Dragon's Blood (10 page)

"Do you need to ask?" said Slakk. He began pounding his fist on the table. "Akki, Akki, Akki."

The others laughingly joined in.

Jakkin looked quickly over at the pair-bonders' table. Since Akki was not there, he smiled and let them go on. What did it matter how wrong they were?
He
knew he would be spending first his night and then his Bond-Off day out on the sands with his dragon.

J
AKKIN LEFT DIRECTLY
after dinner, strolling off down the road as if going toward the town for an evening at the local stews. It was a long walk, nearly fifteen kilometers, but he shrugged off a ride with some of the others. Let them think what they liked; he had jangled his bag at them, clanking with the bounty coins. Let them make false guesses.

When he was passed by no more nursery trucks (bought dearly, he knew, from the star traders at Rokk) and he could see no road dust deviling up from tires or feet either ahead of him or behind, Jakkin doubled back halfway, crossed the weir, and headed out over the sand.

Once, hearing the noise of a vehicle far
off down the road, and seeing the telltale dust spiraling up, he had dug a quick depression in the sand and snuggled into it. But the truck roared by without stopping, and he realized that he had not really needed to hide. He was already far enough away from the road. Still, he knew that care was more important now than ever. Bending over and brooming his footsteps, he scuttled like a lizard over the ocean of sand. He noticed that his prints from the night before were gone, and he thanked the intermittent south wind for helping him keep his secret.

He reached the oasis before the first moon had lipped the horizon. That gave him four hours at the very least. Nothing stirred. The air was incredibly still. The weed and wort patch had stopped smoldering except for one lone stalk that sent a gentle puff of smoke into the air. Without wind to move it off, the smoke cloud hung around the tip of the plant. From where he stood, Jakkin could see the toothed leaves of the plant partially unrolled, maroon sap veins like road maps running through them. Tomorrow he would start crushing the most mature leaves.

A sudden little wind squalled through the patch, coming from nowhere. The leaves trembled, dipped. As quickly as it had come, the wind puffed itself out in the patch.

Jakkin smiled and went over to the reed shelter. Before he got there, a cascade of muted colors burst into his head. "Thou mighty snatchling!" he cried. "Thou hast sensed my coming." He bent over and started in and was tripped by the dragonling.

Its size startled him. It was fully a body size larger than the night before, coming almost to his knees. Its eggskin was still the dirty yellow color, but now it was stretched taut over the dragon's growing muscle and bone. Underneath, the dark patches that he had only sensed were beginning to show through. And there were tears in the custard-scum-colored skin where the dragon had begun to molt. Inside the shelter, Jakkin found swatches of the eggskin hanging from snags on the wall. The snatchling had apparently rubbed against the reeds to ease the itching of its shedding skin.

Jakkin picked up one of the swatches of skin and pulled it between his hands. It
stretched easily and had a soft, almost furry feel. When he let it go, it snapped back to its original shape.

Jakkin walked out of the shelter to the spring and took off his sandals. He put his feet into the warm water. The dragon held back, as if waiting for a signal.

"Come on, then," he called to it softly, making enticing little trails in the sand with his hand.

The dragon watched his fingers for a moment, then trotted out of the shelter and pounced. It caught his hand in its mouth, and the red ridge of tooth bumps clamped down. One tooth must have already broken through, for there was a sharp piercing pain in Jakkin's palm, but he did not take his hand away. "Fight, thou wonder," he said, and was rewarded with another burst of color in his head. The dragon opened its mouth and backed off for a moment. Then, raising its trailing wings, it launched itself with a leap into the stream.

Jakkin was up in an instant, ready to follow the snatchling and rescue it, when he realized that it was paddling down the ribbon of water as easily as if it were a fish. He sat down
again and watched it. Obviously it had tried this maneuver before. There was nothing casual or tentative in its swimming. When the dragon came to the stream's end, it climbed up through the kkhan reeds and trotted back to Jakkin's side, where it shook itself thoroughly, wetting Jakkin in the process.

"Thou didst that on purpose!" shouted Jakkin, cuffing the little dragon lightly, a love tap. The dragon, in the same spirit, tapped Jakkin back with its still-soft claws. It followed this attack by leaping onto Jakkin's chest. Jakkin tumbled back, and they rolled over and over, and down into the stream.

Jakkin paddled after the dragonling with more splashing and less grace. When they climbed out through the reeds, Jakkin took off his shirt and shorts and spread them out to dry on the sand.

"Listen," he said, "if thou art going to be such a rowdy, thou must eat to gather strength." He walked over to the weed and wort patch with the dragon at his heels. Carefully choosing a fully leafed-out stalk, he plucked three leaves. They were warm to the touch.

Back at the spring, he squeezed a leaf
between his fingers. Only a little juice ran out of the veins. The dragon snuggled in his lap. Jakkin tickled it under the chin. The dragon opened its mouth and Jakkin drizzled what juice he could into its mouth and on its nose.

At first the hatchling looked surprised. Then it sent a long, red-ribbed tongue out to explore its muzzle for whatever juice remained.

Jakkin crushed the second leaf, puncturing the vein at several places with his fingernail. This time he was able to extract more juice from the plant.

The snatchling slurped it eagerly, licking Jakkin's fingers for whatever was left.

The third round of juice seemed to satisfy the dragon's hunger completely, and it fell asleep as soon as it had finished giving Jakkin's red-stained fingers a perfunctory lick.

Jakkin sat for almost an hour with the little dragon on his legs, stroking its head and working carefully at a tear in the eggskin over its left ear. He crooned old songs and hummed new melodies he made up himself. He murmured names to it. But when Akka and Akkhan sat high in the sky, making double
shadows in the sand, Jakkin lifted the little dragon in his arms and carried it back into the hut. He covered it again with his old shirt.

"Sleep well, thou mighty snatchling," he whispered to it. "For I shall come to thee in the morning. And bring a bowl and a bone knife to make thee a proper meal. I promise."

The dragon answered him only with slight, hissing snores.

Jakkin put on his clothes, now dried in the heat, and left the oasis, brooming away his trail. A slight wind, rising in the east, finished the job for him. He was back in the bondhouse and asleep long before the rest had returned from the town.

B
OWL AND BONE
knife. Those were Jakkin's very first thoughts when the morning sun streamed across his face. He was lying half in and half out of his bunk, well awake before the bell. Bowl and bone knife. How would he ever find them? What excuse would he use to get them?

In the end, he simply got dressed early and found his way into the kitchen before the other bonders had risen. Kkarina was stirring the takk in a gigantic pot, tasting it every three or four stirs.

"Good morning," Jakkin said brightly.

She turned and looked at him, raising her eyebrows but keeping her mouth on the spoon. Kkarina would never hurry her tasting.
At last she finished and put the spoon back in to stir some more. "Another few minutes," she said, meaning the takk.

Jakkin nodded.

"Get a bowl and have a taste," she said, pointing at a small room off the kitchen.

Jakkin walked where directed and found a room of shelves with all the bowls and spoons and cutlery he could want. He slipped a bone-handled knife inside his shirt, then took a bowl and spoon and went out. It had been easy.

"Come here," Kkarina said. "You need some meat on you."

She jabbed at him with the spoon. He jumped back, and the knife inside his shirt slapped his ribs. He had a sudden fear that it would fall out. Hugging the bowl against his shirt, imprisoning the knife between it and his ribs, he went over to Kkarina.

"Drakk killer," she said affectionately, and smiled. "Hero." She touched his bag, making it jangle.

Jakkin smiled back. He knew it was a false smile and hated himself for it.

"Want to tell me the story of the hunt?"

Jakkin began the story as Kkarina filled his bowl. But when he got to the part where the mother drakk had been killed, he quickly glossed over the stabbing, not really wanting to tell Kkarina that all he had done was dip his knife into the dead drakk. But he did not want to lie to her, either. That other knife, the one under his shirt, seemed to burn a brand across his front.

"I didn't do that much," he ended lamely, remembering with shame the wet coveralls that he had stuffed into the laundry. The more he remembered, the less he wanted to remember. Some hero.

"You must have done something to have filled your bag, to have been given an extra Bond-Off."

Jakkin looked down at the full bowl. The takk was hot enough to send up bubbles that burst into a deep pink froth. He shrugged.

"Go on and eat. I'll pack you a lunch. Most men, after their first roundup, want to get as far away from work as possible. Must be something, that hunt." She turned her back on him and went to the cold lockers, coming back with a basket of paper-wrapped food packages. "Here. Go. This won't be
the only one of these I'll be fixing today."

Jakkin took the bowl in one hand, the basket in the other, and went out into the common room. He drank the takk as quickly as he could, letting the hot, thick liquid sear a trail down his throat. Then, rinsing out the bowl and spoon, he thrust them into the basket, covering them with one of the food bundles. If anyone asked, he would say ... He could not think of what he would say.

The alarm bell rang loudly and Jakkin jumped. He could hear the sounds of bonders waking on both sides of the house.

Hoisting the basket onto his back and adjusting the leather straps to fit his shoulders, he pushed open the heavy door and went out into the daylight.

As he left, Kkarina's voice echoed again in his thoughts: "Most men, after their first roundup..."
Most men.
Was the passage from boy to man really that easy? And was it always built upon lies?

Then, pushing the thought away, he bent his head and trudged off down the road as if he were going into town.

***

T
HE DRAGON MUST
have sensed his coming, for it was out of the shelter and waiting for him. It had only shreds of eggskin still clinging to its body, a strange patchwork of dull brown and yellow. Jakkin had a moment of disappointment. Dull brown. He had thought it was going to be a red. Browns were usually solid fighters, aggressive but without much imagination. Reds, on the other hand ... He beat down the thought. Perhaps, it might still change color. Hadn't he heard that "color fast does not last," meaning a dragon's true color often did not show early? He could still hope.

He shifted his pack on his back and the coins in his bag clinked together.

At the sound, the dragon lifted its oversized wings. They still had a crumpled appearance and the effort of moving them seemed to tire the little lizard. It settled down again on its stomach and waited, head on front claws, for Jakkin to come nearer.

Jakkin smiled at the dragon and thought at it,
The morning becomes thee, my wonder worm.

The dragon's muted rainbow signature
ran through Jakkin's head once more, as clear and identifying as if it were a mark on paper.

Jakkin knelt for a moment by the dragon's side and scratched it behind the ears and then down its long neck. The hatchling raised its back up, arching under his hand.

"Not yet, thou beauty," he said. He stood and walked into the shelter, where he shrugged out of the basket, unpacking the bowl and bone-handled knife. "First we must feed thee. Come on." •

The dragon followed confidently at his heels as he walked to the weed and wort patch. In the direct sun, the leaves were all open, as if turning every vein to catch the light. At the head of the patch, the dragon halted, digging its claws into the sand. It stood still, watching the movement of the wind through the stalks.

Jakkin was about to enter the patch but stopped himself. This was the time, he thought suddenly, for the dragon's first lesson. He turned and faced it and held his hands toward it, palms up. "Good
stand
" he said, and then thought at it as well,
STAND
still, thou mighty fighter,
STAND.
He repeated the hand
signals again and the spoken words, all the while thinking the sentence.

The dragon cocked its head to one side as if considering, but remained in the clawed-in stance.

Jakkin watched it carefully. After a minute, he could see it tiring, one leg beginning to waver.
Good
STAND,
he thought at it one more time and went over and hugged it to him, rubbing it under the chin. "Thou mighty young snatchling. Thou great worm."

The dragon's tongue wrapped around his little finger and licked.

"Now for some food," Jakkin said. He walked back into the patch, careful not to touch the red stalks, which were still hotter than was comfortable; nor to brush against the seed pods, which until they were covered with a gray film could give a bad burn. He plucked a handful of leaves and went back to the shelter, where he got out the bowl and knife.

Sitting down, feet in the stream, Jakkin cut the leaves, piercing the veins with the knife. Then he crushed the leaves with the bone handle. Before long, he had a half a bowl of juice.

"Here, eat this," he called to the snatchling, who was pouncing on shadows thrown by the kkhan reeds at the end of the pool.