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only hope-hope that Sarkkhan would win and leave, or lose and leave. He did
not know what he would do if the Master recognized the red.
Suddenly he laughed out loud. How could Master Sarkkhan rec ognize the red? He
had never seen it.
 Thou art mine, he whispered fiercely at the dragon.  I took thee and I
raised thee and I trained thee.
He attacked the dragon s scales with the cloth as if they were an enemy to be
rubbed out.  And thy
name is Jakkin s Red.
The dragon was too busy munching on the wort to reply.
Then the noises overhead changed. Jakkin could hear cheers and an occasional
raucous call. He could not distinguish the words, but the intentions were
clear. And above it all were the loud thumps and screeches and roars of the
dragons as they battled for supremacy in the pit.
A pattern developed, and Jakkin, still cleaning his own dragon, heard it and
made it a part of his own respiration. In the reactions of the crowd he could
hear attack and counterattack, feint and thrust. He could translate the dragon
screams into passes and charges, the thuds into wing-leaps and an occasional
hindfoot rise. But he was unprepared for the sudden stillness at the fight s
end, and when it came, he held his breath.
Then, floating into the silence, violating the peace, the mechanical voice
called out:  Game to Heavy
Heart.
Sarkkhan s worm had won the first draw. Jakkin did not know whether that was
good or bad. He bent down over the red s claws and polished the lanceae of the
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right front foot with special care. He did not even notice when Sarkkhan s
winner flowed through the dragonlock and went back into its stall.
chapter 36
JAKKIN LOST COUNT after the sixth fight, but he could hear, overhead, the pit
cleaners circling noisily, gobbling up old fewmets with their iron mouths.
They spit out fresh sawdust and moved on. It generally took several minutes
between fights, and the mechanical clanking of the cleaners was matched by the
roars of the pit-wise dragons and the last-minute betting calls of their
masters.
Jakkin s fingers betrayed his nervousness. He simply could not keep them
still. They picked off bits of dust and flicked at specks on the dragon s
already gleaming scales. They polished and smoothed and polished again.
For the moment the red dragon seemed impervious to first-fight jitters and
arched up under Jakkin s hands.
The cleaners clanked out of the ring through the mecho holes and Jakkin looked
up. He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to swallow; then he touched
the dimple on his cheek. Finally his hand found the bond bag and kneaded it
several times for luck.
 Soon now, he promised the dragon in a hoarse whisper, his hand still on the
bag.  Soon. We will show them a first fight they will remember.
The only sounds came from the dragon s jaws as it munched on the remaining
stalks in its bin.
The disembodied voice announced the next fight.  Jakkin s Red, Mekkle s Bottle
O Rum.
Jakkin winced. He had overheard a little about Bottle O Rum that morning when
he had gone out once to find more wort leaves. (Bumwort stoked a dragon s
internal fires and made its flame hotter in a fight.)
The dragon masters and trainers did not chatter while they groomed their
fighters, but the bettors did, and
Jakkin had chanced upon a knot of them by a stall. There were three in the
fancy coveralls that the
Austarian free men at the pits affected, and one offworlder, the first Jakkin
had ever seen. He was wearing a sky blue suit covered with gold braid. Jakkin
had known him for a rocket jockey at once because of the planet name and
number enblazoned on his pocket.
The bettors had said, among other things, that Mekkle s Bottle O Rum was a
light-colored orange 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 in the minor pits. Jakkin had stored that bit of
information away in his head, along with a lot else.
And now, Jakkin thought miserably, he could use what he knew. Bottle O Rum was
a hard draw for a new dragon, and possibly disastrous for a would-be dragon
master. If Mekkle could afford to run his dragon for four losing fights, until
it was pit-wise and old enough and strong enough to win, then he must own a
nursery. Jakkin, with a bag now almost empty of even its grave coin, had no
such option.
Jakkin knew his red would be good in time, even great, given the luck of the
draw. It had all the things a fighter was supposed to have: It listened well,
it had heart, it did all that was asked of it.  And more, he whispered.  And
more.
But the red was not a particularly large dragon and this was its first fight.
Not only that, but it was unused to the company of other dragons. It was
starting to get really nervous, rolling its eyes, houghing at loud noises. It
had even begun to hackle when he had first brought it into the stall, though
he had been able to calm it quickly. It had never been in a ring, not even in
a corral or training ring behind a barn. What chance would it have fighting a
pit-wise three-time winner? The red had never been blooded or given roar. He
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had been crazy to think they had a chance.
Already, Jakkin supposed, the betting would be running way against the young
red. He thought he could hear the murmur of new bets following the
announcement of the fight. The odds would be so awful, he might never get a
sponsor for a second match, even if the red showed well in the pit. First
fights were free, Akki had told him. But seconds cost gold. And if he had no
sponsor and no gold, 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 over it to
conceal it. He did not know yet what it felt like to be free. He had had a
year of pretending in the oasis, a year of short nights and an occasional
Bond-Off away from bonders gossip and Likkam s hard hand. But he could still
endure years more as a bond boy if he had to. Balakk and Jo-Janekk had stood
it well. And there would be other chances for him to steal an egg, other
years. Or he could apprentice under Likkam as a trainer, swallowing his pride
and bowing and smiling like Errikkin to buy favors from the old man.
He could stand it-if he had to. But how could he give up the red to the stews?
It was not any old dragon-an enraged stud like Brother or a young cull. It was
his beauty, his red. They had already shared a year together, nights and a few
precious days out in the sands. He knew its mind better than his own: a deep,
glowing cavern of colors and sights and sounds.
He remembered the first time he had really felt his way into it, not just been
assaulted by the jets and passionate lightnings it chose to send him.
He had been lying on his side, slightly winded from running. The red lay down
beside him, a small mountain in the sand. Closing his eyes, Jakkin had tried
to reach out for the red, and suddenly he felt it open to him and it was as if
he were walking down a glowing path into a cavern where colors dripped like [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]