Dragon's Blood Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Photo

  Introduction

  The Hatchling

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  The Snatchling

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  The Fighter

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  Heart's Blood

  1

  Copyright © 1982 by Jane Yolen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and

  retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work

  should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,

  Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

  www.HarcourtBooks.com

  First Magic Carpet Books edition 1996

  First published 1982 by Delacorte Press

  Magic Carpet Books is a trademark of Harcourt, Inc., registered

  in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Yolen, Jane.

  Dragon's blood/Jane Yolen.

  p. cm.—(Pit dragon chronicles; bk. 1)

  "Magic Carpet Books."

  Summary: Jakkin, a bond boy who works as a Keeper in a dragon

  nursery on the planet Austar IV, secretly trains a fighting pit dragon

  of his own in hopes of winning his freedom.

  [1. Dragons—Fiction. 2. Fantasy.] I. Title.

  PZ7.Y78Dr 2004

  [Fic]—dc22 2003056661

  ISBN-13: 978-0152-05126-6 ISBN-10: 0-15-205126-0

  Text set in Fournier

  Designed by Trina Stahl

  G H

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jeff, Joan, Jim, and Scott,

  my first SF friends

  AUSTAR IV is the fourth planet of a seven-planet rim-system in the Erato Galaxy. Once a penal colony marked KK29 on the convict map system, it is a semi-arid, metal-poor world with two moons.

  Austar IV is covered by vast deserts, some of which are cut through by small, irregularly surfacing hot springs, and several small sections of fenlands. There are only five major rivers: the Narrakka the Rokk, the Brokkbend, the Kkar, and the Left Forkk.

  Few plants grow on the deserts: some fruit cacti and sparse, long-trunked palm trees. The most populous plants are two wild flowering bushes called burnwort and blisterweed. (See color section.)

  There is a variety of insect and pseudo-lizard life, the latter ranging from small rock runners to elephant-sized dragons. (See article and holo sections, vol. 6.) Unlike Earth reptilia, the Austarian dragon-lizards are warm blooded, with pneumaticized bones for reduction of weight, and a keeled sternum where the flight muscles are attached. They have membranous wings with jointed ribs that fold back along the animals' bodies when the dragons are earthbound. Stretched to the fullest, an adult dragon's wings are twice its body size. From claw to shoulder, some specimens have been measured at thirteen feet. These dragons were almost extinct when the planet was first settled by convicts and guards from Earth in 2303. But several generations later, the Austarians domesticated the few remaining dragons, selectively breeding them for meat and leather and the gaming arenas, or "pits."

  The dragon pits of Austar IV were more than just the main entertainment for the early settlers. Over the years, the pits became central to the Austarian economy. Betting syndicates developed, and starship crews on long rim-world voyages began to frequent the planet for illicit gambling.

  In 2485, under the control of Galaxian Law, illegal gamesters were transported from Austar IV to KK47, and a constitution spelling out the government's role in the economy—including control over the gambling—was voted in. A caste system of masters and bond slaves, the remnants of the convict-guard hierarchy, was established. And The Rokk, which had been the fortress center of the ruling guards and their families, was made into the capital city.

  Now that the inhabitants of Austar IV are many generations removed from their convict ancestors, the planet is no longer off-limits to long-haul starships, although the Erato Galaxy itself is still only in protectorate status. However, because of the fighting pit dragons, Austar has become one of the better known R&R planets in the explored universe.

  —excerpt from The Encyclopedia Galaxia, twenty-ninth edition, vol. I, AAAL-BASE

  The Hatchling

  1

  THE TWIN MOONS cast shadows like blood scores across the sand. Jakkin hunkered down in a bowl-shaped depression and listened. Inside the wood-and-stone dragonry he could hear the mewling and scratching of hatchlings as they pipped out of their shells. One more night and the hatching would be complete. One more night and he could steal in and pick out a hatchling to raise in secret out in the sands.

  As he listened, Jakkin stroked the leather bond bag that hung from his neck chain. The bag held only a few coins. But Jakkin knew that once he had trained his dragon to fight in the pits, his bag would be plump and jangling with gold. Then no one could call him bonder again, and he would answer to no master's call but his own. He would be a boy no longer, but a man.

  The rustlings inside the nursery increased as more and more hatchlings caught Jakkin's scent. They began to squeak their distress, a high peeping that multiplied quickly. In the nearby stalls, the hen dragons stomped their feet. They were well used to the man-smell, but the panic of the newborn nestlings made them restless. Their huge clawed feet beat out challenges to the intruder near the clutch. Any moment now, a hen might roar, and that would wake any sleeping bonder within hearing.

  Jakkin did not dare stay longer, but what did that matter? He had heard the sound of the hatchlings and he knew how close the pipping was to being finished. As a lower stallboy, he was not allowed into the incubarns. His job was to clean the stud stalls and bathe the big male dragons: dust and fewmets, fewmets and dust. He was no better than a mecho garbage collector, but at least he did not clank like one, disturbing the great cock dragons in their stalls. Few of the male dragons could tolerate the sound and smell of a mechanical heapster without hackling, their collars of hardened neck flesh raising up for a fight. A hackled dragon was no good for stud. It took days to calm one down. So humans, bonders, had to serve as waste collectors even on the most modern worm farm.

  Jakkin knew the stud barn well, but the incubarn he could only imagine from its sounds. Tomorrow night, when the hatching was complete, he would find his way into those half-lit, cozy compartments where the temperature was kept at a constant 34°C. He would find his way and get himself a snatchling, and begin the transformation of bond boy into master in one quick, secret, silent act.

  Jakkin turned and ran, bent over, toward the northernmost corner of the building. He waded across the stone weir, knee deep in the water that was channeled through the dragonry from the Narrakka River. At the third join, he climbed out again, but kept low until he came to the dunes, another shadow in a night of shadows.

  The desert air dried his legs quickly. The water had come nowhere near the bottoms of his thigh-length bonder pants. He checked the horizon for unfamiliar shapes, w
atchers in the night, and then he stood up, but only for a moment. He took the whisker from the sheath on his belt and began to broom his footsteps away. It made the going slow, and his back ached with the effort, but he did not dare leave prints to show that anyone had gone out across the sands. Bonders, lacking most entertainments, loved to gossip. At night in the bondhouse, once the lights were out, there was little else to do until sleep claimed them.

  Jakkin had a few hours before the cold of Dark-After. He planned to use them to check again on the crops of blisterweed and burnwort he was growing in his hidden oasis. Everything had to be ready for the arrival of the snatchling. He dared leave nothing to chance.

  Jakkin thought, and not for the first time, how his inability to sense anything in the egg made stealing a dragon so difficult. Eggs were never counted; hatchlings were. That was because so few of the eggs actually hatched. Anyone could steal an egg unnoticed. But unless the thief could sense the living dragon within the shell, his chances of success were small.

  And Jakkin did not have that sense. His talent was with the grown dragons, like his father before him. But his father had never had any time to teach Jakkin training skills. He had died out in the sands, beneath the claws of a feral dragon he had tried to train when Jakkin was very young. Jakkin's mother had buried her man and then sold Jakkin and herself into bond for food and shelter. She had died, mourning, within the month, leaving Jakkin with scant memories, half-remembered stories his mother had told him, and a bond bag he was much too small to fill.

  He thought back on his past as he whisked away his footprints, but without bitterness. What was, was. Bonders said, "You can fill no bag with regrets." What mattered now was stealing an egg, an egg containing a live dragon, without being caught. Then he had to watch over it until it hatched, and train it in secret to be a proper fighter. A champion in the pits—a big, bright, responding red with a terrible roar and flames six or seven meters long—could buy Jakkin out of bond. Such a dragon had not been seen on Austar IV for as many years as Jakkin could recall. But he was determined to find one, raise it up, train a champion, fill his bag, and become a master. And becoming a master, he would become a man.

  ***

  JAKKIN WAS SO lost in his dreaming, he came to the oasis sooner than he expected. It was only wide enough for a wellspring and a crude reed shelter. He had found the stream by chance when wandering alone in the sands several years earlier on the anniversary of his father's death. Then he had not known enough to broom away his steps. Anyone could have followed him—and shared his find. He had been lucky that time, for his tracks had drifted back into the dunes, covered by the pervasive wind-dervishes that deviled this part of the planet.

  The warm spring rose out of nowhere and disappeared as quickly, a bright ribbon of blue-white water running east to west a scant ten meters. It had no rocks or faults in the bed to make it bubble, and so it moved quietly the length of its run. Yet it shimmered against the sand unexpectedly, like dragon scales in the sun. The western end was rimmed with sand-colored kkhan reeds.

  When Jakkin had first found the spring, he had begun his digging with his hands. On subsequent trips he had brought a small shovel, borrowed from the nursery supply room and long since returned there. Slowly, and with much perseverance, he had widened the western edge to make a pool. The pool was large enough for a boy to swim in, though too shallow for deep dives. And for four years the oasis had been his secret place. He came when work was finished or on his Bond-Off, the semimonthly holiday each bonder had from the dragonry. Jakkin had told no one about it, not even Slakk or Errikkin, his two closest bondmates. They chose to spend their Bond-Offs with the others, stuffing themselves at the Krakkow Stews or gaming at its minor pit. As young bonders, they mostly watched at the pit, having little in the way of coins with which to bet. Some of the older bond boys spent their time and gold at the baggeries as well, where girls waited to be filled like empty bags. But Jakkin preferred the silent, simple pleasures of his oasis and the knowledge that the few coins in his bag were in no danger of being lessened by trips into town.

  It was the wellspring that had helped him decide to steal an egg. It could provide shelter and the promise of provisions. And so Jakkin had spent every free moonrise and Bond-Off at the oasis, planting a small patch of blisterweed and burnwort along the side of the spring, milking plants near Sukker's Marsh for the seeds. It had taken him the better part of the year to sow enough to provide an adequate crop for his worm.

  Jakkin walked along the weed and wort patch. In the moonlight the plants sent up smoke ghosts, a healthy sign. He knew better than to touch the growing red stalks, for they could leave painful burns. Only when the plants stopped smoldering and leafed out could they be touched safely: milked for seeds, picked and crushed for dragon food, or rolled for smokers like old Likkarn, who could not do without the weed.

  Jakkin looked at the weed patch critically. He was pleased. There should be more than enough for his snatchling, especially since a dragon did not start eating until it had shed its eggskin, after three or four days. By then the plants would be ready, their pale red jagged-toothed leaves veined with the protein-rich sap that showed up a deep maroon in maturity.

  Glancing quickly at the sky, Jakkin saw that the second moon, Akka, had already chased its older brother, Akkhan, across to the horizon. There they sat like giant eggs on the rim of the world. Soon they would seem to break apart, spilling a pale glow across the line where land and sky met, a cold false dawn. Once that happened, there would be four hours of Dark-After, those wretched hours when it was too cold for a human to stay out unsheltered in the sand.

  In the daylight the reeds could house a hatchling, keeping its sun-sensitive eggskin shadowed as easily as a hen dragon could. And once the dragon was fully scaled out, the sun could not harm it.

  But the reeds were useless as protection at night. For dragons it did not matter. They did not mind the cold. But Jakkin knew he would have to hurry back, whisking away his returning tracks, before Dark-After settled its icy hold on the world.

  2

  JAKKIN WAS INTO the deepest part of his sleep, dreaming of great eggs from which red curls of silent smoke rose, when the clanging of the breakfast bell woke him. Automatically he reached under his bed and with one arm dragged out his tunic and pants. Still lying down, eyes closed, he maneuvered into his clothes. Then he sat up on the side of his bed and thrust his feet into his sandals, oblivious of Slakk's legs hanging down from the upper bunk.

  "Look out, worm waste," Slakk called, and jumped, just missing Jakkin. "I almost landed on your head this time." He turned and punched Jakkin's bag companionably. "I swear, you're less awake than any bonder I know. What's the matter? Empty bag?" As if punctuating the question, he took another poke at Jakkin's bag, which clinked a quick answer. Dark, ferret-eyed Slakk bent down to tie his sandals, still talking in his insistent, whiny voice. "Less awake each day. Wonder what he's doing out half the night. Is it the pits, I ask? He doesn't answer. The stews? Will he respond? How about..." He stood, facing Jakkin again.

  Jakkin grunted. Let Slakk think what he will. The image of the spirals of smoke signaling from the weed and wort patch filled his mind. Jakkin gave a second meaningless grunt and stood. He always found it hard to speak before he had gulped down his first cup of takk.

  "Leave him alone, Slakk," called out the boy in the next bunk. "You know how he is in the morning." The boy leapt down from the bunk with an easy grace and put his hand out to Jakkin. "Never mind this talking lizard, silent one. I'll lead you straight to the takk pot. Then, perhaps, you will honor us with your words."

  Jakkin refused Errikkin's hand but Errikkin was not insulted. He was never insulted. It was impossible to make him be anything but pleasant, a trait that annoyed Jakkin. He tied his sandals and then the three of them went toward the common room, with Slakk in the middle holding a nonstop monologue about pit fighting. The monologue ended only when they were seated at their table.

  There
were twelve tables in all, and almost all were filled. Jakkin, Slakk, and Errikkin sat with six other young bonders.

  There were three girls' tables. The rest of the tables were for the older bonders, most of whom, for one reason or another, had never been able to fill their bags with enough gold to buy their way out of bond. Only one table held both free men and women: those who were walking out together or pair-bonded, and Akkhina—little, lithe, black-haired Akki, who should have been at the baggeries, Slakk said, but who preferred working around dragons and choosing her own men. Slakk always said that with a sly smile, as if there were more he could tell if he wanted, as if he had spent time with her. But Jakkin was sure it was all posture and bluff. Though Slakk was sixteen, Jakkin doubted he had ever been near a girl, any girl, not even a girl from the local baggery.

  The table was set with bowls, cups, and cutlery. Unlike some breeders, Master Sarkkhan had always supplied knives as well as forks and spoons to his bonders. They were well fed and well kept, and there was rarely a fight. In the center of each table stood the takk pot, full of the rich, hot, wine-colored drink. The cook, old Kkarina, made it as thick as the mud of the stud baths; she claimed that if it were any thinner it lost much of its protein and all of its taste. Platters of lizard eggs, boiled in the shell, and heavy slabs of lizard meat sat next to the takk pot. The boys wasted little time heaping their bowls.

  Jakkin was suddenly starving. He wondered if it was because of his late nights or his fears.

  "I bet it's Bloody Flag and Blood Brother today," said Slakk, his mouth full of the juicy meat. "It's that time again. Fewmets, I hate that Brother. His is always the messiest stall, and besides, he loves to nip."

  "I'll take him for you," said Jakkin. The first cup of takk had restored his tongue and burned courage through his body. "He never nips me."

  "None of them ever nip you," said Errikkin pleasantly. "You've got something. Trainer blood. Like your dad. I bet even old Sarkkhan himself doesn't have your touch."