Dragon's Blood Read Free

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."
    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