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  Jakkin looked down into his second cup of takk and stirred it slowly with a spoon. The deep red drink moved sluggishly. He knew that Errikkin was just being agreeable again, saying something to please, but it was something that Jakkin felt, too. Still he didn't dare voice it aloud. Bragging, like regrets, filled no bag.

  "Will you take Brother to the bath, too?" Slakk never strayed far from his own concerns in any conversation. "His skin is getting flaky—the scales don't shine. We noticed it last time, Errikkin and me. And old Likkarn says..." Slakk spit expertly between his outspread second and third fingers, the sign of dragon horns. None of the boys liked Likkarn, who was in charge of the bonders. He was too fussy and unforgiving, and quite brutal in his punishments. "Old Likkarn says, 'Scales like mud, little stud; scales like the sun, fine work done.' Old Likk-and-Spittle's full of such stuff."

  Jakkin smiled into his cup.

  "Hush" Errikkin hissed. "He might hear you. Then where would we be?"

  "Nowhere that's any worse than where we are now," replied Slakk.

  Errikkin's concern was a formality. Likkarn was too many tables away to hear Slakk's complaints and Jakkin's replies, or to register Errikkin's desperate hissing. He sat with the older bonders and the free men, the ones who really ran the dragonry for the often absent Sarkkhan. They spent each morning meal working out the day's schedule, which Likkarn then scripted. Every bonder knew his or her own mark, and the marks of individual dragons, but beyond that few of them knew how to read. Or write. Likkarn, so the gossip ran, knew how to write because he had been born free. And he scripted each day's schedule with an elegant hand, though given the bonders' illiteracy, that was more ritual than anything else. Likkarn would read the day's work sheet out loud as the others filed out the door, and then hang the assignments on the wall. Even though he was a weeder, he was tolerated by Sarkkhan because he could read and script. Few bonders could read and fewer still could script. It was something taught only to free men and women.

  The boys got up together. Errikkin was in the lead, Jakkin next. Several of the smaller boys slipped in between him and Slakk.

  Slakk whispered at Jakkin's back, "Was I right? The schedule. Was I right?"

  Jakkin checked the marks next to his name and Slakk's, reading them upside down on the chart in front of Likkarn. Jakkin's mother had taught him to read early, before they had been in bond. He could still remember the chanting tone she adopted for drilling his letters. Jakkin had practiced faithfully, to honor her memory. The few coins he ever spent went for books, which he kept hidden with his clothes under his bed. His ability to read, which he did not trouble to hide, was one of the things that Likkarn hated. The old weeder jealously guarded his right to script the schedule. He needn't have bothered. Jakkin could read—but he could not write.

  Turning, Jakkin called lightly over the heads of the younger boys, "You were right, Slakk."

  Likkarn scowled and read off Jakkin's duties anyway, his voice edged with anger. "'Jakkin: Bloody Flag and Blood Brother. Stalls and baths.' And be sure they're quieted down. If any of them hackle, you're in for it."

  "Don't forget"—Slakk's whine began before they were out of the door—"you promised. You promised you'd take—"

  Jakkin nodded and walked quickly to get away from Slakk's voice. He willed himself to remember the oasis and the sounds in the incubarns. He was halfway to the stud barn when Slakk caught up with him.

  "You did promise, you know."

  "Oh, lizard lumps, shut up already. I know I promised." Jakkin rarely got angry with anyone except Slakk. Then, at his friend's crestfallen look, Jakkin was immediately contrite. "I'm sorry, Slakk. I didn't mean to yell. I'm just..." He stopped, horrified with himself. He had been about to confess to Slakk how tired he was and why.

  Errikkin turned back and interrupted them.

  "It's just been too many days since your last Bond-Off," he supplied. He put his arm over Jakkin's shoulder. "That's all."

  Jakkin nodded. They all accepted that explanation and went on to the barn.

  The stud barn was twice as high as the bondhouse, to accommodate the size of the big male dragons. Inside on the south wall were individual stalls that simulated the pumice caves where mature males lived in the wild. Since the males paired off when it was not rutting season, leaving the hen dragons to raise the hatchlings, the studs had linked stalls throughout the barn. An unpaired stud often went into a decline and was not good for mating. The north wall stalls were used for the male pit fighters.

  In the center of the barn was the great hall, where hen dragons in heat were brought to the studs. The hall was an arena-sized courtyard, without a roof, to accommodate the frantic, spiraling courting flights. It had a soft, mossy floor for the act itself.

  Throughout the barn was a system of stone dikes that carried water in from, and out again to, the Narrakka River. It was triple forked inside the building. One fork funneled drinking water into the individual stalls and a clear, flowing drinking stream into the mating hall. The second funneled out wastewater that had been used for cleaning the barn. The third fork ran directly into the baths, those tremendous pools of mud in which the dragons rolled and sank up to their eyes, to be cooled after mating or fights or twice a month in off-rut. The third fork also filled the cisterns in the shower room, with runoff back into the outlying swamps.

  The boys went into the barn, and the deep, cool, musky air assaulted them. Jakkin breathed deeply and smiled. Dragon smells and dragons. They were really what he loved most in the world.

  "Phew," said Slakk. "The first thing I am going to do when I buy out of bond is to celebrate the end of this smell. I'm never going to work with dragons again."

  "What will you do, then?" asked Errikkin. "What else do you know?"

  "I know food," Slakk answered. "I might apprentice to a cook. Or run a baggery. That might be a job for a man. Anything but being a slave to a worm."

  Jakkin shook his head and was just going to reply when an incredible roar filled the hallway. It began on a deep bass note and wound its way up and up, without hesitation, until it screamed out its defiance beyond human hearing.

  "That's Blood Brother," Jakkin remarked. "He knows it's his turn."

  "Just as long as he doesn't hackle," said Errikkin.

  "All roar and no fight," sneered Slakk. "That's why he's here. After his first two wins, he refused to go into the pit again."

  It was a cynical assessment of the great dragon's skill, but even Errikkin had to agree. Blood Brother's history was known even to the stallboys. Two tremendous fights with older, cunning dragons, and the next time the trainers had tried to lead Brother into the nursery truck to drive to a pit, he had simply collapsed at the barn door. A ton of fighting dragon lying on the ground was not something that could be moved easily. Likkarn had tried the prod-sticks and even a shot with the stinger, set below Stun. But Brother would not move until the truck had driven off without him. Only then had he stood and moved placidly back inside the barn on his own.

  "But he's a fantastic stud," Jakkin reminded them. "His hatchlings have won in pits all over the world."

  Slakk shrugged and Errikkin smiled. Then the three of them padded down the hall to the dragon stalls.

  3

  BLOOD BROTHER TURNED his great black shrouds of eyes toward the boys, but in the neighboring stall Bloody Flag continued to munch mindlessly on blisterwort. Brother showed his annoyance by shifting his weight back and forth and houghing.

  Jakkin ran his fingers through his hair, then touched the dimple on his cheek that was as deep as a blood score. He always did that when he was nervous, and though he never would have let Slakk and Errikkin know it, Blood Brother was the one dragon he did not wholly trust. Brother was so unpredictable—one minute almost thrumming, that deep-throated purr that a contented dragon used; the next sending warning straggles of smoke through his slits. Still, it did not do to let a dragon know how nervous you were. Some bonders claimed dragons could smell fear on you. Jakkin
supposed that was how his father had been killed by the feral in the sands. Besides, all dragons, he reminded himself with the conventional trainer's wisdom, all dragons are feral, even though they have been domesticated for over two centuries. And especially dragons like Blood Brother.

  As if hearing his name, Brother jerked his head up. Deep inside the black eyes there was an iridescent flicker, the sign of a fighter. Involuntarily Slakk stepped back. Errikkin stood his ground. Only Jakkin went forward, holding out a hand.

  "Hush, hush, beauty," he crooned, letting Brother sniff his hand. "It's the baths for you."

  Jakkin kept up the soothing babble until the head of the beast started to weave back and forth and the boys could feel the thrumm of content humming along the floor. Errikkin unlatched the stall gate and Jakkin reached up, hooked his finger around the dragon's ear, and backed him out of the stall.

  As Jakkin led the dragon down the hall, Slakk ran ahead to the bellpull that signaled throughout the other halls that a dragon was unstalled. No one wanted to be in the way of those great back feet or foreshortened front feet with claws as hard and yellow as old bone. On hearing the bell, anyone in the barn would press into the evenly spaced hallway niches until the dragon had gone by. Only the trainer, leading the dragon by ear or halter and pacing by its side, could be reasonably assured of safety, but even a good trainer could be accidentally clawed. Old Likkarn had a dozen scars punctuating the long, stringy sentences of veins that ran down his legs. And the rumor was that Sarkkhan himself looked like the map of Austar, pocked and pitted from his years with dragons. But that Jakkin knew only from gossip. He had never been up close to Master Sarkkhan. For all Jakkin knew, the man's body might be as smooth as a baggery girl's, though that was highly unlikely. Anyone who worked around dragons for long wore blood wounds.

  Jakkin clucked with his tongue to let the dragon know he was still there. "Just be a good fellow," Jakkin sang to Brother as they went along the hall. It was early, and no one was in the niches; there was nothing to distract them as they went down to the baths. Jakkin knew that Slakk and Errikkin would use this time to clean the stall, raking out the old fewmets, patting down the dust, settling new straw for bedding. They would crush fresh wort and weed in the feed box and maybe, with extra time, polish Brother's nameplate. Sarkkhan was rich enough to afford metal ones.

  Each dragon had a bath once every other week, but the stalls had to be cleaned every other day. Dust and fewmets, fewmets and dust. That was usually a stallboy's life. So Jakkin welcomed the chance to be more than a human pit cleaner, and he loved to take the dragons to their baths.

  Blood Brother, smelling the mud, threw his head up; Jakkin lost his hold on the dragon's ear.

  "Worm bag," Jakkin muttered under his breath as the dragon reared up slightly, fanning the close air with his front feet. There was not enough room for Brother to complete a hindleg stand, but Jakkin could feel the air currents change as the dragon lashed his tail from side to side. The thump-thumping as the tail hit the solid wooden walls was echoed in Jakkin's chest. He would have to get Brother quickly into the baths and quieted down before the dragon did damage to the building or to himself. Either way and old Likkarn would have Jakkin back spreading fewmets on the weed and wort patches for a month. It wasn't bad work, but he preferred dragons.

  Jakkin plunged between Brother's front feet and lunged for the bath door. It was a dangerous move, but unpredictable enough to shock the dragon into backing up a pace. Jakkin lifted the latch and rode the doorstep platform in and over the sunken bath room.

  Blood Brother crowded in behind and plunged into the deep mudhole. It cooled his temper at once and he began to splash and snuffle in the bath like a hatchling.

  From his perch on the swinging platform Jakkin smiled. All of the dragon's ferocity seemed to slip away, and what was left was a rather silly, oversized lizard, burbling and rolling about in a pool of muck.

  "And what was I scared of?" Jakkin said to Brother, but the dragon ignored him completely.

  Jakkin took a large wire brush from its hook on the door and sat down on the step, his legs hanging over the side. His perch swayed back and forth. He knew that in a little while the dragon would have had enough of plunging around in the mud and would want his scales scrubbed. Dragons in the wild groomed one another with teeth and claws and tongues as rough as bristles. But domesticated dragons, though paired in stalls, were not let loose in the baths together. Their play was too rough for even the strongest wood-and-stone building. Besides, most dragons got so they preferred the wire brush, which could reach the most incredibly delightful places when wielded by a sensitive human groom.

  Blood Brother sank down to the bottom of the mud bath. Only his eyes, now shuttered with their membranous second lid, showed above the brown sludge. His ears twitched constantly. After a minute, even the ears stopped moving, and Blood Brother slept.

  "Pleasant dreams," mumbled Jakkin. He knew that the dragon—and not the human—would choose the time of grooming. Then, though he tried not to, he dozed off as well.

  Jakkin had no idea how long they slept. One moment he was dreaming of the oasis, clean and bright and shimmering in the desert sun, and the next he was awakened by a playful, muddy nudge from Blood Brother's nose. It was forceful enough to have knocked him from his perch if the platform hadn't swung toward the far wall.

  Jakkin grabbed the metal chain attached to the wall and leapt onto the catwalk. He pushed the door back with one foot and watched it lock shut with a satisfying click. His heart was racing. Falling asleep on the door was a stupid thing to have done, especially with Blood Brother in the bath. If he had fallen into that deep mud with the dragon, there would have been little chance of his escaping. Recently, one bonder in a nursery on the far side of Krakkow had died that way. It could not have been a pleasant death.

  "Come on, worm," he said aloud, amazed that his voice was not shaking. He held the brush behind him as he walked along the catwalk toward the shower room. The dragon followed, heaving himself out of the mud and onto the ramp with a loud sucking sound.

  In the shower room, Jakkin stripped off his tunic and sandals but left his shorts on. And his bag. No bonder was allowed to remove the bag until it was full. Jakkin reached up and pulled the cord that started the shower. Brother was so becalmed from the mud bath, Jakkin no longer feared him.

  The water began raining down on them and Jakkin moved around the great beast, heedless now of its claws. He scratched and polished the muddy scales. First the mud came off, then the patina of stall dust. Beneath were orange-red scales that shimmered in the flickering light of the shower room.

  "Pretty, pretty," Jakkin crooned.

  Blood Brother was not a deep wine red, which was the best color for a fighting dragon (for somehow color and ferocity were gene linked). But his color was strong, and his scales, when clean, had the sheen and polish of hundreds of small rainbow mirrors. They were not spotty or off-color as some dragon scales were.

  As he worked, Jakkin smiled and even whistled through his teeth. He was enjoying the cleaning as much as the dragon.

  Blood Brother languorously stretched out his wings. Unfurled, they nearly touched the opposite walls. His wingspread was the widest in the nursery, and it seemed to Jakkin that Brother enjoyed showing it off. When not confined in his stall, the dragon took every opportunity to stretch his magnificent wings.

  Jakkin took a soft cloth from a hook and rubbed the silky-tough membranes that stretched between the rock-hard wing ribs. He was especially careful of the skin next to the right secondary, where a series of four puckered scars bore witness to Brother's time in the pits.

  Brother began to flinch as the cloth came close to the scars, and Jakkin held on firmly to the wing. "I'll be careful, fellow. You can't tell me that still hurts after all this time. But I'll be careful." He thought to himself that he'd have to be a fool not to be careful. Brother had knocked one of the older bonders senseless a year ago, smashing him up against the shower wa
ll, just for bearing down too hard on that wing.

  Hanging the cloth back on the hook, Jakkin took up the brush again. He stood on tiptoe and leaned against the dragon, clicking to it with his tongue. Jakkin tried, as always, to reach Brother's mind with his. Trainers were often able to have a tenuous kind of mental bond with their worms. All Jakkin could ever sense with Brother was a dark, sluggish brooding, the color of bloody mud.

  Jakkin clicked again and pushed Brother with his shoulder. Slowly the dragon turned its head to look at him and Jakkin tapped as far up Brother's back as he could reach with the brush. With a sigh, the worm lay down, first folding his short, powerful forelegs, then squatting down on the hind. Jakkin scratched the upper scales with a gentle persistence. He worked his way down the slope of the neck, leaving the head for last.

  Jakkin sat down in front of Brother and cradled the dragon's head in his lap. He began to croon a silly little song that had been sung in the bondhouse that month, a kind of dragon lullaby:

  Little flame mouths,

  Cool your tongues.

  Dreaming starts soon,

  Furnace lungs.

  Rest your wings now,

  Little flappers.

  Cave mouth calls

  To dragon nappers.

  Night is coming;

  Bank your fire.

  Time for dragons

  To retire.

  Hiss. Hush. Sleep.

  As he sang, Jakkin brushed Brother's ears and around his horns, over the nose and under the chin. The beast began thrumming again in the same rhythm as the song. Then, as if to thank Jakkin for the grooming, Brother tried to groom in return, holding the boy down with one foreclaw and giving him long tongue swipes along the leg. The treatment was so rough and painful, Jakkin stopped singing and began to shout.

  "Cut it out, you worm pile!" He banged Brother on the nose several times with the wire brush.