Though they all knew the basics of hunting drakk, no one minded the extra warning. Then Jo-Janekk handed out the masks. "Clip them to your shoulder straps and snap them on at the last," he explained. "There's no smell like a dead drakk. It'll fair incapacitate you. Let's hope we get lots of them today."
"Drakk!" they shouted together, lifting their knives and stingers overhead. As if the shouted word guaranteed success, they shouted it again, Jakkin louder than the rest. He put his fear into the word and hurled it from him, then pumped his arm high, catching the sunlight with the blade. "Drakk! Drakk! Drakk!"
The ululation continued to echo as they marched out of the yard, a band of seven in gray-and-tan leathers. The other bonders stood by the barn doors to watch them pass.
Jakkin wondered suddenly if Akki, too, watched from the hospice or if she were away on some errand of her own. He threw his chest out and strutted down the road like the rest.
10
THE GRIM PARADE, sweating freely under the eye of Austar's red sun, marched out the two kilometers to the copse of spikka trees. Jakkin had minded well what Jo-Janekk had said to him in the bondhouse, before he had dressed in his leathers: "It is no shame to be afraid, but it is foolish to go out with a full bladder." He only wished they could stop now, but he did not dare break the silence to ask.
Likkarn gestured as they came close to the trees. He chose three hunters—Balakk, Frankkalin, and Jakkin—to circle to the right, and three—Jo-Janekk, Crikk, and Kkittakk—to the left. Likkarn's fingers signaled that he would remain at the point.
They obeyed him at once, moving on silent feet into the circle. If the drakk were flying, the men would be scented. But drakk had notoriously bad ears and eyes. If the marchers were careful, they could catch the colony by surprise just as it rose from the nests.
There were not more than forty trees in the copse, though it was a large stand by Austar standards. Being so near Sukker's Marsh meant that there was water feeding into an underground stream. Each tree would have to be approached, shaken, searched. Drakk adult males were fairly easy to spot. They always sat hunched over like dark fruit high up on the top side of the broad, spiky leaves. The females, however, squatted in the nests and had to be shaken out. And the young drakk within the nests were the most difficult to find. The tallest trees had to be climbed; and Jakkin, being the youngest and lightest of the hunters, was to be the climber.
The ground directly under the trees was spongy. The men's steps down were silent, cushioned by the wet, sandy soil. But each time they pulled their feet up again, the sucking noise seemed as loud as a dragon's roar.
At Likkarn's signal, they stopped and listened. Then Likkarn put his fingers to his mouth, wiggled his fingers, and made a peculiar peeping sound. Jakkin was startled. He had never heard anyone call in that way. It sounded just like a dragon hatchling in trouble. The mewling cry of a nestling just out of the shell echoed around the oasis, but there was no answering hiss from a drakk on the hunt.
Jakkin looked over at Frankkalin, who mouthed back: "Daylight." Drakk did not ordinarily hunt by day. Only a rare drakk could be goaded or fooled into a day flight. But if these were young drakk, and they were in the copse and they were hungry, perhaps ... It was a chance they had to take. Likkarn gave the cry again. It was greeted with more silence.
He gestured them forward, each to the foot of a small tree. Jakkin watched the others before tackling his own tree. First the top was scanned carefully, then the trunk was shaken. If there was no hiss from the treetop, no drakk shaken into a diving flight from the tree, a slashing X with the knife on the trunk marked it as having been searched.
They scanned and shook some twenty-seven small trees, the last two large enough to need two men for the shaking. It was all done silently.
Thirteen trees in the copse remained. They were too large and thick for shaking. They would have to be climbed.
Jo-Janekk reached into his pack and drew out two sets of pitons—knifelike clamps. One set was to be tied onto sandals and the other was already sewn into leather gloves. Jakkin had heard of them but he had never used them before. Jo-Janekk showed him the best way to secure the pitons to his shoes and mimed the climbing, whispering in his ear, "Just find them. Don't be a hero. Leave the rest to us. When you find them, drop straight down and show by fingers how many." Then he gave Jakkin a boost up the tree.
Jakkin clamped first his hand pitons, then the feet, into the slippery-smooth gray bark of the tree. The knives dug easily into the trunk, their thudding impact the only sound in the oasis. He began a slow ascent, moving one arm, then one leg at a time, rocking the knife a bit to free it from the trunk, drawing it out, clamping it in again. He was halfway up the tree when the first real wave of fear hit him. If there were drakk in the toothed leaves above him, they could rake him with their razored claws before he could remove his knife from his coverall belt. Rip him, he remembered Balakk's saying, "from here"—and drawing his hand down to below his stomach—"to here." Jakkin gripped the tree with his arms as well as the knives, closed his eyes, and could not move.
A sharp hiss from below made him open his eyes again. It was not a drakk but Likkarn, pointing the extinguisher directly at him. Jakkin shook his head, and Likkarn answered with a shake of the stinger. Next to Likkarn stood Balakk, his knife drawn, his mouth forming the words "Move, boy."
Jakkin moved. He was less afraid of the drakk than of the stinger in Likkarn's hands. The drakk were only a possibility, but the narrowing of the old weeder's eyes was a certainty. Jakkin climbed.
The trunk of the spikka tree was long and crisscrossed with old knife cuts, though whether from other drakk hunts or from climbing games or from the lopping of limbs of wood, Jakkin could not be sure. The scars had healed black against the gray trunk, and already the oozing cuts his pitons inflicted upon the wood were closing behind him, a dark trail of scars. The spikka allowed little moisture to escape.
Jakkin climbed until the men below were the size of small boys. He could see that Balakk had a bald spot the size of a gold coin and that Likkarn had an egg-shaped one. His own head touched the first leaves. He stopped and scanned, peering through the ragged edges of the leaves that fanned around the treetop like a crown. His eyes saw nothing, though his heart continued to thump loudly at every shadow.
He pulled one hand loose and, balancing carefully, took the glove off his hand with his teeth. He let it drop to his chest. Then he detached the knife from the belt slipknot with an easy motion. Silently he pushed the knife up through two leaves, bending one back slowly. Now he could see the rest of the leaves clearly. There were no drakk. He put the knife between his teeth, managed to get the glove back on his hand, and went down much faster than he had gone up.
The ground felt solid and welcoming. He turned to the others and made a zero between his thumb and forefinger, saying the word silently to them, and tied his knife back on his belt. They nodded, and Balakk added a fresh slash of an X to the tree, chest high.
The climb up the second tree was easier, both on his muscles and his mind. He went up without stopping, scanned the leaves, and descended. The third tree was the same.
The fourth tree was longer and more fully leafed out. One leaf was blackened as if it had caught on fire. Occasionally, when the droughts were at their worst, a spikka tree had been known to burst into flame spontaneously. At first Jakkin had thought the black leaf was a drakk. He had been ready to drop from the tree like a stone. But squinting his eyes, he could make out the jagged edges, and when it did not fly off, even under prodding from his knife, he knew it was just a leaf. He climbed down slowly, his heart beating strangely in his chest.
He took some deep draughts from the water bottle Balakk preferred and squatted back on his heels as the men whispered above him. They were trying to decide which trees seemed the most promising or the least difficult to climb.
"Are you all right, boy?" Jo-Janekk mouthed at him, ruffling his sweaty hair.
Jakkin nodded. Even wi
th the water, his mouth was dry.
Up the fifth tree, he could feel the water sloshing in his tightened stomach, remembering too late Jo-Janekk's message about his bladder. He should have gone without the drink. He was thinking about that, and not about the climb, when his head touched the leaves and a sharp hiss caught him by surprise. He dropped by reflex, his arms up, the pitons flashing above his head. He heard the shouting of the men and the sharp retort of the stinger.
It was the awful smell, dark, penetrating, searing his nose, fighting its way down his throat, that woke him to action. He reached up to his shoulder, found the mask dangling there, and jammed it on. Several quick breaths revived him. He stripped off the gloves, grabbed up his knife, and looked around.
On the ground near him was a drakk. Its oily green snakehead was severed from its body, but the body still flapped its enormous wings, uncovering the scabrous, pulsing sensor organs. The near-blind snake eyes glowed with a dark malevolence that went out slowly, like the embers of a dying fire. The talons of the body gripped and ungripped on an invisible prey.
Jakkin walked around the back of the drakk and suddenly stabbed at it with his knife. He cut into the drakk body again and again, as if he could, by his actions, cut away his own fears. A viscous blood pulsed out at each cut. He jabbed at the drakk until his arm was tired. Then, finally exhausted, he stopped and looked around for the others.
The six bonders stood in a circle under the tree, knives drawn, waiting. When no other drakk flew down, Likkarn gestured them away. He walked around the tree, girdling it quickly with the stinger. The tree fell, heavily, its descent slowed by its close neighbors. At last its leafy crown was caught securely between two other trees. It hung there low enough for their knives.
The bonders moved toward the tree, circling it. Jakkin stood behind them, peering over Jo-Janekk's shoulder. Likkarn pointed with his stinger and grunted.
In the topmost leaves was a nest of kkhan reeds plastered together with dragon fewmets. The reed tops were arranged in such a way that the nest looked exactly like a spikka leaf. Even close up, it was difficult to distinguish it. Suddenly a small snakehead peered over the side of the nest. Then another. Jakkin counted quickly. There were seven young drakk hissing furiously up at them. They could not fly yet and tried to hide under one another.
"Seven," called out Likkarn in a doomsday voice slightly obscured by his mask. "Be sure. Seven."
The men marched into the leaves and stabbed the squirming little horrors with their knives, severing the heads from the bodies. The drakklings died quickly, leaving the dreadful stench behind. Their thick, dark blood coated the knives and had to be washed off immediately in the sand. Even then, the blood left pits and ruts in the shine.
They buried the remains of the drakk and their nest in a great hole they dug out beneath the fallen tree. Reluctantly Jakkin climbed the rest of the trees, his knife always at the ready in his clenched teeth, but he found nothing else.
On their march back to the bondhouse for hour-long showers in hot water with strong yellow soap, Likkarn spoke only once.
"I don't like it," he said. "The female and the young. Where was the male? I don't like it."
"Perhaps she had mated before she came here," offered Crikk.
"Yes, that's it," said Kkittakk.
"Perhaps," said Balakk. But like Likkarn he was not happy.
Likkarn took out some weed and, with one hand, rolled it mechanically into a thin red cylinder. He had already started smoking it by the time they entered the courtyard. They left him alone and hurried into their showers.
Old Likk-and-Spittle may have been worried, Jakkin thought, but not enough to lay off the weed. So Jakkin wasn't worried either. He had dipped his knife into a drakk's blood and come out a man. Surely he was ready to tackle anything now. He thought of his dragon waiting out in the sand.
See, thou mighty fighter, he called to it in his mind. I am a mighty fighter, too.
***
AT THE DINNER table, the talk was all about the fight with the drakk. The boys had the story from Jakkin at least three times, in three different versions. Each time the tale ended with his killing the drakk and then the hour-long attempt at scrubbing the smell from his hide.
"It lingers," said Jakkin. "Gods, how it lingers."
"You're telling me," Slakk put in, holding his nose.
Errikkin jabbed Slakk in the ribs, and they all laughed.
"And my jaw still aches from holding the knife in my teeth." Jakkin waggled his jaw at them and they nodded admiringly.
"I wish I had been there," Errikkin said wistfully.
Jakkin did not tell them how he had bloodied his knife in the back of a dead drakk, and how wet the inside of his coveralls had been, and how next time, if there were a next time, he would never take a drink in the middle of a roundup. But he did add, "Each of the men on the march is going to get part of the bounty. Eight drakks. I'm to have a full seventh share." He did not have to say a man's share. That was understood.
Errikkin interrupted. "You should get it. After all, you were in the most danger, climbing up the tree."
"Not really," Slakk said. "Remember, he was dropping fast, while the others were standing still below."
"But he was closest," said Errikkin.
The boys began to take sides, some supporting Errikkin with great vehemence, and one or two restating Slakk's argument. Jakkin stopped them by banging his spoon on the table.
"Enough," he said. "What matters is that I have filled my bag with this fight. Or at least," he added truthfully, "a bit more gold will clink in it. And..." He paused for effect.
They listened.
"And?" asked Errikkin, right on cue.
"And I have been given tomorrow as an additional Bond-Off day. I don't have to work. I can go where I want." Jakkin spoke the words with a kind of sly joy.
"And where will you go?" The questioner was one of the youngest boys, little L'erikk, Frankkalin's son.
"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.
The Snatchling
11
JAKKIN 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.