Dragon's Heart (34 page)

"Well, what I mean to say is that big dragons are hard to keep—feed and water—in the city center except at a pit. There are four small pits now. So your dragons may be off on the northeastern outskirts of town, where I wouldn't get to see them." She pointed to several circles on the map. "There, to the left, that's the warehouse district. It's set off from the city and there're plenty of fields where dragons could graze." She made a red circle around seven squares at the northwestern end of the city. "Dark and his group have already searched those warehouses quite thoroughly."

Jakkin nodded.

"And here..." Another circle, between the warehouse and the pits. "These were once a group of farms. Lots of weed and wort grow around there now. They're 'volunteer' plants that grow up without cultivation. Sometimes, I'm told, feral dragons can be found there."

"How far away to these places on foot?" he asked.

"Half an hour if you go at a good clip, closer to an hour if you stroll. Though there's at least that much time between the warehouse district and the pits. A large triangle, you see." She outlined it with her finger.

He did see. He understood he'd have to make some choices very soon.

"Was Akki wearing her gold hair band?" Jakkin asked.

Henkky looked startled. It wasn't a question she'd been expecting. "No, she was in an old blue dress of mine. And some heeled shoes."

Jakkin took a deep breath. "Then could I have it, for a kind of luck charm?"

"Oh. Of course." She went away for a few minutes, then came back holding something. "This it?"

He bit his lip, then took the gold band and wrapped it around his wrist. A piece of Akki.

"Now, be careful," Henkky said. Jakkin forced himself to listen again. "If you're late getting back, find a pub. They put people up during Dark-After." She felt in the pocket of her skirt. "Here are five coins. That should cover it."

"Likkarn already—"

She ignored him. "I'll wrap up some food and give you a sling to carry it in. And a thermos of tea."

He nodded, eager to be on his way.

Mistaking his silence as anxiety, she tried to reassure him. "We'll find her, Jakkin." It sounded rehearsed, like something she'd been repeating for days to strangers and no longer quite believed herself.

Jakkin took her right hand and spoke with great passion. "She's not dead, Dr. Henkky. I'd know it, here." He touched himself on the chest with his left hand, over his heart.

At that, Henkky burst into tears. "Please,
please
find her. It's killing Golden. He blames himself for bringing her here, for trusting the driver. He almost lost her last year when the two of you went missing. It changed him. Golden doesn't show his agony to anyone but me. Sarkkhan was his closest friend. Akki's his goddaughter. We
have
to find her or I'll lose him, too." She wiped a hand across her eyes. "The last words I spoke to her were sharp. I don't know why. I would take them back if I could. Please, Jakkin, find her."

"I will," Jakkin promised. "Oh, I will." And for that moment he believed it himself.

THE MAP was easy enough to read, and Jakkin walked briskly along The Rokk streets, casting a loud sending every block in all four directions. A simple, declarative sending, a red map and arrow showing where he was standing. "
I'm here, Akki. I'm here.
"

He didn't let himself hope too much. The Rokk was a big place. The larger houses within the center must have already been searched. Akki might have been moved somewhere else in the last two days.
Or buried.
His hands and shoulder still felt the heaviness of Errikkin's coffin, aching with the memory.

No, I can't think like that.

He passed a group of men and women—obviously searchers with food sacks on their backs. They were just knocking on the door of a sand-brick house. He could tell they were nursery folk, for they were in bonder leathers and sandals, but he didn't recognize any of them. He nodded at them and they returned his greeting.

"Sarkkhan's," he called out, flat of his hand to his chest.

"Master Drakkan's," replied one man, about forty years old, hair the color of smoking burnwort. He made a circle with his forefinger, pointing to the three men and one woman with him, then his hand went to his own chest.

"Anything yet?"

The man shook his head. "Nothing. We've done this whole area once and are back again, in case we've missed something." He came over and shook out a map that was just like the one Jakkin had. As he pointed out where they'd already searched, the door to the sand-brick house opened slowly and the group walked in. The redhead shrugged, then, folding his map, ran back to join them.

Jakkin took a moment to send to Akki again, listening carefully to the silence. He brought the gold hair band to his lips. Then he opened his own map, tracing with his finger where he was, how far he'd come. He was about halfway between the warehouse district and the small dragon pits now. Checking the sky, he saw that he still had a few hours till dark, and then another few till Dark-After.

According to Henkky, the man called Dark and his searchers had already been all over the warehouse area. Still, it looked to be a perfect place for stashing a victim. He should have asked Henkky more about that search. He should have asked the man from Drakkan's. He should have waited to talk to Dark. If they had already been over the warehouses, maybe he shouldn't waste his time there.

However, he reasoned, if he went directly to the pits, he might be able to find out where his dragons were, even if he didn't find them there. Trainers were great gossips. Once he found the brood, he could use them as his eyes and ears. Together, they could find Akki.

He had to make a decision now; Akki's life could depend upon it. For a long moment he couldn't move, trying to decide. He thought about taking out one of the coins and flipping it. Heads, he'd go to the pits; tails, he'd head to the warehouses. Anything to keep from having to make the decision himself. He was so afraid of being wrong.

But he'd already decided. He'd go to the pits. If the owners and trainers couldn't tell him anything, surely the dragons could. And with a dragon or two by his side, he'd be ready to face down the kidnapper, gun or no gun.

So, he'd head toward the pits. That would give him two advantages—the dragons, and Dark-After. With those advantages, he could then tackle the warehouse district and the rest of The Rokk if needed.

***

JAKKIN ALTERNATELY trotted and fast-walked the rest of the way, always sending to Akki at each new block.
Just in case,
he reminded himself,
just in case.
He only stopped once, for a quick sip from the thermos of tea.

It was a straight shot to the first of the pits. He saw that it was smaller even than the Krakkow minor pit, though it looked like a miniature of the lost Rokk Major, being a round two-story building, with stalls underground, or so he supposed. There was a light illuminating the central bubble of the fighting pit, but even as he watched, that light went out. They were already shutting things down for Dark-After. Trainers and dragons alike would get a long sleep and rise early.

He began to hear a massive twittering in his head. All the dragons were sending back and forth, as oblivious to the humans' thoughts as the humans were to theirs. Most of the trainers would sleep next to their worms, for warmth as well as for safety, without knowing or caring that the worms could talk back and forth without making a sound.

For the first time, Jakkin wondered if giving everybody the ability to speak to dragons was actually a good idea, after all. Everyone on Austar could be a trainer, then. No one could earn his way to becoming a dragon master. And they'd
never
shut up!

Then he shook his head, laughing at himself. It still would take skill and care to teach a dragon to fight well in a pit, and the dragons could become true equal partners, even choosing their own trainers.
Of course, there will always be dragons like Sssargon—self-involved, oblivious. And sweet nonfighters like Sssasha. And dragons like the triplets, who—well, who knows what they really think or feel.

He reminded himself that a Heart's Blood came along maybe once in a lifetime. Not everyone could have handled her. He'd been a good trainer, the right one for her, but without her spirit and love, he knew he would never have had such great success in the pit.

The twitterings grew louder. Fearing he would miss the brood's call when it came, he sent a huge black storm to the dragons, blanketing them with dark, driving rain for the moment. As the storm subsided and the dragons began to send again, he listened carefully for any voices he recognized. But these dragons were all strangers.

The second and third pits were the same: already darkened and shutting down for the night. He'd have to make a show of staying over at the fourth pit, then try to sneak away during Dark-After. He'd go out an unwatched door or window. That way he'd have the streets of The Rokk to himself and maybe—just maybe—he'd be able to rouse Akki.

***

HE REACHED the fourth and smallest pit just as the moons began their chase across the sky. He couldn't imagine the pit housing more than a dozen dragons. In fact, all four pits together were only half the size Rokk Major had been. Because of the embargo, and no more rocketship bettors visiting the planet, there was no need for a huge pit. At least, not right now.

Suddenly a familiar sending threaded into his brain, like a theme, a phrase. A rainbow of reds. Just as suddenly, he realized he couldn't be sure who it was. He'd need to check on each dragon in their stalls. But at least it was a lead, the first one he'd had so far.

Ducking through a small, unlocked door—obviously for trainers, not dragons—he found himself in the lower part of the pit, filled with a line of wooden stalls, the rest of the building rising high above him into a whitewashed dome.

With great and sudden force, the musky smell of dragons and the hundreds of bundles of wort hit him, wrapping around him like an old and comfortable blanket. He could hear the sound of at least a dozen dragons chewing mindlessly, and the casual talk of the trainers trading tips on how to back a winner or gossiping about dragons and trainers from other pits.

It was all so familiar, he almost forgot why he was there.
Almost.

"
Sssargon?
" he sent, with a tentative landscape, the oasis in blues and tans. "
Sssasha?
"

"
Hmmmmm
." It was only a contented thrum, but definitely one of them. The return sending added the wort patch to the side of the pool.

"
Akki is in danger
." The sending was an outline of Akki, bright red, laced with blood.

The word
danger
must have leaked, because all at once, dragons throughout the area stood, their heads suddenly rising above the open stalling. They began to stomp and hough through their noses, some even trailing smoke and alarming their trainers, who obviously thought they'd gotten the worms all settled for the night.

Jakkin could sense something else, not sendings exactly, but as if a couple of bright lights that had been illuminated were now sputtering, dimming. It took him a moment to realize that he was hearing a few of the trainers. Possibly they'd gotten the gift from old blood scores or their close association with dragons. Or maybe, like Likkarn, they'd had their hands in a hen's egg chamber, helping in a difficult birth. And then he remembered the stewmen as they executed the culled dragons and old fighters past their prime, and how the men had linked with the dying dragons.
Maybe,
he thought,
maybe only some Austarians will ever be able to link with the dragons, whatever we do. Like some people have red hair or long bones or the ability to sing or
... But here his imagination failed him.

He thought, agonizingly,
Akki would know.

A quick lightning strike of a sending burst into his brain, then was gone, back to a low hum again. This time he knew who it was.

"
Where are you, Sssargon?
" As Jakkin walked by the stalls, he kept sending, trying to pierce Sssargon's food-daze. He'd gotten past the first half dozen stalls and still hadn't found the big worm. Soon it would be too dark to see anything in the underground area.

"
Sssargon here
," the dragon sent. "
Sssargon eatsss. Sssargon getsss Akki
." That wonderfully familiar self-satisfied voice.

"Keep sending," Jakkin whispered, honing in on Sssargon's babble despite the competition from the other dragons for room in his head.

"
Sssargon standsss. Sssargon...
"

The corridor took a turn downward and Jakkin followed it around to a new tier of stalls, down in a subbasement. One dragon's head was above the wooden wall, not quite standing yet. Sssargon never did things precipitously. He was just lumbering to his feet, like a growing mountain, and commenting on everything he did.

"
Sssargon risesss. Sssargon liftsss head. Sssargon...
"

"Got you!" Jakkin said aloud.

A trainer was standing alongside Sssargon's stall, trying to convince him to settle down. He was a dark man, with as much hair on his arms as on his head, and a dark mustache, as well. His face was scarred with blood scores. Flexing his arms—which made the muscles look as big and menacing as a trog's—the man jutted out his jaw at Jakkin. "Got who?" he asked.

Jakkin probed his mind but it was empty. Not a stray thought in it.
So, not everyone who has blood scores or works with dragons can hear them.

"Got who?" repeated the hairy trainer. He took a step toward Jakkin, his manner menacing.

Jakkin refused to back away. After all, hadn't he just killed four trogs with a stick, a stinger, a hammer, and a knife?

The trainer took another step forward.

"You've got
my
dragon," Jakkin said, pointing to Sssargon, who looked at them both lazily.

"Are you calling me a thief, a dragon whacker? Are you? Are you?" The trainer strode over to the stall door, effectively blocking Jakkin from coming in.