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tongue.
For over an hour the sky was empty and Jakkin was near despair. And then the
dragon was back, wheeling and diving and cresting the waves of air with the
same buoyant grace with which it had ridden the stream. Finally it settled
down, landing on the ground with an earth-shaking thump right next to
Jakkin.
He looked at it with a great smile on his face.  There is none like thee, he
said, moving to it and circling its neck with his arms. He put his cheek on
its scaly jaw.  None.
He was rewarded with a cascade, a waterfall, a sunburst of color, and this
time he did not ask it to mute its fiery show.
chapter 33
THE YEAR TRAVELED Straight across the season, but Jakkin saw only the wavy
lines of progress that his dragon made. By year s end, the dragon towered
above him, and it was hard to recall the little hatchling in its yellowish
eggskin that had staggered around the oasis under the weight of its oversized
wings. This yearling dragon was a beautiful dull red. Not the red of holly
berry or the red of the wild flowering trillium that grew at the edge of
Sukker s Marsh, but the deep red of life s blood spilled upon the sand. The
nails on its forepaws, which had been as brittle as jingle shells, were now
hard-the lanceae were almost indestructible. Its eyes were two black shrouds.
It had not roared yet. But Jakkin knew the roar would come, loud and full and
fierce, when it was first blooded in the ring. The quality of that roar would
start the betting rippling again through the crowd at the pits, for they
judged a fighter partly by the timbre of its voice.
Jakkin dreamed of the pits at night, fretted about them by day. The closest
minor pit-for a First Fighter could never start in a major pit; that was only
for champions-was past Krakkow, the town that was fifteen kilometers from the
nursery. Jakkin had tried to ask seemingly innocent questions of the other
bonders about the route to Krakkow and beyond, because Akki had never been to
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the minor pit there.
But Likkam had overheard one such conversation and had interrupted it as he
passed by, asking,  Checking out the fighting dragons for some purpose, boy?
as if he knew something. So Jakkin had stopped asking anything. He had debated
going one Bond-Off to the minor pit to check them out himself.
But the trip by truck cost a coin, as did the entrance fee to the pit, though
Slakk said there were ways to sneak in. And he might have walked there and
back in a long day, but he needed the Bond-Off to train and he had little
enough gold left in his bag. Most had gone with Akki to buy more burnwort and
blisterweed seeds. He never asked her how she got them, only thanked her when
she handed him the precious paper packets of seeds.
He could have stolen what he needed from the nursery stores. Just a handful of
seeds seemed an insignificant thing. But he never even considered it, just as
he never considered sneaking into the pits.
Taking an egg was acceptable thievery, the mark of a possible master. But
taking supplies from a nursery might condemn an older dragon to short rations
in a bad year. It could even mean death to the nursery worms. And sneaking
into the pits meant cutting into the most basic part of Austarian economy.
Besides, if he was caught it was punishable by a prison term on another
planet. Jakkin simply would not do such a thing.
One evening, while Jakkin was putting the red through its paces, Akki came
slipping quietly through the weed and wort patch. The old shoots were mostly
all grazed down, but the new crop, planted with the purchased seed, was
sending smoky signals into the still air. Akki s passage moved the gray smoke
away from the stalks, and some of the clouds clung to her dark hair, crowning
it with fuzzy gray jewels. She tried to brush the stuff off her hair and bond
bag with impatient hands.
 Akki, Jakkin cried out when he saw her, unable to disguise the pleasure in
his voice. It had been many
days since she had visited the oasis.
She grinned lopsidedly.  I ve brought you a present.
 A present? For me? What? He sounded like a child, and willed himself to stop
chattering.
She opened her bond bag and reached into it, withdrawing some crumpled pieces
of paper.
 Registration papers. For the Krakkow Minor, she said, holding them out to
him.
 I don t understand, Jakkin began.
 I didn t think you would. You have to sign these papers in order to fight
your dragon at the pit. They don t just let anyone in, you know. She shook
her head at him.
 But my father never& 
 Your father was training a feral, she reminded him.  And he never got far
enough along with it to register it. Ever since-well, the Constitution at
least-there have been rules about this sort of thing.
Jakkin suddenly felt as crumpled as the paper.  I didn t realize.
What would I have done? He began half a dozen other sentences and finished
none of them, mumbling half to himself and half to Akki.
 Never mind, said Akki.  I ve gotten the papers all filled out. All you have
to do is sign them with your mark.
 That s all?
 That s all. I ll take the papers in and file them with the right people,
Akki said.  And then, on the right day, you and the dragon will be there. At
the pit. If you think your dragon is ready.
 Ready? Jakkin gestured at the dragon.  Just look. The yearling dragon was
lying by the side of the stream. It stretched out parallel to the bright
ribbon of water, its red contrasting with the blue-white. In the moonlight,
both the water and the dragon scales shone equally. Slowly its tail rose and
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fell, weaving little fantasies in the air.
Akki nodded slowly.  Thou art a beauty, in truth. In truth, she said, her
voice free of its usual mocking tone.
At her voice, the dragon stir-red and looked around at them.
 So, said Akki, turning back quickly to Jakkin.  How do you propose to get
the dragon there? Walk along the main road with that great thing galumphing at
your side? Or sneak it under the cover of darkness and get frozen during
Dark-After?
Jakkin looked down at his feet. It had been a question that had troubled him
frequently and he had put off thinking about it.
 Perhaps& I thought&  he began, then finished with a rush.  That the dragon
could carry me.
 Look, said Akki, and she pulled him along by the hand to where the dragon
lay in the sand. Then, as if giving a fairly stupid child a lesson in
spelling, she pointed:  The dragon s shoulders, here and here, are too thin
and smooth scaled for sitting. The hackles would be damaged by pressure there.
And if you tried
to hold on there or there -she touched the dragon along its long, sinuous
back- the slightest turn of its body would send those sharp-edged scales
slicing into you at your most tender points.
Under the withering lecture, Jakkin held his shoulders rigid and fingered his
bond bag with one hand.
Akki was right. And the worst of it was, he had already figured that out for
himself.
 It s been tried before, dragon riding, said Akki.  And the men who tried it
had scars they would not even show the bag girls. Her voice got hard.  The
ones that lived. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]