Heart's Blood

  That got them all to their feet and moving toward the marsh, while behind them a dozen or so small lizards browsed on what was left of their lunch, before it soaked into the spongy earth.

  17

  SUKKER'S MARSH had been well named. Most things that landed there—animal, vegetable, mineral—were eventually sucked down below its boggy surface. A person had to be very careful around the marsh. Some years when there was an overflow of rain and it couldn't handle the extra water, Sukker's resembled a shallow lake. This disguised the sinkholes all too well. Even feral dragons were known to be pulled down into the mud and drowned there. Occasionally whole skeletons were spit out again, the arch of bone describing the calamity that had befallen them. Yes, Sukker's Marsh was well named.

  But such a lake was a rare sight. Jakkin had only been warned about it. In the ten years he'd lived at Sarkkhan's Nursery—brought there by his grieving mother after his father had been killed by a feral dragon—Jakkin had never seen the marsh at flood. It was simply a dangerous, boggy place, where a variety of gray-green grasses and occasional spikka trees grew. But the sinkholes were easy to spot. They were gray and black circles where nothing grew—not moss, not fern, not weeds.

  A strange variety of blisterweed and burnwort popped up in the marsh, though never at the sinkholes. They were not red like the weed and wort grown in the desert, but a greener color, and rarely smoked out. These were the ones weeders preferred because the plants were stronger and darker and lasted far longer than the weeds grown in the arid desert. The older men often discussed such things at the dinner table. But hardly anyone smoked blisterweed these days, at least no one who was an Austarian, though there'd always been a brisk trade in the drug with offworlders, another thing affected by the embargo.

  In the marsh lived an immense variety of creatures, most of them insects, winged biters, or, as the nursery folk liked to call them, tiny suckers. Some were no-see-ums, so small and translucent, they were all but invisible—until they filled up with their hosts' blood. Others flew about on incandescent wings, making a humming that was warning enough. But here were also slugs and slogs, doughy gray and slimy mud dwellers that attached themselves to the legs of unwary walkers, feasting on the blood and infecting it at the same time with a low-grade fever that took months to fully shake off.

  No one wandered around the marsh for fun. And no one ever went in alone. It was too dangerous and too unhealthy for anything but fliers. Being on the marshy ground was not healthy for men—or other beasts.

  Jakkin agreed with Balakk—if the drakks were capable of learning anything at all, they'd probably learned that Sukker's Marsh was the one place their human hunters would avoid. At least until there was no other choice.

  Within a kilometer, the marsh began to smell, the stink being dank, murky, and slightly rotten, as if a whole army had died there. And recently.

  Not as bad as the drakk, Jakkin thought. Nothing smells as bad as that. But still the stink from Sukker's Marsh was certainly unpleasant. And uninviting. Definitely unnerving.

  "Perfect for drakk," Arakk said. He was on Jakkin's left and nudged him with his elbow, his moon face aglow.

  On Jakkin's other side, Tanekk walked, head down, staring at his feet. His pointed chin was practically buried in his chest.

  "Are you all right?" Jakkin asked him.

  Tanekk didn't answer.

  "He's praying," Arakk said. "He's always praying."

  "I'm praying, too," Jakkin said to Arakk. "Praying that you find the drakk, not me."

  Arakk's head went up. He laughed silently, but way longer than Jakkin's stupid quip deserved. It was laughter brought on by nerves.

  Ahead of them Likkarn raised his hand for silence and they gathered around him. Without a word, he pointed out the trees. There were nine in all, hardy and thick-bodied, their gray bark unslashed by knife but still pocked with black marks. Possibly from animals sharpening their claws there, Jakkin thought. Dragons? Or drakk? He realized suddenly that he didn't know enough about drakk to be sure that they sharpened their claws.

  Likkarn formed the hunters into the same groups of four. There would be three trees apiece, none of them shakable, especially as the men had to stand under them on the boggy ground. They tested the ground around each tree with care. Only one tree was set close to a sinkhole.

  The boys were sent to their first trees, pitons tied to their sandals, and gloves on.

  Thinking that climbing with a mask was preferable to smelling the marsh gasses firsthand, Jakkin put the mask over his nose and mouth before starting up the tree. Neither Arakk nor Tanekk followed his lead.

  Let them retch, then. Neither of them has ever been up close to a drakk, so what do they know! The mask was a pretty good filter for the gasses, though the stench of drakk could get through anything. And linger for an awfully long time.

  Arakk had already scooted up his spikka, and Jakkin was not far behind on his own tree. However, Tanekk remained standing with his hand on the trunk for a long, silent moment. This time Jakkin understood why.

  "Pray for me, too," Jakkin whispered as he hitched himself up. He hugged the tree as he went, and tried to clear his mind of fear, almost succeeding.

  There were no drakks at the top, and he all but fell back down the trunk in gratitude, then turned to give the all clear to Balakk.

  At this point Tanekk was halfway up his tree and Arakk was already to the top of his second spikka. Hurrying. Jakkin thought of calling out a warning, but didn't, knowing it could alert any drakk in the trees.

  Instead, Jakkin set his hand to the gray bark of his next climb and was about to start up when he heard a huge hissing from above him. Then a shout. A scream. He stepped away from the tree and stared straight up. The hissing wasn't coming from his tree, but somewhere else.

  Looking around, he saw that Tanekk was still halfway up his spikka, clinging to the trunk, not moving. But in the other tree, Arakk was windmilling his arms against a dark blur. Then he began falling backward, followed down by a very large, very angry female drakk, her talons outstretched, reaching for his face.

  Jakkin drew his knife and raced toward the base of the tree, forgetting about the boggy sinkholes and the pitons on his shoes, forgetting about the possibility of slogs and slugs. He ran past two of the men, and his feet got sucked into the bog as he ran, almost toppling him.

  Just then Arakk hit the ground, on his back, and the drakk was on him. Waving his knife at the beast, Jakkin beat it off for a second, but it circled and returned, this time heading straight for Jakkin.

  "Down, Jakkin, down," Likkarn cried. "Stinger!"

  For once Jakkin listened. He threw himself over Arakk's body, then heard the sound of several stingers striking home. He smelled the death of the drakk. Even with his face close to the dirt, even with the mask on, he could smell it.

  Good! It's over. Then he sat up, knelt by Arakk's body, knees sinking into the spongy earth.

  Arakk had not moved.

  The dead drakk was not far from them, its feathery scales burned black. Its front legs reached out sluggishly, as if still seeking a target.

  Standing, Jakkin went over to look at the drakk, and saw that it was very dead. "Good!" he said aloud but no one was listening. Balakk, Frankkalin, and Likkarn paid the creature no attention. Instead, they'd formed a tight circle around Arakk.

  Jakkin walked back and pushed between Frankkalin and Balakk, looking down nervously. Arakk was still on his back, staring up at the gray sky, unseeing. He, too, was dead and there was nothing good about that. Nothing at all.

  "I didn't mean it," Jakkin whispered, tears suddenly running down his cheeks. "I didn't mean it, Arakk, when I said I was praying that you find the drakk, not me." Only deep inside, he had meant it. The whole ugly thought.

  Balakk took off his leather vest, and after closing the boy's staring eyes, placed the vest reverently over Arakk's face. Then he began to weep huge, blobby tears. Oddly he made no sound.

  Jakkin had never see
n a man cry like that. In fact, he couldn't remember ever seeing a nurseryman cry at all.

  18

  THEY STOOD for a long time just staring down at Arakk's body. Finally, Likkarn spoke. "There's no helping the boy. He's gone. And we honor him by making sure there are no more of these beasts in the trees."

  Jakkin wasn't sure what kind of honor that was, but he knew Likkarn was right about one thing. They didn't dare leave any more drakk alive near the nursery. He drew in a deep breath, ready to climb. Unlike Arakk, though, he would be deliberate and keep his long knife at the ready.

  Using their knives, the men girdled the drakk's spikka, and the tree bled black blood that ran down the gray trunk. When the bottom of the tree was entirely black, the men rocked the trunk back and forth until it broke and tumbled to the ground, spilling out the nest that had been hidden in the spiky upper leaves.

  Four nestlings crouched inside, beaks open, eyes still blind. They croaked piteously, and for a moment, Jakkin felt sorry for them. But only a moment. He forced himself to look over at Arakk's body and all pity fled.

  The nestlings were killed with a single blast from Balakk's stinger. "Ahhh, ahhhh," the old plowman cried, drinking in the awful smell.

  No one else said a word.

  Though they looked, they found no more drakks. However, Jakkin discovered an empty nest and, with his knife, sent it tumbling to the ground. Likkarn destroyed it with the stinger, saying, "No need to leave that for another mother to find. Makes it too easy for them."

  "Maybe," Jakkin said, "maybe it was the nest of the drakk that Slakk killed in the barn. Since they all live in groups."

  The men and boys looked hopeful at that guess, but Likkarn, ever ready to bring them back to reality, shook his head. "We have no way of knowing that and we dare not make guesses based on hope."

  They agreed, then went on to tackle the rest of the trees in the marsh, working until the sun was just beginning its downward descent. There was no time to waste discussing things, and barely time to eat. They gobbled food as they girdled the trees. Everyone knew that they would have to move quickly to finish checking all the trees and get back to the nursery before Dark-After.

  When they were done, Balakk picked up Arakk's body as if the boy had been a small child and not a hefty sixteen-year-old. Then they hurried home without another word spoken.

  There were no more tears.

  After all, nurserymen don't cry.

  ***

  KKARINA SAW them through the kitchen window and ran out with her hand to her ample breast, calling, "Who? Who?"

  When they showed her Arakk, she showered his face with her tears, enough for all of them. Then they laid him out on one of the dining room tables and left her to wash him thoroughly and put oil on the back of his hands and on his feet. It was an old Austar custom, honoring the dead. Jakkin had been sent to bring fresh clothes to bury him in.

  As he walked back to the room, Jakkin remembered how his mother had spoken about burying his father without any oil to consecrate him and to ease his passage into eternity. It was something she'd never gotten over. Then he remembered the feel of his father's cold shoulders and hands. He'd helped bury him in the desert. A boy of five and a small, delicate woman burying a big man. He remembered how his own hands had ached and felt cold for months, as if his father's death had chilled them.

  Then he remembered the other dead man, the one he'd found in The Rokk, who'd sought him out in an alley and died before they'd exchanged but a few words.

  In some ways, touching Arakk had been the worst of all, a boy his own age, doing the same job Jakkin had been doing. It was only luck that Arakk had gotten that tree. Bad luck.

  It could just as easily have been me!

  He looked up at the ceiling, willing himself to be calm. Trying not to see Arakk falling, falling, falling. Always falling.

  Jakkin found Arakk's good clothes in the third drawer of the dresser, a shirt of linen and his best leathers. He brought them to Kkarina, pointedly not looking at Arakk's now naked body lying stiffly on the table. Kkarina took the clothes, then waved him away, and he was enormously relieved not to have to stay.

  Returning to the bedroom, Jakkin tried to talk to Errikkin about what had happened out in the spikka copse, but once again Errikkin gave Jakkin his back and stared at the wall.

  "You can talk to that wall all you like," Jakkin said, "but that doesn't change anything. Things would have been different if you'd been there."

  "How?" Errikkin's voice was hollow, even ghostly, with grief. After all, he'd known Arakk much longer than Jakkin had. "How would it have been different?"

  How indeed? Jakkin suddenly realized he'd no idea at all.

  ***

  LATER THAT EVENING, everyone in the nursery gathered in the dining room. They weren't there to eat—that they'd done in Kkarina's kitchen—but to sit by Arakk's body, laid out on one of the tables. They were supposed to say what they best remembered about him, but it took a while for anyone to speak.

  Jakkin glanced quickly at the body, and as quickly away. He looks both like and not-like Arakk, he thought. Though having known Arakk for only a few days, he couldn't quite put his finger on what he meant by that. Maybe it was that the glow was gone from his moon face. Maybe it was Arakk's utter stillness, a stillness so complete, he might have been carved of stone.

  There were copper coins resting on Arakk's closed eyes. "For the Dark Angel," Austarians liked to say, meaning the Angel of Death. Jakkin wondered if Kkarina had supplied the coins. Whether she had a collection of them just waiting for dead nursery folk, for they were not the kind of coins used for money in Austar. He looked again, as if pulled back by an invisible thread.

  It—a body. Not Arakk—a person. That's the real difference. He felt tears prickling behind his eyes but wouldn't let them fall.

  Finally, the men began to talk about Arakk. Balakk had the most to say. It was he who'd first come upon Arakk during a trip to The Rokk last year, after the explosion that brought Rokk Major down. Arakk had been living on the streets of the city. A food seller, he'd been orphaned and without work since the bomb blast. He wanted to come to the country and "learn dragons," he said.

  "He'd not been good with the big beasts," Balakk told them. "Almost like they was poison to him. Old vet called it an allergy. Broke out in hives when he touched one, he did, though dragon meat and takk never phased him." He wiped an arm across his eyes. "Not scared, mind. He tried his turn with them. 'Twas the hives defeated him. He was happier to be out with me in the fields."

  "He always had a smile," said Frankkalin.

  Everyone nodded. The word smile seemed to run around the room.

  "He never failed in the field, whatever the season," Balakk said.

  Jakkin thought that a good epitaph.

  Then Likkarn stood slowly as if his bones ached. He spoke to the men but he was addressing Arakk, really, staring at the boy's body with an intensity that was palpable. Jakkin felt a cold chill go down his spine as the old man talked.

  "We don't always know a hero when we see him," Likkarn said. "And sometimes, too late to tell him, we recognize what splendid things he's done." He paused, wiped a finger under his nose, then continued. "Arakk gave his life for the rest of us. For us and for the dragons he was no good with but still loved. He went eagerly up the tree to meet his doom. That makes him a hero, in every sense of the word."

  Not eagerly, but he went quickly. I think that makes him more of a hero. Jakkin didn't say that aloud.

  Kkarina brought out a bottle of brew then, and the sweet strong liquor was passed around, with everyone having a small taste. It was too expensive and precious for more than a tiny sip apiece. Jakkin hardly wanted any more, anyway, for it made his head swim. He passed the bottle to Errikkin, who took it without thanks, his sip more like a slurp, which he swirled around in his mouth before swallowing.

  Errikkin did an odd thing then. He glared at Jakkin, stood, put a hand on Arakk's cold hand, lifted it to his l
ips as if kissing it, and then went out of the room.

  His head whirling from just a sip of the strong drink, Jakkin left, too, but he went outside, where the twin moons were once again writing their blood-red warning. This time Jakkin understood what they were saying, but the warning had come too late. Arakk was already dead. Slakk was injured. Jakkin was very aware that in both cases it could just as easily have been himself.

  He strode swiftly to the incubarn and, once there, headed directly to Auricle's stall. As he walked along he barely listened to any of the hen dragons or their mewling hatchlings. All he could hear was Auricle, who was still shaken over the drakk and the drakk-death smell that sat like a noxious cloud over the back stalls. Besides, she was still grieving over the loss of the hatchling, gone off with Akki.

  At last Jakkin got to her stall, opened the door, and went in. Auricle looked up at him, a small orange light flickering in her black eyes. It was the first time he'd seen any sign of a fighting spirit.

  He put a hand to her head and sat down suddenly, almost as if his legs had collapsed. She scooted up next to him and he was grateful for the warmth. It occurred to him that he'd felt cold ever since Arakk's death.

  "Thanks, thou beauty." Jakkin sent, along with a soft, gray river winding endlessly toward a far horizon.

  What she sent back to him was equally gray, as if mist had descended on the river, cloaking it on all sides.

  They sat that way for a long time, without sound, without further sendings.

  "Well," Jakkin said at last, "we certainly aren't going to be much help to one another tonight." The lingering smell from the dead drakk was still potent. He had to leave or be sick.

  Patting the dragon's head once, Jakkin stood and left the incubarn quickly. He got back to the bondhouse just as Dark-After began.

  ***

  IN THE MORNING, they put Arakk in a box made of spikka wood. Balakk had carved Arakk's name at the head of the box, with an etched spray of wheat drooping on its stalk. He must have been up all night working. Jakkin hadn't known the old plowman had any ability with a carving knife.