Jakkin walked to the top of a dune, escorted by the dragon. It ran around him, its legs having to work twice as fast to pull the weight of its wings.
"Stay," Jakkin told it sharply. Then he knelt down by its side. "Stay, my beauty, till I come to thee again." He touched its nose.
The dragon seemed to understand. It crouched down, head on its front legs, wings folded back along its sides.
Jakkin turned back only once to look at it, and by then it was fast asleep in the sand.
13
JAKKIN SCRAMBLED ONTO the road once he was sure it was free of dust clouds, and turned to broom away his final steps. As he walked briskly toward the nursery turnoff, the basket banging against his back, he tried again to sort out the possible meaning of the toeprint he had found. He was convinced it belonged to Likkarn. But what if it did not?
If it belonged to one of the young boys—Errikkin or Slakk or Trikko, for example—he could probably buy the boy off with the coins from his bag. He jangled the bag, listening to the clank and nodding his head at how full it seemed.
If the footprint belonged to an older bonder, things would be more difficult. Perhaps he would have to offer a half share in the dragon, besides the gold. But he would make it clear that he, Jakkin, was to be the trainer. After all, the dragon already responded to him, already knew his mind.
But if it was Likkarn spying on him, then that would be the worst of all. The old man already blamed Jakkin for his latest de-bagging. He had made that quite clear.
Shifting the basket on his back, Jakkin turned onto the road lined with spikka trees that led to the nursery. It was said that there were more spikka trees planted at Sarkkhan's Nursery than anywhere else on Austar. They were expensive, Jakkin knew, but they also helped make the ground fertile by drawing and holding water with their roots.
As Jakkin rounded the last turning, he saw the nursery buildings spread out before him and, to the right, the red haze of the wort and weed patches. He let out an involuntary sigh and stopped. Except for a few snatches of memory, Sarkkhan's Nursery was all he knew. It was his home. And yet not his home, for when he had filled his bag, when he had trained his dragon and won his fights, he would leave and start the life of a master. On his own. Instinctively, his hand went first through his hair, then touched the dimple on his cheek, and at last rested on his bond bag, a habitual round he was not aware of.
He laughed out loud. "You can face drakk and dragons, but not your own waking dreams."
He had started up again, determined not to fall prey to such fears, when a strange cackling sounded from behind the incubarn to his right. For a moment Jakkin did not recognize the noise. It was a combination of a hen chuckle and the frantic peep-peeping of hatchlings. Then he remembered. Today was the day of the first airing, when the hens and their broods were let out of the barn into the corral.
Jakkin took off the basket and set it by the side of the barn, where he would pick it up later. He loved to watch the first airing. There was nothing funnier than the rush of hatchlings as they ran about, watched over by the mother dragons and the bond boys.
The henyard was an open corral surrounded by a fence of planed spikka wood. A full-grown hen could easily step over or fly across the man-made border. But the mother dragons would not leave their broods, and the hatchlings would not be able to make more than a few wing-hops for several months yet. So they all stayed inside the enclosing arms of the fence. The hens crouched down like great stone statues, keeping their fathomless black eyes on the antics of the young. And bond boys scattered at intervals on the fence top made sure no injuries occurred, using long prod-sticks to separate overeager hatchlings, who were already establishing a pecking order that would last the rest of their brood lives.
Jakkin climbed up the fence and, holding on, peered over the top. He scanned the broods quickly. They were all out of their eggskins, the hens having helped remove the last patches. Jakkin knew that the bond girls had already collected the pieces of eggskin and begun the long task of sewing them together for clothes and coverlets and the hundred other items the soft, stretchable fragments could be used for. Jakkin looked in particular for the crippled hatchling in Heart O'Mine's brood, but he could not find it. It had probably already been culled. There were one or two runts that would be culled soon as well: a nearly white one cowered by the barn gate, smaller than the rest by half; and a finely spotted yellow weakling lay covered with dust by the foot of its mother, Heart to Heart. There was little doubt those two hatchlings would be early culls.
Jakkin sighed. He hated the thought of the culling, when the weakest dragon hatchlings were taken from their hens, squealing and peeping, and thrown into the truck bound for the stews. He knew it had to be done, that such dragons would die before year's end anyway, stepped on or pecked into a stupor by their broodmates. If they were allowed to live long enough to stud or bear young, the resulting hatchlings would be even weaker than their parents. Jakkin knew all this, but it didn't make the terrible cries in the culling trucks any easier to bear.
He compared the hatchlings in the yard to his own dragon, and they all suffered by the comparison. These young dragons were spotted and marked with splotches of color. Not a dark red in the lot. One hatchling was all orange, one deep mustard-colored, and two gray-browns with yellow paws. His dragon, with its dull brown skin, had the best markings of them all. Of course, he reminded himself, color was not the only clue to a dragon's worth. And first color was not last. But he could not stop himself from smiling when he thought of his own, as he had last seen it, a brown mound asleep on the sand.
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.
14
ALL 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.
***
LATER 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 f
or 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.