“That’s better. Much better. Liars are an abomination,” the man said with a bitter laugh. “And you fed it what? Goods stolen from the master, I wager. You born bonders know nothing. Nothing.”
Jakkin’s cheeks were burning now. “I am no born bonder. And I would never steal from the master’s stores. I planted in the sands last year and grew blisterweed and burnwort. I gathered the rest in the swamps. On my own time.” He added that fiercely.
“Bonders have no time of their own,” Likkarn muttered savagely. “And supplements?”
“The master says supplements are bad for a fighter. They make a fighter fast in the beginning, but they dilute the blood.” Jakkin looked into Likkarn’s eyes more boldly now. “I heard the master say that. To a buyer.”
Likkarn’s smile was wry and twisted. “And you eavesdrop as well.” He gave Jakkin’s shoulder a particularly vicious wrench.
Jakkin gasped and closed his eyes with the pain. He wanted to cry out, and thought he had, when he realized it was not his own voice he heard but a scream from the pit. He pulled away from Likkarn and stared. The scream was Bottle O’ Rum’s, a triumphant roar as he stood over the red, whose injured wing was pinioned beneath Rum’s right front claw.
“Jakkin…” came Likkarn’s voice behind him, full of warning. How often Jakkin had heard that tone right before old Likkarn had roused from a weed dream to the fury that always followed. Likkarn was old, but his fist was still solid.
Jakkin trembled, but he willed his focus onto the red, whose thoughts came tumbling back into his head now in a tangle of muted colors and whines. He touched his hand to the small lump under his shirt where the bond bag hung. He could feel his own heart beating through the leather shield. “Never mind, my Red,” soothed Jakkin. “Never mind the pain. Recall the time I stood upon thy wing and we played at the Great Upset. Recall it well, thou mighty fighter. Remember. Remember.”
The red stirred only slightly and made a flutter with its free wing. The crowd saw this as a gesture of submission. So did Rum and, through him, his master Mekkle. But Jakkin did not. He knew the red had listened well and understood. The game was not over yet. Pit-fighting was not all brawn; how often Master Sarkkhan had said that. The best fighters, the ones who lasted for years, were cunning gamesters, and it was this he had guessed about his red from the first.
The fluttering of the unpinioned wing caught Bottle O’ Rum’s eye, and the orange dragon turned toward it, relaxing his hold by a single nail.
The red fluttered its free wing again. Flutter and feint. Flutter and feint. It needed the orange’s attention totally on that wing. Then its tail could do the silent stalking it had learned in the sands with Jakkin.
Bottle O’ Rum followed the fluttering as though laughing for his own coming triumph. His dragon jaws opened slightly in a deadly grin. If Mekkle had been in the stands instead of below in the stalls, the trick might not have worked. But the orange dragon, intent on the fluttering wing, leaned his head way back and fully opened his jaws, readying for the kill. He was unaware of what was going on behind him.
“Now!” shouted Jakkin in his mind and only later realized that the entire stands had roared the word with him. Only the crowd had been roaring for the wrong dragon.
The red’s tail came around with a snap, as vicious and as accurate as a driver’s whip. It caught the orange on its injured ear and across an eye.
Rum screamed instead of roaring and let go of the red’s wing. The red was up in an instant and leaped for Bottle O’ Rum’s throat.
One, two and the ritual slashes were made. The orange throat was coruscated with blood, and Rum instantly dropped to the ground.
Jakkin’s dragon backed at once, slightly akilter because of the wound in its wing.
“Game to Jakkin’s Red,” said the disembodied voice over the speaker.
The crowd was strangely silent. Then a loud whoop sounded from one voice buried in the stands, a bettor who had taken a chance on the First Fighter.
That single voice seemed to rouse Bottle O’ Rum. He raised his head from the ground groggily. Only his head and half his neck cleared the dust. He strained to arch his neck over, exposing the underside to the light. The two red slashes glistened like thin, hungry mouths. Then Rum began a strange, horrible humming that changed to a high-pitched whine. His body began to shake, and the shaking became part of the sound as the dust eddied around him.
The red dragon swooped down and stood before the fallen Rum, as still as stone. Then it, too, began to shake.
The sound changed from a whine to a high roar. Jakkin had never heard anything like it before. He put his hands to the bond bag, then to his ears.
“What is it? What is happening?” he cried out, but the men on either side of him had moved away. Palms to ears, they backed toward the exits. Many in the crowds had already gone down the stairs, setting the thick wood walls between themselves and the noise.
Jakkin tried to reach the red dragon’s mind, but all he felt were storms of orange winds, hot and blinding, and a shaft of burning white light. As he watched, the red rose up on its hind legs and raked the air frantically with its claws, as if getting ready for some last deadly blow.
“Fool’s Pride,” came Likkarn’s defeated voice behind him, close enough to his ear to hear. “That damnable dragon wants death. He has been shamed, and he’ll scream your red into it. Then you’ll know. All you’ll have left is a killer on your hands. I lost three that way. Three. Fool’s Pride.” He shouted the last at Jakkin’s back, for at his first words, Jakkin had thrown himself over the railing into the pit. He landed on all fours, but was up and running at once.
He had heard of Fool’s Pride, that part of the fighting dragon’s bloody past that was not always bred out. Fool’s Pride that led some defeated dragons to demand death. It had nearly caused dragons to become extinct. If men had not carefully watched the lines, trained the fighters to lose with grace, there would have been no dragons left on Austar IV. A good fighter should have a love of blooding, yes. But killing made dragons unmanageable, made them feral, made them wild.
Jakkin crashed into the red’s side. “No, no!” he screamed up at it, beating on its body with his fists. “Do not wet thy jaws in his death.” He reached as high as he could and held on to the red’s neck. The scales slashed one of his palms, but he did not let go.
It was his touch more than his voice or his thoughts that stopped the young red. It turned slowly, sluggishly, as if rousing from a dream. Jakkin fell from its neck to the ground.
The movement away shattered Bottle O’ Rum’s concentration. He slipped from screaming to unconsciousness in an instant.
The red nuzzled Jakkin, its eyes unfathomable, its mind still clouded. The boy stood up. Without bothering to brush the dust from his clothes, he thought at it, “Thou mighty First.”
The red suddenly crowded his mind with victorious sunbursts, turned, then streaked back through the hole to its stall and the waiting burnwort.
Mekkle and two friends came up the stairs, glowering, leaped into the pit and dragged the fainting orange out through a mecho-hole by his tail.
Only then did Jakkin walk back to ringside, holding his cut hand palm up. It had just begun to sting.
Likkarn, still standing by the railing, was already smoking a short strand of blisterweed. He stared blankly as the red smoke circled his head.
“I owe you,” Jakkin said slowly up to him, hating to admit it. “I did not know Fool’s Pride when I saw it. Another minute and the red would have been good for nothing but the stews. If I ever get a second fight, I will give you some of the gold. Your bag is not yet full.”
Jakkin meant the last phrase simply as ritual, but Likkarn’s eyes suddenly roused to weed fury. His hand went to his throat. “You owe me nothing,” said the old man. He held his head high, and the age lines on his neck crisscrossed like old fight scars. “Nothing. You owe the master everything. I need no reminder that I am a bonder. I fill the bag myself.”
Jakkin came to the stall where the red was already at work grooming itself, polishing its scales with a combination of fire and spit. He slipped the ring around its neck and knelt down by its side. Briskly he put his hand out to touch its wounded wing, in a hurry to finish the examination before Likkarn came down. The red drew back at his touch, sending a mauve landscape into his mind, dripping with gray tears.
“Hush, little flametongue,” crooned Jakkin, slowing himself down and using the lullaby sounds he had invented to soothe the hatchling of the sands. “I won’t hurt thee. I want to help.”
But the red continued to retreat from him, crouching against the wall.
Puzzled, Jakkin pulled his hand back, yet still the red huddled away, and a spurt of yellow-red fire flamed from its slits. “Not here, furnace-lung,” said Jakkin, annoyed. “That will set the stall on fire.”
A rough hand pushed him aside. It was Likkarn, no longer in the weed dream but starting into the uncontrollable fury that capped a weed sequence. The dragon, its mind open with the pain of its wound and the finish of the fight, had picked up Likkarn’s growing anger and reacted to it.
“You don’t know wounds,” growled Likkarn. “I’ll show you what a real trainer knows.” He grabbed the dragon’s torn wing and held it firmly; then with a quick motion, and before Jakkin could stop him, he set his mouth on the jagged tear.
The dragon reared back in alarm and tried to whip its tail around, but the stalls were purposely built small to curb such motion. Its tail scraped along the wall and barely tapped the man. But Jakkin grabbed at Likkarn’s arm with both hands and furiously tore him from the red’s wing.
“I’ll kill you, you weeder,” he screamed. “Can’t you wait till a dragon is in the stews before you try to eat it. I’ll kill you.” He slammed at Likkarn with his fist and feet, knowing as he did it that the man’s weed anger would be turned on him and he might be killed by it, and not caring. Suddenly Jakkin felt himself being lifted up from behind, his legs dangling, kicking uselessly at the air. A strong arm around his waist held him fast. Another pushed Likkarn back against the wall.
“Hold off, boy. He was a good trainer—once. And he’s right about the best way to deal with a wing wound. An open part, filled with dragon’s blood, might burn the tongue surely. But a man’s tongue heals quickly, and there is something in human saliva that closes these small tears.”
Jakkin twisted around as best he could and saw the man he had most feared seeing. It was Master Sarkkhan himself, in a leather suit of the red-and-gold nursery colors. His red beard was brushed out, and he looked grim.
Sarkkhan put the boy down but held on to him with one hand. With the other, he brushed his hair back from a forehead that was pitted with blood scores as evenly spaced as a bonder’s chain. “Now promise me you will let Likkarn look to the red’s wing.”
“I will not. He’s a weeder and he’s as likely to rip the red as heal it, and the red hates him—just as I do,” shouted Jakkin. There he stopped and put the back of his hand over his mouth, shocked at his own bold words.
Likkarn raised his hand to the boy and aimed a blow at his head, but before the slap landed, the dragon nosed forward and pushed the man to the ground.
Master Sarkkhan let go of Jakkin’s shoulder and considered the red for a moment. “I think the boy is right, Likkarn. The dragon won’t have you. It’s too closely linked. I wouldn’t have guessed that, but there it is. Best leave this to the boy and me.”
Likkarn got up clumsily and brushed off his clothes. His bond bag had fallen over the top of his overall bib in the scuffle, and Jakkin was shocked to see that it was halfway plump, jangling with coins. Likkarn caught his look and angrily stuffed the bag back inside, then jabbed at the outline of Jakkin’s bag under his shirt with a reddened finger. “And how much have you got there, boy?” He walked off with as much dignity as he could muster to slump by the stairwell and watch.
Sarkkhan ignored them both and crouched down by the dragon, letting it get the smell of him. He caressed its jaws and under its neck with his large, scarred hands. Slowly the big man worked his way back toward the wings, crooning at the dragon in low tones, smoothing its scales, all the while staring into its eyes. Slowly the membranes, top and bottom, shuttered the red’s eyes, and it relaxed. Only then did Sarkkhan let his hand close over the wounded wing. The dragon gave a small shudder but was otherwise quite still.
“Your red did a good job searing its wound on the light. Did you teach it that?”
“No,” the boy admitted.
“Of course not, foolish of me. How could you? No light in the sands. Good breeding, then,” said Sarkkhan with a small chuckle of appreciation. “And I should know. After all, your dragon’s mother is my best—Heart O’ Mine.”
“You…you knew all along, then.” Jakkin felt as confused as a blooded First.
Sarkkhan stood up and stretched. In the confines of the stall he seemed enormous, a red-gold giant. Jakkin suddenly felt smaller than his years.
“Fewmets boy. Of course I knew,” Sarkkhan answered. “I know everything that happens at my nursery.”
Jakkin collapsed down next to his dragon and put his arm over its neck. When he finally spoke, it was in a very small voice. “Then why did you let me do it? Why did you let me steal the dragon? Were you trying to get me in trouble? Do you want me in jail?”
The man threw back his head and roared, and the dragons in neighboring stalls stirred uneasily at the sound. Even Likkarn started at the laugh, and a trainer six stalls down growled in disapproval. Then Sarkkhan looked down at the boy, crouched by the red dragon. “I’m sorry, boy, I forget how young you are. Never known anyone quite that young to successfully train a hatchling. But every man gets a chance to steal one egg. It’s a kind of test, you might say. The only way to break out of bond. Some men are meant to be bonders, some masters. How else can you tell? Likkarn’s tried it—endless times, eh, old man?” The master glanced over at Likkarn with a look akin to affection, but Likkarn only glared back. “Steal an egg and try. The only things it is wrong to steal are a bad egg or your master’s provisions.” Sarkkhan stopped talking for a minute and mused, idly running a hand over the red dragon’s back as it chewed contentedly now on its burnwort, little gray straggles of smoke easing from its slits. “Of course, most do steal bad eggs or are too impatient to train what comes out, and instead they make a quick sale to the stews for just a few coins to jangle in their bags. Then it’s back to bond again before a month is out. It’s only the ones who steal provisions that land in jail, boy.”
“Then you won’t put me in jail? Or the red in the stews? I couldn’t let you do that, Master Sarkkhan. Not even you. I wouldn’t let you. I…” Jakkin began to stutter, as he often did in his master’s presence.
“Send a First Fighter, a winner to the stews? Fewmets, boy, where’s your brain. Been smoking blisterweed?” Sarkkhan hunkered down next to him.
Jakkin looked down at his sandals. His feet were soiled from the dust of the stall. He ordered his stomach to calm down, and he felt an answering muted rainbow of calm from the dragon. Then a peculiar thought came to him. “Did you have to steal an egg, Master Sarkkhan?”
The big red-headed man laughed and thrust his hand right into Jakkin’s face. Jakkin drew back, but Sarkkhan was holding up two fingers and wiggling them before his eyes.
“Two! I stole two. A male and a female. And it was not mere chance. Even then, I knew the difference. In the egg I knew. And that’s why I’m the best breeder on Austar IV.” He stood up abruptly and held out his hand to the boy. “But enough. The red is fine, and you are due upstairs.” He yanked Jakkin to his feet and seemed at once to lose his friendliness.
“Upstairs?” Jakkin could not think what that meant. “You said I was
not to go to jail. I want to stay with the red. I want…”
“Wormwort, boy, have you been listening or not? You have to register that dragon, give her a name, record her as a First Fighter, a winner.”
“Her?” Jakkin heard only the one word.
“Yes, a her. Do you challenge me on that? And I want to come with you and collect my gold. I bet a bagful on that red of yours—on Likkarn’s advice. He’s been watching you train—my orders. He said she was looking good, and sometimes I believe him.” Sarkkhan moved toward the stairwell where Likkarn still waited. “I owe him, you know. He taught me everything.”
“Likkarn? Taught you?”
They stopped by the old man who was slumped again in another blisterweed dream. Sarkkhan reached out and took the stringy red weed ash from the old man’s hand. He threw it on the floor and ground it savagely into the dust. “He wasn’t born a weeder, boy. And he hasn’t forgotten all he once knew.” Then shaking his head, Master Sarkkhan moved up the stairs, impatiently waving a hand at the boy to follow.
A stray strand of color-pearls passed through Jakkin’s mind, and he turned around to look at the dragon’s stall. Then he gulped and said in a rush at Sarkkhan’s back, “But she’s a mute, Master. She may have won this fight by wiles, but she’s a mute. No one will bet on a dragon that cannot roar.”
The man reached down and grabbed Jakkin’s hand, yanking him through the doorway and up the stairs. They mounted two at a time. “You really are lizard waste,” said Sarkkhan, punctuating his sentences with another step. “Why do you think I sent a half-blind weeder skulking around the sands at night watching you train a snatchling? Because I’d lost my mind? Fewmets, boy. I want to know what is happening to every damned dragon I have bred, because I have had a hunch and a hope these past ten years, breeding small-voiced dragons together. I’ve been trying to breed a mute. Think of it, a mute fighter—why, it would give nothing away, not to pit foes or to bettors. A mute fighter and its trainer…” and Sarkkhan stopped on the stairs, looking down at the boy. “Why, they’d rule the pits, boy.”
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