arakk, who listened with quiet intensity.

But Likkarn stopped them all simply by turning around and holding up his right hand. Sudden silence filled the overheated room.

"How many have gone on a drakk hunt before?" Likkarn asked.

Jakkin understood that Likkarn asked the question simply to focus everyone's attention on him. He already knew the answer, as they all did.

Several hands went up. Jakkin slowly raised his own. He remembered that one drakk hunt all too well. How frightened he'd been, sweating out his fear into his leathers. But that fright was long over and what was left to him was an instinctive hatred of drakks.

"Good," Likkarn said. "We will need you on the actual hunt. But tonight..."

Tonight we have to guard the barn, with its new crop of hatchlings.
All of the men would be needed for tonight. Jakkin thought angrily of Errikkin tucked up comfortably in his bed. Looking around, Jakkin realized that every other man and boy from the nursery was here. Surely Likkarn would note Errikkin's absence and say something in the morning. But tonight—tonight they were one guard short and that might make all the difference.

Balakk gave out the masks first. "Snap these on to your jerkins. The smell of a drakk—especially a dead drakk—can be overpowering. Don't be embarrassed to use the masks. Trust me. Strong men have passed out from the stink, especially in an enclosed space."

A small ripple of laughter ran around the room, and Kkitakk said, "You weren't all that strong, my friend."

"I am now," Balakk answered.

Laughter once again rippled around the room, only this time the men looked pointedly at Balakk, who began to blush.