Dragon's Blood Read Free Page B

to the dragon stalls.

3
    B LOOD B ROTHER 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