by Jane Yolen
At first the night seemed quiet, but then Jakkin began to distinguish sounds. The pick-buzz of nightwings flittering around the eaves of the barn, the occasional grunting of a stud Settling in his stall. Jakkin drifted toward the incubarn.
Suddenly he sensed rather than heard the silent-winged approach of a drakk, the snake-headed, deadeyed eggsucker so despised and feared by dragon breeders. As he looked up, it flew across Akkhan, its great wingspread momentarily blotting the moon from sight. He would have to report it in the morning, even though it meant exposing his own night wandering. If there was a colony of drakk nearby, it would have to be wiped out. Hundreds of eggs from one hatching could be lost to a single drakk family. The large adult drakk preyed on hatchlings, too, tearing off wings, legs, huge hunks of flesh from the living young with their razored talons. For good reason, there was a high bounty on drakk. Jakkin waited until the monster was gone from sight. It would not be back until Dark-After was past, since it had just checked the area with its sensors.
In the nursery, a hen dragon stomped her feet at Jakkin's approach, but he did not fear her roaring out. Once the nestlings were hatched, the hens were usually quiet at night, wrapped contentedly around their squirming charges. They chewed burnwort and drizzled the juices into their hatchlings' mouths. For the first month of life, after the hatchlings grew out of their eggskins, they would exist on nothing but the juice. Their little red toothbuds would grow into sharp white points, and then the hatchlings, too, could chew the leaves of blisterweed and wort, grinding out the juices for themselves and then following the juice with the mashed leaves for bulk.
Jakkin reached the door of the barn and, standing in a shadow, looked around. There was no one in sight. He lifted the latch and went in.
In the half-light supplied by the sulfur lamp, he made his way down the narrow halls. Unlike the stud barn, where wide hallways accommodated the cock dragons, these halls were used only for the human workers. Each compartment for the female and her brood had two doors, one small door opening into the hall and one wide door to the outside. The incubarn was a low, round building built around a central mow, a single column that supported the roof. Around the column was a hollow frame of slats which served as a ventilator to discharge the steam from the packed weed and wort leaves. Jakkin had once heard someone comment that the steam rising up was sometimes so dense you could wash your hands in it. At the top of the roof, the steam was caught in a series of vents that passed back through the barn to keep the individual compartments warm, even in the cold of Dark-After. It was thought that the warmer the hatchlings were kept, the faster and bigger they grew.
The workers' walkway was in between the central mow and the hens' compartments. Sweat began to trickle under Jakkin's arms, but the heat from the mow felt good on his back. It eased the ache.
Jakkin went first to the eggroom, where all the clutches were kept together for hatching. He knew at once that the hatching was finished, because the room was completely dark, but he went back into the hall and borrowed a lamp anyway, and returned. Little round shadows pitted the walls as the lamp lit the broken shells. Jakkin kicked through the sand floor, smashing pieces of the brittle casings. Jakkin knew, as any nursery bonder knew, about shells. When they were laid, they were elastic, cascading out onto the birth sands in numbers too plentiful to count. They piled up in great slippery pyramids that stuck together with birth fluids during the ice cold of Dark-After. Only when the temperatures on the planet rose again, and the fluids melted, did the eggs drop from the pyramids into the sand. That was another reason why the barn was kept heated, to hasten the hatching process.
Jakkin knew that, touched then, the eggs would break open, revealing a viscous yellow-green slime. Yet left alone the eggs hardened in a day, sheathed in a covering that even a sharpened pick could hardly open—from the outside. The growing hatchling within could break apart the shell with a horny growth on its nose. So once the egg had hardened, it was considered fair game for any human—thief, trainer, man, or boy—who thought he could sense a living dragon in the shell.
The living dragon. That was the irony. So few of the eggs held living dragons. Most were decoys for the predatory drakk. How often a bonder had had an opportunity to steal an egg, guarding it zealously, only to discover days later that it contained a heavy liquid and nothing else.
The shells were brittle now because the hens had licked the insides clean of the remaining birth fluids. One by one, the bonders had led the hens in to choose their own hatchlings and suck some sustenance from the sticky fluids. He could see the prints of hen feet in the sand. Angrily, Jakkin kicked at the shells. Then he bent down and picked one up, crunching it in his hand, delighting in the pain as parts of one scratched his palm, drawing blood. "Fewmets," he cursed, and stood.
He knew he should go back to the bondhouse. Stealing an egg was one thing, a kind of acceptable thievery. Stealing a hatchling—that was something else. Eggs were not counted, but hatchlings were, counted and recorded and set down in Likkarn's careful script on the doorway of each hen's nestroom. He had never seen it, but he knew it was so, just as he knew about eggs. It was part of every nursery bonder's knowledge, the rules and lore with which he had grown up.
He knew what he should do, but something drew him toward the nestrooms, some thin thread of sound. It was the peeping of a hatchling and the snuffling answer of a hen. He closed the eggroom door and moved on down the hall.
***
AT THE FIRST hen's compartment, he read Likkarn's list out loud. "Heart Worm (4) out of Heart Safe by Blood Bank. M. Blood Brother. 7 hatchlings, 5/27/07."
He lifted the latch and, holding the lamp overhead, stared in. Heart Worm was a yellowish color, not much darker than the eggskin of a newborn. She looked back at him with shrouded eyes and houghed in warning.
Jakkin squatted back on his heels and sang in that low croon, "It's all right, mother worm. It's all right."
She put her head back down and nuzzled the seven dragonlings one by one. Jakkin counted with her, saying the numbers in the same low voice. He watched her tail. The tip twitched back and forth, but he could tell that she was made only slightly anxious by his presence. He stood up slowly and backed out of the door.
The second hen was Heart to Heart, also out of Heart Safe by Blood Bank. She was a yellow-orange with a deep streak of red from her muzzle to her hindquarters. It spread like a bloodstain over her legs, then spattered like scores (or, Jakkin thought, like Kkarina's freckles) along her tail. She curled around five hatchlings, two of them still fully covered with eggskin. That meant he had missed the last of the hatchlings by only a day. Jakkin bit his lip as disappointment welled up.
Heart to Heart was even calmer than her sister had been. She barely raised her head when he entered. Jakkin took advantage of this and moved to her side, crooning to her the whole while. He put out his hand carefully and stroked the nearest of the hatchlings, a mottled little squirmer who jumped at his touch and struck at his fingers with still-soft claws. "Thou wilt be a fighter," Jakkin whispered. The best trainers, he knew, spoke thee and thou to their dragons. It was supposed to bring them closer. He had never actually tried it with the big stud dragons. He had never thought of them as his. He wondered if it mattered that he did not know how to speak thee and thou correctly, having only played at it with some of the other boys. Then he laughed at himself. After all, would the dragon know if he made a mistake? Would it care?
He must have been laughing out loud, because the little dragon stared at him for a long moment. Then it turned its back on him and snuggled against its mother.
Jakkin thought about the hatchling, but he could not bring himself to take it. He got up and left the room.
The next hen was Heart O'Mine, and he could hear her tail beating on the floor, an unmistakable warning. He lifted the latch anyway 'and slipped in. Her card said she was a half-sister to the other two hens, out of Heart Safe by Blood Type. It must have been from Blood Type's very last mating. The old s
tud was past mating age now, and kept somewhere far away, the other bonders said, on another farm that Sarkkhan owned. Jakkin recalled the stories of Blood Type, the fabled fighter from Sarkkhan's Nursery, his first male dragon. Fifty fights and forty-seven wins, the last a five-hour battle with a champion from the other side of the planet. Heart O'Mine had nine hatchlings this time, her second clutch. There had been a large number 2 next to her name. Nine hatchlings were a lot, especially for a second clutch. And by the sound of her tail, she was a nervous mother.
Jakkin squatted down on his heels and began the crooning that had worked so well with the first two hens, but Heart O'Mine's tail kept up its loud, irritated thumping. It was then he thought of the silly lullaby that he had sung to Blood Brother.
"Little flame mouths," he began singing, swaying a bit as he did.
The hen's tail seemed to catch his beat.
"Cool your tongues," Jakkin continued.
The tail was definitely moving in time to the song.
"Dreaming starts soon, furnace lungs."
By the song's end, the hen was quieted and Jakkin sighed. A strange peeping from the corner answered him. He saw a small yellowish hatchling there, one of its wings dragging.
"Oh, you poor thing," he murmured. It must have been hurt in the hatching. Or perhaps the hen had rolled over on it one night. It would never make a fighter. It would probably end up in the stews. A lot of people liked the meat of hatchlings. They were said to be much tenderer than old dragons. Jakkin had never tasted one.
Counting the injured hatchling as one, he numbered the rest as they squirmed closer to Heart O'Mine. He found the other eight easily.
"Bonder's luck," he whispered to the hen. "All bad." Heart O'Mine stirred at his voice. She was a strange, dark dragon with a yellowish lump above her right ear. He was wondering why Sarkkhan would breed a dragon with a deformity, when the lump moved. It stretched its oversized wings clumsily and opened its mouth to peep. No sound came out.
Jakkin was so startled he could scarcely move. His eyes made the round again. The one injured dragon in the corner, and eight at the hen's side. That made nine, and there was still the one newborn, wrinkled and yellow as custard scum. Ten. But the card outside had said nine. He was sure of it. Could Likkarn have made a mistake? Could Master Sarkkhan? He rose slowly and backed to the door, slipped through the crack, and held the lamp up to the list. "Heart O'Mine (2) out of Heart Safe by Blood Type. M. Blood Brother. 9 hatchlings, 5/29/07."
He went back into the hen's room and counted another time to be sure. On the third count, when he had reached ten again, he sat all the way down on the floor, put the lamp by his side, and let out a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a moan. At the sound, the hen's head came up suddenly and the little dragon slid around her ear and down her nose, tumbling end over end into the sand at Jakkin's feet. It stood up shakily, stretched its wings again, and put its head to one side as if considering him. Then it trotted awkwardly over to him. Its wings were as yet too big for its body, and the weight of them dragging in the sand was so comical, Jakkin had to put his hand up over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
As the hatchling moved directly into the pool of light, Jakkin could see that under its yellow eggskin was a darker shadow.
"Thou," Jakkin said quietly to the hatchling in an awed voice. "Thou wilt be a red someday."
At his voice, the little dragon looked up and tried a hindfoot rise. Its heavy wings pulled it over onto its back, where its tiny legs raked ineffectually at the air. Jakkin leaned over and without thinking picked it up in his hands. The little dragon stood unsteadily and sniffed about his fingers, totally unafraid. It found the scratch from the eggshell and licked at the blood. Then it lifted its head and stared at Jakkin.
Jakkin stared back into its shiny black eyes and thought he saw a movement there.
"Thou," he said again in a hushed voice, and suddenly felt a small rainbow moving in his head. It was the dragon. He had reached its mind. Jakkin drew his hands closer, up to his face, and he and the dragon stared eye to eye. The rainbow in his head danced, shooting off pale bursts of color.
Heart O'Mine gave a short, sharp hough. Her tail began its warning dance on the floor. Tucking the dragon hatchling in the crook of his elbow and cradling it against his chest, Jakkin picked up the lamp with the other hand. "You have your nine, great mother," he said to the hen. "This one is mine. I shall make this one a great fighter. I swear it."
He slipped back into the hallway, hung the lamp up, and pushed the door shut with his shoulder. Then he went out into the night.
8
THE SHOCK OF the night air, cool in comparison with the moist heat of the barn, made Jakkin shiver. The hatchling gave an answering shiver against his chest.
"There, there, little one. There, there, beauty," he said, and slipped the trembling snatchling inside his shirt. Its soft little nails caught in his skin but tickled rather than hurt, and he could feel its heart beating rapidly. He decided to keep it wrapped up until they reached the oasis.
Crossing a stone weir, one of many catch basins for the Narrakka waters, Jakkin listened again for sounds. Then he scrambled up the embankment and headed out across the sands. He traveled partly by instinct, partly by star reckoning, and cursed the light of Akkhan, which was in its brightest phase. He had to get away from the nursery's line of sight before Akka, the second moon, filled the sky as well, for then it would be as light as day, at least for a little while.
There was another way to get to the oasis. It meant going down the road almost a kilometer and then striking out across the sand. But it took longer. He did not have the time.
The dragon was quiet—sleeping, he would guess—and he stroked it lightly with one finger as he kept it cradled against his chest. Then suddenly he stopped. This was not the end—but the beginning. He had the dragon that he had prayed for, longed for, worked for, but now the hard part began.
He wondered briefly how there could have been such a mistake in the count, ten hatchlings instead of the nine listed. Perhaps they hadn't added in the one with the broken wing. If so, they would know at once that one was gone. Or perhaps this one, so obviously a newborn, with its eggskin still a bright creamy color and wrinkles even on its wrinkles, perhaps this had been a last-minute egg laid by Heart O'Mine in her own compartment instead of in the eggroom. A single. He had never heard of any such thing happening before. But then, he did not know everything about dragons. He laughed at himself softly. Everything? Why, he realized, he scarcely knew anything. Except fewmets. And did he know fewmets! He laughed again. The dragon stirred under his fingers.
Thou, he thought fondly, and was rewarded with a faint rainbow. Thou art a beauty. He began to walk again.
He approached the oasis from the southwest, and under the white eye of Akkhan it suddenly looked very large. He sat down inside the reed shelter and reached into his shirt. He had to detach the little dragon's claws from his bond bag. "There, there, let it be. I fill my bag myself," he said. Then smiling, he added, "Actually, if thou art a mighty fighter, thou wilt fill it for me. But not yet. Not quite yet."
He set the hatchling on the sand and watched it stretch. It began to stumble about, investigating its new surroundings. Enticed by the moonlight, it stuck its nose out of the shelter and seemed to sniff the air. Then it stalked over to the shelter wall and made a pounce on a shadow reed that moved across the sand. Finding nothing beneath its claws, it walked to Jakkin, wings dragging slightly. Jakkin flopped over on his stomach, his head close to the dragonling. With a tentative front foot it batted at his nose. When he did not move, it struck out again, with a greater swing, and this time connected.
"Worm waste," Jakkin cried, "that stings."
His loud voice startled the hatchling and it leapt back, moving its wings furiously and rising half an inch from the ground.
"Thou canst fly!" Jakkin said in a softer voice, filled with awe. But the little dragon settled down at once and did not tr
y that particular maneuver again.
"Well, come here, then," Jakkin said at last and picked up the hatchling in his hands. He was surprised anew at how soft its skin was. It looked as if it should be slippery. It was certainly not the hard brilliance of a fully scaled-out worm. Rather, it was as soft as bag leather. Jakkin suddenly wondered what his own bag was made of. As suddenly, he decided he did not want to know.
He lay on his back, heedless of the little rivers of pain in his shoulders, and let the dragon walk about on his chest. Even with its soft claws, it managed to make some scratches through his shirt, but Jakkin did not mind. He thought of himself as being blooded by the dragon, just as one day the dragon itself would be blooded in the pit.
"Then thou shalt roar, little beauty," he said to the snatchling. "When thy life's blood first spills on the sand, then thou shalt roar for the first time, full and fierce. And the bettors will know thee for a mighty fighter. Then gold will fill our bag. And I will be a man. A man, my snatchling. And I will roar with thee, my flyer, my wonder worm, my beauty lizard."
The dragon slipped down his chest, gouging a small runnel into his armpit, and landed with all four feet firmly planted in the sand. There it promptly lost interest in Jakkin, went back into the shelter, curled up, and went to sleep.
Jakkin edged closer to it and curled around it, lending it the warmth of his own body for a while. Soon he, too, slept.
***
THE COLD WOKE him, the beginning of the bone-numbing cold of Dark-After. Jakkin crawled out of the hut on his hands and knees and stared at the sky. He could see neither moon, only the wash of white-gold that signified the start of the false dawn.
Bonders said, "Dark-After, nothing after." Very few had ever managed to remain outdoors then, even with strong constitutions and a lot more clothes on than Jakkin was wearing. The early settlers, masters and bonders alike, had stayed in their starships until housing had been built: strong stone buildings in the 150 acres that was Rokk, for the wardens and guards, cruder shelters outside Rokk's walls for the convicts. Though Jakkin had never been to the city, it was said those buildings still stood, two hundred years later, a testimony to the first Austarians. The worst punishment of the masters in the old days, before the shelters, had been to lock out a bonder all night. That was why Master Sarkkhan's nursery doors were never locked—just in case. And why the roads to the baggeries, the stews, and the pits were spotted with shelters, for late-nighters caught away from home.