Dragon's Blood

  "I'll never tell," Jakkin said, looking at her. "That was a promise you gave me once. Remember? Only, I keep my promises."

  "And if I had kept it completely, would you be here now?" she asked. "Or if I had not been the watcher, but Likkarn? Or Slakk? Or even Errikkin?"

  Jakkin said nothing.

  "Oh, go on, Jakkin. I have kept my promise to you—in substance, if not in words. Go on. Besides, both of you could probably use the walk."

  Feeling the tightness in his muscles echoing the tightness in his throat, Jakkin nodded. He did not trust himself to speak.

  A piercing whistle recalled Akki to the truck's cab. Ardru came around from the other side.

  "All is clear," he said to Jakkin as he climbed into the cab. "And, boy..."

  Jakkin looked up into the man's coolly assessing eyes. "Yes," he said, his voice hesitating between resentment and thanks.

  "That is a mighty fighting dragon you have there. You must treat your dragon as you would a woman—with respect as well as love."

  Before Jakkin could think of an answer, the truck had started with a muffled roar and pulled away, leaving great ruts in the sand.

  Jakkin put his feet in the ruts and walked slowly along. When he looked behind, the dragon was following him docilely.

  ***

  THE KRAKKOW MINOR PIT was a huge, round two-story building constructed between two small cities but within the jurisdiction of only one—Krakkow. Jakkin could see a great center bubble illuminated from within, probably containing the pit itself. He had been told that there were tiers of stands where bettors, sat, and a series of stalls on the lower floors.

  He checked the contract once again, and the letter that Akki had given him. It told him nothing beyond the number of his fight—tenth draw—and the number of the stall to which "Jakkin's Red" was assigned. First Fighters usually had the master's name and color description as identification. Naming would be done later.

  "Stall twenty-four," he whispered over his shoulder to the dragon. In the early-morning light, the dragon's red scales were lustrous, even with their patina of road dust.

  As they came nearer, the pit, there was an explosion of sounds and smells and a flash of colors as dragons were unloaded from trucks, pushed and chivvied through two wooden gates. Jakkin heard the high-pitched scream of an angry dragon and watched as a gigantic brown with a splash of yellow across its muzzle went into a hindfoot rise. It towered over the truck it had come in. A scattering of men with smaller dragons warned Jakkin to hold his red close.

  Steady, steady, he thought at it, but his own tenseness communicated itself to the dragon. It sent a series of lightning strokes jetting through his head.

  The great brown was calmed at last by a man who struck it on the sensitive end of the nose with a prod-stick. The dragon slinked through the gate with several well-dressed men after it. Nearby an orange dragon shifted its weight back and forth and houghed its distress. The sound was picked up by others.

  Jakkin's dragon sat for a moment and looked around. Jakkin went back to it and stroked its muzzle, then scratched behind its ears. "There's weed and wort for you inside, my beauty," he said. "And then you can show them all what you can do. But come. Come. Calmly."

  The dragon turned its black eyes on Jakkin and they stared at one another for a long time. Something very like a bridge formed in Jakkin's mind and he fancied that two colors, a primary red and a primary blue, met in the middle of it. Then the dragon stood and followed Jakkin across the hard-packed earth and through the gates, where a bored guard stamped the papers that Jakkin carried in his bag. The guard took a quick picture of the dragon, affixing it to a badge that he pinned onto Jakkin's shirt so carelessly that it fell off before Jakkin had taken two steps. Jakkin picked up the facs badge and pinned it back on himself.

  ***

  THE UNDERPIT STALL number twenty-four was a solid wooden affair, and the food bin was piled high with fresh stalks and leaves. The dragon munched happily on them while Jakkin took the meat and bread from inside his shirt. Even wrapped in brown paper, the meat drippings had spotted his clean shirt-front. Jakkin tried unsuccessfully to rub the spots out.

  "Maybe," he mumbled to himself, "maybe they look like dragon blood." But what they smelled like, he knew, was sandwich. He had dressed carefully that morning, but now he looked like a poor bonder. Shrugging the annoyance away, he settled down to grooming the red with a cloth he found on a hook in the stall.

  Noises came through the wooden ceiling. Jakkin could hear the groans of the floor joists as bettors and onlookers crowded into their seats. A disembodied voice called the names of the dragons for the opening fight: "Sarkkhan's Heavy Heart and Nokkar's Gold Digger."

  Sarkkhan, here at the pit! And with a named dragon! Jakkin found himself suddenly aware of the loud drumroll of his own heartbeats. Why hadn't Akki warned him? She must have known. Why hadn't he found it out himself? Surely he could have asked Balakk or Jo-Janekk or any of the other older bonders. It was information that was easy to discover. But he had been so afraid of being discovered that he himself had discovered nothing. He cursed his own incompetence, his own inadequacies. He was a boy, indeed. And now he could only hope—hope that Sarkkhan would win and leave, or lose and leave. He did not know what he would do if the Master recognized the red.

  Suddenly he laughed out loud. How could Master Sarkkhan recognize the red? He had never seen it. "Thou art mine," he whispered fiercely at the dragon. "I took thee and I raised thee and I trained thee." He attacked the dragon's scales with the cloth as if they were an enemy to be rubbed out. "And thy name is Jakkin's Red."

  The dragon was too busy munching on the wort to reply.

  Then the noises overhead changed. Jakkin could hear cheers and an occasional raucous call. He could not distinguish the words, but the intentions were clear. And above it all were the loud thumps and screeches and roars of the dragons as they battled for supremacy in the pit.

  A pattern developed, and Jakkin, still cleaning his own dragon, heard it and made it a part of his own respiration. In the reactions of the crowd he could hear attack and counterattack, feint and thrust. He could translate the dragon screams into passes and charges, the thuds into wing-leaps and an occasional hindfoot rise. But he was unprepared for the sudden stillness at the fight's end, and when it came, he held his breath.

  Then, floating into the silence, violating the peace, the mechanical voice called out: "Game to Heavy Heart."

  Sarkkhan's worm had won the first draw. Jakkin did not know whether that was good or bad. He bent down over the red's claws and polished the lanceae of the right front foot with special care. He did not even notice when Sarkkhan's winner flowed through the dragonlock and went back into its stall.

  19

  JAKKIN LOST COUNT after the sixth fight, but he could hear, overhead, the pit cleaners circling noisily, gobbling up old fewmets with their iron mouths. They spit out fresh sawdust and moved on. It generally took several minutes between fights, and the mechanical clanking of the cleaners was matched by the roars of the pit-wise dragons and the last-minute betting calls of their masters.

  Jakkin's fingers betrayed his nervousness. He simply could not keep them still. They picked off bits of dust and flicked at specks on the dragon's already gleaming scales. They polished and smoothed and polished again.

  For the moment the red dragon seemed impervious to first-fight jitters and arched up under Jakkin's hands.

  The cleaners clanked out of the ring through the mecho holes and Jakkin looked up. He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to swallow; then he touched the dimple on his cheek. Finally his hand found the bond bag and kneaded it several times for luck.

  "Soon now," he promised the dragon in a hoarse whisper, his hand still on the bag. "Soon. We will show them a first fight they will remember."

  The only sounds came from the dragon's jaws as it munched on the remaining stalks in its bin.

  The disembodied voice announced the next fight. "Jakki
n's Red, Mekkle's Bottle O'Rum."

  Jakkin winced. He had overheard a little about Bottle O'Rum that morning when he had gone out once to find more wort leaves. (Burnwort stoked a dragon's internal fires and made its flame hotter in a fight.) The dragon masters and trainers did not chatter while they groomed their fighters, but the bettors did, and Jakkin had chanced upon a knot of them by a stall. There were three in the fancy coveralls that the Austarian free men at the pits affected, and one off worlder, the first Jakkin had ever seen. He was wearing a sky blue suit covered with gold braid. Jakkin had known him for a rocket jockey at once because of the planet name and number emblazoned on his pocket.

  The bettors had said, among other things, that Mekkle's Bottle O'Rum was a light-colored orange male that favored its left side and had won three of its seven fights—the last three. It would never be great, the whispers had run, but it was good enough in the minor pits. Jakkin had stored that bit of information away in his head, along with a lot else.

  And now, Jakkin thought miserably, he could use what he knew. Bottle O'Rum was a hard draw for a new dragon, and possibly disastrous for a would-be dragon master. If Mekkle could afford to run his dragon for four losing fights, until it was pit-wise and old enough and strong enough to win, then he must own a nursery. Jakkin, with a bag now almost empty of even its grave coin, had no such option.

  Jakkin knew his red would be good in time, even great, given the luck of the draw. It had all the things a fighter was supposed to have: It listened well, it had heart, it did all that was asked of it. "And more," he whispered. "And more."

  But the red was not a particularly large dragon and this was its first fight. Not only that, but it was unused to the company of other dragons. It was starting to get really nervous, rolling its eyes, houghing at loud noises. It had even begun to hackle when he had first brought it into the stall, though he had been able to calm it quickly. It had never been in a ring, not even in a corral or training ring behind a barn. What chance would it have fighting a pit-wise three-time winner? The red had never been blooded or given roar. He had been crazy to think they had a chance.

  Already, Jakkin supposed, the betting would be running way against the young red. He thought he could hear the murmur of new bets following the announcement of the fight. The odds would be so awful, he might never get a sponsor for a second match, even if the red showed well in the pit. First fights were free, Akki had told him. But seconds cost gold. And if he had no sponsor and no gold, that would leave only the stews for the dragon—and a return to bond for himself.

  Jakkin stroked the bond bag once more, then buttoned his shirt over it to conceal it. He did not know yet what it felt like to be free. He had had a year of pretending in the oasis, a year of short nights and an occasional Bond-Off away from bonders' gossip and Likkarn's hard hand. But he could still endure years more as a bond boy if he had to. Balakk and Jo-Janekk had stood it well. And there would be other chances for him to steal an egg, other years. Or he could apprentice under Likkarn as a trainer, swallowing his pride and bowing and smiling like Errikkin to buy favors from the old man.

  He could stand it—if he had to. But how could he give up the red to the stews? It was not any old dragon—an enraged stud like Brother or a young cull. It was his beauty, his red. They had already shared a year together, nights and a few precious days out in the sands. He knew its mind better than his own: a deep, glowing cavern of colors and sights and sounds.

  He remembered the first time he had really felt his way into it, not just been assaulted by the jets and passionate lightnings it chose to send him.

  He had been lying on his side, slightly winded from running. The red lay down beside him, a small mountain in the sand. Closing his eyes, Jakkin had tried to reach out for the red, and suddenly he felt it open to him and it was as if he were walking down a glowing path into a cavern where colors dripped like large hanging crystals from a roof of the deepest purple. Rainbow puddles were on the cavern floor and multicolored fish leapt up from the water, singing. There had been a resonant thrumming, a humming that filled the air and then filled him.

  The red calmed him when he was not calm, cheered him when he thought he could not be cheered. Linked as he was with it now, how could he ever bear to hear its last screams in the stews as the sharp-bladed knack-knife cut across its tender throat links and the hot blood dripped away into the cauldrons? How could he hear that and stay sane?

  Perhaps, he thought suddenly, perhaps that was why Likkarn was always yelling at the younger bonders, why he smoked blisterweed that turned his mind foggy and made him cry red tears. And perhaps that was why most dragons in the stews were early culls or untrained yearlings. Not because they were softer, more succulent, but because no one would be linked with them to hear them when they screamed.

  Jakkin's skin felt slimed with perspiration and the dragon turned and sniffed it on him. It gave out a few straggles of smoke from its slits. Jakkin fought down his own fear. If he could not control it, his red would have no chance at all. "A dragon is only as good as its master," bonders liked to say. He took several deep breaths and then moved over to the red's head, staring into its unblinking eyes.

  "Thou art a fine one, my Red," he whispered. "First fight for us both, but I trust thee." He hesitated a moment. "Trust me?"

  The dragon responded, with slightly rounded smokes. Deep within its eyes Jakkin thought he detected small lights.

  "Dragon's fire!" he breathed. "The nearness of the other dragons must have brought it out. Thou art a fighter. I knew it!"

  Jakkin slipped the stall ring from the red's neck and rubbed its scales underneath. They were not yet as hard as a mature fighter's—still tender enough for the knack-knife. For a moment Jakkin worried that the older Bottle O'Rum might tear the red beyond repair. He pulled the dragon's head down and whispered into its ear. "Guard thyself here," he said, rubbing with his fingers under the throat links, thinking Danger at it.

  The dragon shook its head playfully and Jakkin slapped it lightly on the neck, pushing it backward and out of the stall.

  The dragonlock on the wall irised open, and with a surge the red flowed through it and up into the empty pit.

  20

  "IT'S EAGER." THE whisper ran around the crowd. They always liked that in young dragons. Time enough to grow cautious in the pit. Older dragons often were reluctant and had to be prodded with sticks, behind the wings or in the tender underparts of the tail. The bettors considered it a great fault. Jakkin heard the crowd's appreciation of the red as he came up into the stands.

  It would have been safer for Jakkin to remain below, guiding his dragon by mind. That way there would be no chance for Master Sarkkhan to find him.

  Many trainers, Mekkle being one of them, stayed down below in the stalls drinking and eating and guiding their dragons where the sounds and looks of the crowd could not influence them. But Jakkin needed to see the red as well as feel it, to watch the fight through his own eyes as well as the red's. They had practiced too long, just the two of them, in the sands. Neither Jakkin nor his red knew how another dragon in a real fight would respond. Jakkin had to be up in the stands to understand it all. And the red was used to seeing him close by. He did not want to change that now. Not now. Besides, unlike many of the other bonders, Jakkin had never been to a fight, only read about them in the books and heard about them from Akki and his bondmates. This, he thought bitterly, might be his only chance to watch. He further rationalized that up in the stands he might find out more about Mekkle's orange, and what he learned could help him help the red.

  Jakkin looked around the stands cautiously from the stairwell. He saw no one he knew, neither fellow bonders in the upper tiers nor masters who traded with Sarkkhan in the pitside seats. He edged quietly into the lower stands, just one more free boy at the fights. Nothing could call attention to him in the masters' boxes but the near-empty bond bag beneath his shirt. He checked his buttons carefully to make sure they were closed. Then he leaned forward,
hands on the seat back in front of him, and watched as his red circled the ring.

  It held its head high and measured the size of the pit, the height of the walls. It looked over the bettors as if to count them, and an appreciative chuckle ran through the crowd. The red scratched in the sawdust several times, testing its depth. And still Bottle O'Rum had not appeared.

  Then with an explosion Bottle O'Rum came through the dragonlock and landed with all four feet planted well beneath the level of the sawdust, his claws fastened immovably to the boards.

  "Good stance," shouted someone in the crowd, and the betting began anew.

  The red gave a little flutter with its wings, a flapping that might indicate nervousness, and Jakkin thought at it, He is a naught. A stander. But thy nails and wings are fresh. Do not be afraid. Remember thy training. At that the little red's head went high and its neck scales glittered in the artificial sun of the pit.

  "Watch that neck," shouted a heckler. "There's one that'll be blooded soon."

  "Too soon," shouted another from across the stands at him.

  Bottle O'Rum charged the inviting neck.

  It was just as Jakkin hoped, for charging from the fighting stance is a clumsy maneuver at best. The claws must all be retracted simultaneously, or one will catch in the boards. And the younger the dragon, the more brittle its claws. The orange might have been seven fights older than the red, but it was not yet fully mature. As Rum charged, one of the nails on his front right foot, probably the unum, Jakkin thought, did catch in the floorboards, and it splintered, causing him to falter for a second. The red shifted its position slightly. Instead of blooding the red on the vulnerable neck, Rum's charge brought him headlong onto the younger dragon's chest plates, the hardest and slipperiest part of a fighting dragon's armor. The screech of tooth on scale sent winces through the crowd. Only Jakkin was ready, for it was a maneuver he had taught his dragon out in the sands.