Dragon's Heart (19 page)

"Yes, Akki," Jakkin crooned to them, caressing their heads, the scales cool under his probing fingers.

The dragons all knew, as he did, that they had but four hours of Dark-After to make a good start without the interruptions of men. Four hours before the nursery folk realized that Jakkin—like Akki—was gone. Four hours till they began to wonder how and where Jakkin was going, till Likkarn figured it out, sent someone after him.

It was suddenly, brilliantly clear that Likkarn wanted Jakkin and Akki separated. He didn't know why Likkarn felt this way—but he knew
absolutely
it was so.

The five dragons leaped into the air, their wings fanning whirlwinds in the sand, deviling winds that erased some of Jakkin's tracks.

"
Good, good,
" he sang to them.

"
Sssargon goesss, Sssargon sailsss, Sssargon soarsss
," came the big dragon's voice in Jakkin's head, as if Sssargon were the only one in flight.
Typical!

The other dragons said nothing, sent nothing, but Jakkin could hear the flapping of their heavy wings while they searched for a current. Then one by one they each found a road in the sky where they could finally soar silently above the dunes.

Hunching his shoulders, he began to walk. Not back toward the nursery, not toward the road, but across the great sweeping dunes, heading first north and then east. To the city. To The Rokk, some 300 kilometers away. Above him the twin moons showed the way, chasing one another across the night sky.

"
Be my eyes and ears,
" he told the five dragons, and one by one they called out their assent in colorful sendings.

Sssargon circled back, his wings stirring up even more cold. Jakkin could feel it like a wind against his ears, his neck, his spine, but it was not so cold that he had to find shelter.

Four hours.
That would give him a good start on Akki's trail. He needed to get away from the oasis, from the nursery. Then he could catch a truck somewhere along the road once Dark-After was done and the sun shone down full force.

Jakkin watched as the five dragons spread out against the deep blue, looking like moving mountains.

"Thou beauties!" he called, his sending a conflagration of fireworks: sparks of red, blue, and blinding white. As his sending blasted toward them, Jakkin wished as never before that he, too, could fly. Wished he could sit on Sssargon's back, wrap his legs around that mighty body, and soar. But anyone who tried any such foolishness would have the inside of his thighs slashed to ribbons by the dragon's sharp scales, scales that moved whenever the dragon moved, sliding across one another in sharp precision. Besides, any dragon, its flight muscles cramped by a rider, would likely tumble down into the pitiless sand.

"I fly with the wings of my mind!" he cried aloud. "My brother, my sisters, I am with you." Even to himself he sounded crazed. But he wasn't mad. He was determined ... determined to find Akki, talk sense into her, and bring her home.

This time the five dragons answered him with comforting sendings: clouds and streams and—from Sssasha—a small sunburst. Then they banked and were gone from sight, winging away toward the horizon.

It was time to put his head down and simply trudge along the sand. Jakkin counted on the dragons to warn him of any problems ahead or behind, but he would need to keep his own ears sharp as well.

There was little on Austar that could hurt a human at night besides the cold. Drakks never attacked men, unless the men were climbing trees or poking at their nests. Most feral dragons would be asleep at this time, or so he hoped. Dragons were mostly creatures of the daylight, not nocturnal, not like drakks. And ferals attacked only when provoked. He understood that now. His father had died trying to train a feral in the sands. The feral had not been amused. An angry feral, an unarmed man ... Jakkin shook his head. What
had
his father been thinking? Why not just live at a nursery and work with the dragons there?

Stopping for a moment, Jakkin realized that all he could hear was the hearty growling voice of Sssargon in his head. "
Sssargon sailsss. Sssargon looksss. Sssargon staysss awake.
"

"Thank you, Sssargon," he called back, knowing that the dragon would take such thanks as his rightful due. He even sent a spray of fireworks. Sssargon liked fireworks, the louder and brighter, the better.

Of course all five of the dragons would stay awake this night, the other four needing neither his thanks nor his permission. But he sent them each a lovely picture of a boy in the dark, surrounded by his own red aura, the exact color of their mother, Heart's Blood. They would understand and be pleased that he took the time to send it.

He himself wouldn't sleep until the early dawn, and then only for about an hour. Walking would keep him warm enough in the cold of Dark-After. He sang one of the old nursery marching tunes, to keep himself awake and moving.

Wings abeating, cold arising,
Time is fleeting, dark disguising,
Onward flying on the course,
Death-defying dragon-saurs.

Wings aflapping, moons are setting,
No more napping, time forgetting,
Set for landing with great force
Together banding dragon-saurs.

Wing-to-wing with scale and feather,
Fire-breathing, all together
Heading toward the common source,
Sun and moon and dragon-saurs.

And it worked. For a while.

NOW JAKKIN could feel a slightly warmer river of wind across his back. It was time for a quick nap. He found a tree—not tall and spindly like the spikkas, but something less grand. He didn't know what it was called. It had an outline that reminded him of Kkarina, being as round as it was tall. The leaves each had four broad fingers, fanned out like an open hand. There was a hollow in the dark trunk, and he curled into it to sleep.

While he slept, the brood landed on the sand near him and crept close. The triplets fell asleep instantly, wrapped around one another like scaly spoons. Sssargon slept standing, on watch. But Sssasha moved as near to Jakkin's tree as she could, slipping under the lowest branches and creating a radiating warmth with her body, a warmth that covered him like a blanket. He wasn't awake enough to realize why he was warm, but he smiled in his sleep.

When the sun climbed above the horizon, Sssargon shook himself all over and sent a message to his siblings and Jakkin. "
Sssargon wakesss. Sssargon readiesss. Sssargon
fliesss
." Pumping his mighty wings, which caused the sand to eddy all around him, he leaped into the air.

The triplets woke at his sending, but slowly, twittering to one another.

Stepping back from the tree with a lightness that was extraordinary given her bulk, Sssasha bent her great neck to check what was behind her. Satisfied, she stepped back, then nudged the sleeping boy before blasting him with a cascade of yellow bubbles.

"
Come,
" she sent. "
Come.
"

Jakkin woke with a start, popped the bubbles. Sat up. Hit his head on the inside of the tree's hollow, and cried out, "Fewmets! Fewmets! Fewmets!" His sending was large, dark, and stinking, just like fewmets. He'd been dreaming about a cave and a sending, a dark vine, a pillar of light. And dreaming about something else.

"Fewmets!" he said again, remembering.

Sssasha and the triplets laughed.

Rubbing his head ruefully, Jakkin emerged from his sleeping quarters. "
Couldn't one of you have reminded me I was in a tree?
" He looked up at the sky, saying aloud, "How long did I sleep? Is it late?"

Sssasha sent him a dark horizon line with a red sun hovering a tiny space above.

Standing, Jakkin looked around. It was barely day. His eyes were full of grit, his mouth felt as if he'd been eating dirty sandals, his head ached as much from the awful dream as from the bang on his temple. "But at least I haven't overslept." He laughed a bit ruefully, the chuckle turning into dancing dust motes that he sent to the dragons, who chuckled in return, though they were laughing because he was laughing, not because they understood the joke.

Humor is tough enough among humans and almost impossible across species,
he thought.

He checked where the sun was rising, over the long low outline of the dunes with rolling hills beyond. It would be another hour yet before full daylight. He turned and pointed toward the northwest.

That way.
It was not as flat as the sand to the east. In fact, farther along there were hills, rolling and stubbled with a kind of green fuzz, like a short bad haircut. And behind the fuzzy hills, the winding Narrakka River, contained within vertical cliffs. And then—the mountains.

Mountains!
Brooding shadows that reminded him of drakk hunched in the nest, ready to kill anything that came near. Jakkin shivered thinking of the mountains and the foothills honeycombed with caves where the wild trogs lived, where danger waited at every turning. But even while he shivered, another part of him ached with longing for the places where he and Akki had lived together happily, peacefully, for a year.

Sssargon sent a loud, blood-red waterfall that washed over them both. "
No mountainsss! No!
"

"Of course not," Jakkin said, all the while smoothing the red waterfall away until it was a cool blue and white. "We have no need to go back into the mountains."

And they didn't. All they needed to do was to find a truck barreling along the road, a road that should be just past the sands and right before the rise of the cliffs that contained the river. Then Jakkin could ride to The Rokk and the dragons could follow the snaking road from above. "
Find me a truck, my beauties. Fly up. Fair wind.
"

Obeying him, Sssasha pumped her wings and rose, slowly, stately, till she was even with her brother. The triplets fairly leaped into the air, almost crashing against one another, their twittering voices cascading through Jakkin's mind.

Once again Jakkin wished that he, too, could fly. But it was feet not wings for him. Another few miles and they should be at a crossroads. That's where he'd have his best chance of finding a ride.

As Jakkin suspected, the road lay ahead with the hills on one side, the flat desert on the other. The flying dragons kept sending him colorful maps that frequently overlapped and were often contradictory. So Jakkin climbed a hillock, then hunkered down to gaze at the snaking gray road far below.

"We can wait here until a truck comes," he said aloud, sending a picture of a boy on a hilltop, resting. "
Wake me for the truck
." Then he curled beside a gray-green bush that had small spikes of new growth, and began to drift off.

The world was quiet around him. No sound on the road yet. The birds strangely still. Sleep came quickly, grabbed him by the neck and wouldn't let him go.

***

HE DREAMED of flying over the hills, over the mountains, touching down before a cave. A cave he recognized, with a knot of intertwining branches of caught-ums making a screen over the entrance. He put his hand out carefully, to open the door and—

The dragons intruded loudly, sending black bomb blasts, yellow and orange fire shooting into his brain. He heard Sssargon shouting: "
Wake! Wake! Wake!
" There was smoke, coughing, anger.

Fear.

Jakkin woke, to find himself bound like an animal, his arms tied to a stick behind him, almost yanking his shoulders out of their sockets. He was pulled roughly to his feet. His head ached where something must have struck him.

"Who?" he said aloud. But he already knew.

Above, the dragons screamed, but they didn't dare flash fire down at his captors. They might burn Jakkin by mistake.

"
Watch,
" Jakkin sent to them. "
Warn
..."

He was suddenly clipped on the back of his head, and at the same time, a brutal sending—black and hard as iron—filled his mind. Then everything went dark. Not sleep. Just blackness.

When Jakkin woke again, the dark was everywhere, not the blackness of night with the twin moons lighting the way, but a darkness unrelieved by any light in the sky. He remembered this darkness, but couldn't imagine why he was in it again. Nothing made sense. Besides, his skull ached, his teeth seemed to be loose and clattering together, and his knees hurt from kneeling on a stone floor.

I'm in a cave.
He tried to move, but his arms were still bound behind him.
How did I get into a cave?
But of course he knew.

He sent out a tentative tentacle of color and it was immediately severed, replaced by a crackling that blocked out almost everything else in his mind.

Trogs!
But how they had found him and where they had taken him were beyond his ability to understand. His fingers were pins and needles. His arms felt yanked from their sockets. The crackling in his brain, added to the pain of the blow, made his head hurt so horribly, he began to cry. It was a silent crying, just tears crawling down his cheeks. Then he took a deep breath.

Someone swatted him. "
Do not
krriah
like a youngling!
" The words came into his head; they weren't spoken aloud. Oddly, it was the very first thing a trog had said to him before. In the cave.

His tears stopped at once and he thought angrily at his captor, "
You folk aren't much on conversation.
"

That earned him another swat, and more crackling, but he was glad of it. Anger would serve him much better than self-pity or fear.

"
Fewmet head!
" he sent, along with an image of a great pile of stinking worm waste. That got him another blow.

He smiled. Even if they couldn't see it, they would sense it. Sense it and know that he wasn't going to be cowed by them again. No more tears, no matter how much he hurt.

First,
he told himself, guarding that thought behind a quickly constructed wall of thought bricks,
I have to figure, out how many trogs there are.