by Jane Yolen
First the hatchling had turned a dull brown and could trickle smoke through its nose slits. The wings on its back, crumpled and weak, had slowly stretched to a rubbery thickness. For days it had remained mud-colored. Another boy might have sold it then to the stews, keeping the small fee in his leather bond bag that swung from the metal bond chain around his neck. It would have been a laughable amount, a coin or two at the most, and the bag would have looked just as empty as before.
But Jakkin had waited, and the dragon finally molted, patchworking into a red. The nails on its foreclaws, which had been as brittle as jingle shells, were now as hard as golden oak and the same color. Its hindclaws were dull and strong as steel. Its eyes were two black shrouds. It had not roared yet, but Jakkin knew that roar would come, loud and full and fierce, when it was first blooded in the ring. The quality of the roar would start the betting rippling again through the crowd who judged a fighter by the timbre of its voice.
Jakkin could hear the cleaners clanking out of the ring through the mecho-holes. He ran his fingers through his straight brown hair and tried to swallow, then touched a dimple on his cheek that was as deep as a blood score. His hand found the bond bag and kneaded it several times for luck.
“Soon now,” he promised the red dragon in a hoarse whisper, his hand still on the bag. “Soon. We will show them a first fight. They will remember us.”
The red was too busy munching on blisterwort to reply.
A disembodied voice announced the next fight. “Jakkin’s Red, Mekkle’s Bottle O’ Rum.”
Jakkin winced. He knew a little about Mekkle’s dragon already. He had heard about it that morning as they had come into the pit stalls. Dragon masters and trainers did not chatter while they groomed their fighters, but bettors did, gathering around the favorites and trading stories of other fights. Mekkle’s Rum was a light-colored male that favored its left side and had won three of its seven fights—the last three. It would never be great, the whispers had run, but it was good enough, and a hard draw for a new dragon, possibly disastrous for a would-be dragon master. Jakkin knew his red could be good with time, given the luck of the draw. It had all the things a dragon fighter was supposed to have: it had heart, it listened well, it did all he asked of it. But just as Jakkin had never run a fighter before, the red had never been in a ring. It had never been blooded or given roar. It did not even have its true name yet. Already, he knew, the betting was way against the young red, and he could hear the murmur of new bets after the announcement. The odds would be so awful, he might never be able to get a sponsor for a second match. First fights were free, but seconds cost gold. And if he had no sponsor, that would leave only the stews for the dragon and a return to bond for himself.
Jakkin stroked the bond bag once more, then buttoned his shirt up over it to conceal it. He did not know yet what it felt like to be free, so he could stand more years as a bonder. And there might always be another chance to steal. But how could he ever give up the red to the stews? It was not any old dragon, it was his. They had already shared months of training, long nights together under the Austar moons. He knew its mind better than his own. It was a deep, glowing cavern of colors and sights and sounds. He remembered the first time he had really felt his way into it, lying on his side, winded from running, the red beside him, a small mountain in the sand. The red calmed him when he was not calm, cheered him when he thought he could not be cheered. Linked as he was with it now, how could he bear to hear its last screams in the stews and stay sane? Perhaps that was why Likkarn was always yelling at the younger bonders, why he smoked blisterweed that turned the mind foggy and made a man cry red tears. And perhaps that was why dragons in the stews were always yearlings or the untrained. Not because they were softer, more succulent, but because no one would hear them when they screamed.
Jakkin’s skin felt slimed with perspiration and the dragon sniffed it on him, giving out a few straggles of smoke from its slits. Jakkin fought down his own fear. If he could not control it, his red would have no chance at all, for a dragon was only as good as its master. He took deep breaths and then moved over to the red’s head. He looked into its black, unblinking eyes.
“Thou art a fine one, my Red,” he whispered. “First fight for us both, but I trust thee.” Jakkin always spoke thou to his dragon. He felt it somehow brought them closer. “Trust me?”
The dragon responded with slightly rounded smokes. Deep within its eyes Jakkin thought he detected small lights.
“Dragon’s fire!” he breathed. “Thou art a fighter. I knew it!”
Jakkin slipped the ring from the red dragon’s neck and rubbed its scales underneath. They were not yet as hard as a mature fighter’s, and for a moment he worried that the older Bottle O’ Rum might tear the young dragon beyond repair. He pulled the red’s head down and whispered into its ear. “Guard thyself here,” he said, rubbing with his fingers under the tender neck links and thinking danger at it.
The dragon shook its head playfully, and Jakkin slapped it lightly on the neck. With a surge, the red dragon moved out of the stall, over to the dragonlock, and flowed up into the ring.
“It’s eager,” the whisper ran around the crowd. They always liked that in young dragons. Time enough to grow cautious in the pit. Older dragons often were reluctant and had to be prodded with jumpsticks behind the wings or in the tender underparts of the tail. The bettors considered that a great fault. Jakkin heard the crowd’s appreciation as he came up into the stands.
It would have been safer for Jakkin to remain below, guiding his red by mind. That way there would be no chance for Master Sarkkhan to find him here, though he doubted such a well-known breeder would enter a back-country pit-fight. And many trainers, Mekkle being one of them, stayed in the stalls drinking and smoking and guiding their dragons where the crowd could not influence them. But Jakkin needed to see the red as well as feel it, to watch the fight through his own eyes as well as the red’s. They had trained too long at night, alone, in the sands. He did not know how another dragon in a real fight would respond. He had to see to understand it all. And the red was used to him being close by. He did not want to change that now. Besides, unlike many of the other bonders, he had never been to a fight, only read about them in books and heard about them from his bondmates. This might be his only chance. And, he further rationalized, up in the stands he might find out more about Mekkle’s orange that would help him help the red.
Jakkin looked around the stands cautiously from the stairwell. He saw no one he knew, neither fellow bonders nor masters who had traded with Sarkkhan. He edged quietly into the stands, just one more boy at the fights. Nothing called attention to him but the empty bond bag beneath his shirt. He checked his buttons carefully to make sure they were closed. Then he leaned forward and watched as his red circled the ring.
It held its head high and measured the size of the pit, the height of the walls. It looked over the bettors as if it were counting them, and an appreciative chuckle went through the crowd. Then the red scratched in the sawdust several times, testing its depth. And still Bottle O’ Rum had not appeared.
Then with an explosion, Bottle O’ Rum came through the dragonlock and landed with all four feet planted well beneath the level of the sawdust, his claws fastened immovably to the boards.
“Good stance,” shouted someone in the crowd, and the betting began anew.
The red gave a little flutter with its wings, a flapping that might indicate nervousness, and Jakkin thought at it: “He is a naught. A stander. But thy nails and wings are fresh. Do not be afraid. Remember thy training.” At that the little red’s head went high and its neck scales glittered in the artificial sun of the pit.
“Watch that neck,” shouted a heckler. “There’s one that’ll be blooded soon.”
“Too soon,” shouted another from across the stands at him.
Bottle O’ Rum charged the inviting neck.
It was just as Jakkin hoped, for charging from the fighting stance is a clumsy man
euver at best. The claws must be retracted simultaneously, and the younger the dragon the more brittle its claws. The orange, Rum, seven fights older than the red, was not yet fully mature. As Rum charged, one of the nails on his front right claw caught in the floorboards and splintered, causing him to falter for a second. The red shifted its position slightly. Instead of blooding the red on the vulnerable neck, Rum’s charge brought him headlong onto the younger dragon’s chest plates, the hardest and slipperiest part of a fighting dragon’s armor. The screech of teeth on scale brought winces to the crowd. Only Jakkin was ready, for it was a maneuver he had taught his dragon out in the hidden sands.
“Now!” he cried out and thought at once.
The young red needed no urging. It bent its neck around in a fast, vicious slash, and blood spurted from behind the ears of Mekkle’s Rum.
“First blood!” cried the crowd.
Now the betting would change, Jakkin thought with a certain pleasure, and touched the bond bag through the thin cloth of his shirt. Ear bites bleed profusely but are not important. It would hurt the orange dragon a little, like a pinprick or a splinter does a man. It would make the dragon mad and—more important—a bit more cautious. But first blood! It looked good.
Bottle O’ Rum roared with the bite, loud and piercing. It was too high up in the throat, yet with surprising strength. Jakkin listened carefully, trying to judge. He had heard dragons roar at the nursery in mock battles or when the keepers blooded them for customers intent on hearing the timbre before buying. To him the roar sounded as if it had all its power in the top tones and none that resonated. Perhaps he was wrong, but if his red could outlast the orange, it might impress this crowd.
In his eagerness to help his dragon, Jakkin moved to the pit rail. He elbowed his way through some older men.
“Here, youngster, what do you think you’re doing?” A man in a gray leather coverall spoke. He was obviously familiar with the pits. Anyone in leather knew his way around. And his face, what could be seen behind the gray beard, was scored with dragon-blood scars.
“Get back up in the stands. Leave ringside to the money men,” said his companion, taking in Jakkin’s leather-patched cloth shirt and trousers with a dismissing look. He ostentatiously jounced a full bag that hung from his wrist on a leather thong.
Jakkin ignored them, fingering his badge with the facs picture of the red on it. He leaned over the rail. “Away, away, good Red,” he thought at his dragon, and smiled when the red immediately wheeled and winged up from its blooded foe. Only then did he turn and address the two scowling bettors. “Pit right, good sirs,” he said with deference, pointing at the same time to his badge.
They mumbled, but moved aside for him.
The orange dragon in the pit shook its head, and the blood beaded its ears like a crown. A few drops spattered over the walls and into the stands. Each place a drop touched burned with that glow peculiar to the acidic dragon’s blood. One watcher in the third row of the stands was not quick enough and was seared on the cheek. He reached up a hand to the wound but did not move from his place.
The orange Rum stood up tall again and dug back into the dust.
“Another stand,” said the gray leather man to Jakkin’s right.
“Pah, that’s all it knows,” said the dark man beside him. “That’s how it won its three fights. Good stance, but that’s it. I wonder why I bet on it at all. Let’s go and get something to smoke. This fight’s a bore.”
Jakkin watched them leave from the corner of his eye, but he absorbed their information. If the orange was a stander—if the information was true—it would help him with the fight.
The red dragon’s leap back had taken it to the north side of the pit. When it saw that Bottle O’ Rum had chosen to stand, it circled closer warily.
Jakkin thought at it, “He’s good in the stance. Do not force him there. Make him come to thee.”
The dragon’s thoughts, as always, came back clearly to Jakkin wordless but full of color and emotion. The red wanted to charge; the dragon it had blooded was waiting. The overwhelming urge was to carry the fight to the foe.
“No, my Red. Trust me. Be eager, but not foolish,” cautioned Jakkin, looking for an opening.
But the crowd, as eager as the young dragon, was communicating with it, too. The yells of the men, their thoughts of charging, overpowered Jakkin’s single line of calm. The red started to move.
When it saw the red bunching for a charge, Rum solidified his stance. His shoulders went rigid with the strain. Jakkin knew that if his red dived at that standing rock, it could quite easily break a small bone in its neck. And rarely did a dragon come back to the pit once its neckbones had been set. Then it was good only for the breeding nurseries—if it had a fine pit record—or the stews.
“Steady, steady,” Jakkin said aloud. Then he shouted and waved a hand, “No!”
The red had already started its dive, but the movement of Jakkin’s hand was a signal too powerful for it to ignore and, at the last possible minute, it pulled to one side. As it passed, Rum slashed at it with a gaping mouth and shredded its wingtip.
“Blood,” the crowd roared and waited for the red dragon to roar back.
Jakkin felt its confusion, and his head swam with the red of dragon’s blood as his dragon’s thoughts came to him. He watched as it soared to the top of the building and scorched its wingtip on the artificial sun, cauterizing the wound. Then, still hovering, it opened its mouth for its first blooded roar.
There was no sound.
“A mute!” called a man from the stands. He spit angrily to one side. “Never heard one before.”
A wit near him shouted back, “You won’t hear this one, either.”
The crowd laughed at this, and passed the quip around the stands.
But Jakkin only stared up at his red bitterly. “A mute,” he thought at it. “You are as powerless as I.”
His use of the distancing pronoun you further confused the young dragon, and it began to circle downward in a disconsolate spiral, closer and closer to the waiting Rum, its mind a maelstrom of blacks and grays.
Jakkin realized his mistake in time. “It does not matter,” he cried out in his mind. “Even with no roar, thou wilt be great.” He said it with more conviction that he really felt, but it was enough for the red. It broke out of its spiral and hovered, wings working evenly.
The maneuver, however, was so unexpected that the pit-wise Bottle O’ Rum was bewildered. He came out of his stance with a splattering of dust and fewmets, stopped, then charged again. The red avoided him easily, landing on his back and raking the orange scales with its claws. That drew no blood, but it frightened the older dragon into a hindfoot rise. Balancing on his tail, Rum towered nearly eight feet high, his front claws scoring the air, a single shot of fire streaking from his slits.
The red backwinged away from the flames and waited.
“Steady, steady,” thought Jakkin, in control again. He let his mind recall for them both the quiet sands and the cool nights when they had practiced with the wooden dragon form on charges and clawing. Then Jakkin repeated out loud, “Steady, steady.”
A hard hand on his shoulder broke through his thoughts and the sweet-strong smell of blisterweed assailed him. Jakkin turned.
“Not so steady yourself,” came a familiar voice.
Jakkin stared up at the ravaged face, pocked with blood scores and stained with tear lines.
“Likkarn,” breathed Jakkin, suddenly and terribly afraid.
Jakkin tried to turn back to the pit where his red waited. The hand on his shoulder was too firm, the fingers like claws through his shirt.
“And how did you become a dragon trainer?” the man asked.
Jakkin thought to bluff. The old stallboy was often too sunk in his smoke dreams to really listen. Bluff and run, for the wild anger that came after blister dreams never gave a smoker time to reason. “I found … found an egg, Likkarn,” he said. And it could be true. There were a few wild drago
ns, bred from escapes that had gone feral.
The man said nothing, but shook his head.
Jakkin stared at him. This was a new Likkarn, harder, full of purpose. Then Jakkin noticed. Likkarn’s eyes were clearer than he had ever seen them, no longer the furious pink of the weeder, but a softer rose. He had not smoked for several days at least. It was useless to bluff or run. “I took it from the nursery, Likkarn. I raised it in the sands. I trained it at night, by the moons.”
“That’s better. Much better. Liars are an abomination,” the man said with a bitter laugh. “And you fed it what? Goods stolen from the master, I wager. You born bonders know nothing. Nothing.”
Jakkin’s cheeks were burning now. “I am no born bonder. And I would never steal from the master’s stores. I planted in the sands last year and grew blisterweed and burnwort. I gathered the rest in the swamps. On my own time.” He added that fiercely.
“Bonders have no time of their own,” Likkarn muttered savagely. “And supplements?”
“The master says supplements are bad for a fighter. They make a fighter fast in the beginning, but they dilute the blood.” Jakkin looked into Likkarn’s eyes more boldly now. “I heard the master say that. To a buyer.”
Likkarn’s smile was wry and twisted. “And you eavesdrop as well.” He gave Jakkin’s shoulder a particularly vicious wrench.
Jakkin gasped and closed his eyes with the pain. He wanted to cry out, and thought he had, when he realized it was not his own voice he heard but a scream from the pit. He pulled away from Likkarn and stared. The scream was Bottle O’ Rum’s, a triumphant roar as he stood over the red, whose injured wing was pinioned beneath Rum’s right front claw.
“Jakkin …” came Likkarn’s voice behind him, full of warning. How often Jakkin had heard that tone right before old Likkarn had roused from a weed dream to the fury that always followed. Likkarn was old, but his fist was still solid.
