A Sending of Dragons

The Hatchlings

1

NIGHT WAS APPROACHING. The umber moon led its pale, shadowy brother across the multicolored sky. In front of the moons flew five dragons.

The first was the largest, its great wings dipping and rising in an alien semaphore. Directly behind it were three smaller fliers, wheeling and circling, tagging one another’s tails. In the rear, along a lower trajectory, sailed a middle-sized and plumper version of the front dragon. More like a broom than a rudder, its tail seemed to sweep across the faces of the moons.

Jakkin watched them, his right hand shading his eyes. Squatting on his haunches in front of a mountain cave, he was nearly naked except for a pair of white pants cut off at midthigh, a concession to modesty rather than a help against the oncoming cold night. He was burned brown everywhere but for three small pits on his back, which remained white despite their long exposure to the sun. Slowly Jakkin stood, running grimy fingers through his shoulder-length hair, and shouted up at the hatchlings.

Fine flying, my friends! The sound of his voice caromed off the mountains, but the dragons gave no sign they heard him. So he sent the same message with his mind in the rainbow-colored patterns with which he and the dragons communicated. Fine flying. The picture he sent was of gray-green wings with air rushing through the leathery feathers, tickling each link. Fine flying. He was sure his sending could reach them, but none of the dragons responded.

Jakkin stood for a moment longer watching the flight. He took pleasure in the hatchlings’ airborne majesty. Even though they were still awkward on the ground, a sure sign of their youth, against the sky they were already an awesome sight.

Jakkin took pleasure as well in the colors surrounding the dragons. Though he’d lived months now in the Austarian wilds, he hadn’t tired of the evening’s purples and reds, roses and blues, the ever changing display that signaled the approaching night. Before he’d been changed, as he called it, he’d hardly seen the colors. Evenings had been a time of darkening and the threat of Dark-After, the bone-chilling, killing cold. Every Austarian knew better than to be caught outside in it. But now both Dark-After and dawn were his, thanks to the change.

Ours! The message invaded his mind in a ribbon of laughter. "Dark-After and dawn are ours now." The sending came a minute before its sender appeared around a bend in the mountain path.

Jakkin waited patiently. He knew Akki would be close behind, for the sending had been strong and Akki couldn’t broadcast over a long range.

She came around the bend with cheeks rosy from running. Her dark braid was tied back with a fresh-plaited vine. Jakkin preferred it when she let her hair loose, like a black curtain around her face, but he’d never been able to tell her so. She carried a reed basket full of food for their dinner. Speaking aloud in a tumble of words, she ran toward him. "Jakkin, I’ve found a whole new meadow and..

He went up the path to meet her and dipped his hand into the basket. Before she could pull it away, he’d snagged a single pink chikkberry. Then she grabbed the basket, putting it safely behind her.

All right, worm waste, what have you been doing while I found our dinner? Her voice was stem, but she couldn’t hide the undercurrent of thought, which was sunny, golden, laughing.

I’ve been working, too, he said, careful to speak out loud. Akki still preferred speech to sendings when they were face-to-face. She said speech had a precision to it that the sendings lacked, that it was clearer for everything but emotions. She was quite fierce about it. It was an argument Jakkin didn’t want to venture into again. I’ve some interesting things—

Before he could finish, five small stream-like sendings teased into his head, a confusion of colored images, half-visualized.

Jakkin . . . the sky . . . see the moons . . . wind and wings, ah . . . see, see . . .

Jakkin spun away from Akki and cried out to the dragons, a wild, high yodeling that bounced off the mountains. With it he sent another kind of call, a web of fine traceries with the names of the hatchlings woven within: Sssargon, Sssasha, and the triplets Tri-sss, Tri-ssskkette, and Tri-sssha.

Fewmets! Akki complained. That’s too loud. Here I am, standing right next to you, and you’ve fried me. She set the basket down on an outjut of rock and rubbed her temples vigorously.

Jakkin knew she meant the mind sending had been too loud and had left her with a head full of brilliant hot lights. He’d had weeks of similar headaches when Akki first began sending, until they’d both learned to adjust. Sorry, he whispered, taking a turn at rubbing her head over the ears, where the hot ache lingered. Sometimes I forget. It takes so much more to make a dragon complain and their brains never get fried.

Brains? What brains? Everyone knows dragons haven’t any brains. Just muscle and bone and . . .

. . . and claws and teeth, Jakkin finished for her, then broke into the chorus of the pit song she’d referred to:

Muscle and bone

And claws and teeth,

Fire above and

Fewmets beneath.

Akki laughed, just as he’d hoped, for laughter usually bled away the pain of a close sending. She came over and hugged him, and just as her arms went around, the true Austarian darkness closed in.

You’ve got some power, Jakkin said. One hug—and the lights go out!

Wait until you see what I do at dawn, she replied, giving a mock shiver.

To other humans the Austarian night was black and pitiless and the false dawn, Dark-After, mortally cold. Even an hour outside during that time of bone chill meant certain death. But Jakkin and Akki were different now, different from all their friends at the dragon nursery, different from the trainers and bond boys at the pits, different from the men who slaughtered dragons in the stews or the girls who filled their bond bags with money made in the baggeries. They were different from anyone in the history of Austar IV because they had been changed. Jakkin’s thoughts turned as dark as the oncoming night, remembering just how they’d been changed. Chased into the mountains by wardens for the bombing of Rokk Major, which they had not really committed, they’d watched helplessly as Jakkin’s great red dragon, Heart’s Blood, had taken shots meant for them, dying as she tried to protect them. And then, left by the wardens to the oncoming cold, they had sheltered in Heart’s Blood’s body, in the very chamber where she’d recently carried eggs, and had emerged, somehow able to stand the cold and share their thoughts. He shut the memory down. Even months later it was too painful. Pulling himself away from the past, he realized he was still in the circle of Akki’s arms. Her face showed deep concern, and he realized she’d been listening in on his thoughts. But when she spoke it was on a different subject altogether, and for that he was profoundly grateful.

Come see what I found today, she said quietly, pulling him over to the basket. Not just berries, but a new kind of mushroom. They were near a tiny cave on the south face of the Crag. Akki insisted on naming things because—she said—that made them more real. Mountains, meadows, vegetations, caves—they all bore her imprint. We can test them out, first uncooked and later in with some boil soup. I nibbled a bit about an hour ago and haven’t had any bad effects, so they’re safe. You’ll like these, Jakkin. They may look like cave apples, but I found them under a small tree. I call them meadow apples.

Jakkin made a face. He wasn’t fond of mushrooms, and cave apples were the worst.

They’re sweeter than you think.

Anything, Jakkin thought, would be sweeter than the round, reddish cave apples with their musty, dusty taste, but he worried about Akki nibbling on unknown mushrooms. What if they were poisonous and she was all alone on the mountainside?

Both thoughts communicated immediately to Akki and she swatted him playfully on the chest. Cave apples are good for you, Jakkin. High in protein. I learned that from Dr. Henkky when I studied with her in the Rokk. Besides, if I didn’t test these out, we might miss something good. Don’t be such a worrier. I checked with Sssasha first and she said dragons love them.

Dragons love burnwort, too, muttered Jakkin. "But I’d sure hate to try and eat it, even if it could help me breathe fire."

Listen, Jakkin Stewart, it’s either mushrooms—or back to eating dragon stew. We have to have protein to live. Her eyes narrowed.

Jakkin shrugged as if to say he didn’t care, but his thoughts broadcast his true feelings to her. They both knew they’d never eat meat again. Now that they could talk mind-to-mind with Heart’s Blood’s hatchlings and even pass shadowy thoughts with some of the lesser creatures like lizards and rock-runners, eating meat was unthinkable.

If meadow apples are better than cave apples, Jakkin said aloud, I’m sure I’ll love them. Besides, I’m starving!

You and the dragons, Akki said. That’s all they ever think about, too. Food, food, food. But the question is—do you deserve my hard-found food?

I’ve been working, too, Jakkin said. I’m trying to make some better bowls to put your hard-found food in. I discovered a new clay bank down the cliff and across Lower Meadows. You know . . .

Akki did know, because he never went near Upper Meadows, where Heart’s Blood’s bones still lay, picked clean by the mountain scavengers. He went down toward the Lower Meadows and she scouted farther up. He could read her thoughts as clearly as she could read his.

He continued out loud, . . . there’s a kind of swamp there, the start of a small river, pooling down from the mountain streams. The mountain is covered with them. But I’d never seen this particular one before because it’s hard to get to. This clay is the best I’ve found so far and I managed a whole sling of it. Maybe in a night or two we can build a fire and try to bake the pots I’ve made.

They both knew bake fires could be set only at night, later than any humans would be out. Just in case. Only at night did they feel totally safe from the people who had chased them into the mountains: the murderous wardens who had followed them from the bombed-out pit to the dragon nursery and from there up into the mountains, and the even more murderous rebels who, in the name of freedom, had fooled them into destroying the great Rokk Major Dragon Pit. All those people thought them dead, from hunger or cold or from being crushed when Heart’s Blood fell. It was best they continue to believe it. So the first rule of mountain life, Jakkin and Akki had agreed, was Take no chances.

Never mind that, Jakkin, Akki said. Don’t think about it. The past is the past. Let it go. Let’s enjoy what we have now. Show me your new pots, and then we can eat.

They walked into the cave, one of three they’d claimed as their own. Though Jakkin still thought of them as numbers—one, two, and three—Akki had named them. The cave in the Lower Meadows was Golden’s Cave, named after their friend who had fled with them and had most certainly died at the wardens’ hands. Golden’s Cave had caches of berries for flavoring and for drinks. Akki had strung dried flowers on vines that made a rustly curtain between the main cave and the smaller sleeping quarters, which they kept private from the dragons. Higher on the mountain, but not as high as the Upper Meadows, was Likkarn’s Lookout. It was as rough and uncompromising a place as the man it was named after, Jakkin’s old trainer and enemy Likkarn. But Likkarn had proved a surprising ally in the end, and so had the lookout cave, serving them several times in the early days of their exile when they’d spotted bands of searchers down in the valley. But the middle cave, which Akki called the New Nursery, was the one they really considered their home.

What had first drawn them to it had been its size. It had a great hollow vaulted room with a succession of smaller caves behind. There were wonderful ledges at different levels along the walls on which Jakkin’s unfired clay bowls and canisters sat. Ungainly and thick the clay pots certainly were, but Jakkin’s skills were improving with each try, and the bowls, if not pretty, were functional, holding stashes of chikkberries, dried mushrooms like the cave apples Jakkin so disliked, and edible grasses. So far his own favorite bit of work was a large-bellied jar containing boil. It was the one piece he had successfully fired and it was hard and did not leak.

The floor of the cave was covered with dried grasses that lent a sharp sweet odor to the air. There was a mattress of the same grass, which they changed every few days. The bed lay in one of the small inner chambers where, beneath a natural chimney, they could look up at night and see the stars.

There! Jakkin said, pointing to the shelf that held his latest, still damp work. This clay was a lot easier to work.

There were five new pots, one large bowl, and two slightly lopsided drinking cups.

What do you think?

"Oh, Jakkin, they’re the best yet. When they’re dry we must try them in the fire. What do you think?"

I think . . . And then he laughed, shaping a picture of an enormous cave apple in his mind. The mushroom had an enormous bitesized chunk out of it.

Akki laughed. "If you are hungry enough to think about eating that," she said, we’d better start the dinner right away!

"We come. Have hunger, too." The sendings from the three smallest dragons broke into Jakkin’s head. Their signature colors were shades of pink and rose.

"We wait. We ride your shoulder. Our eyes are yours." That came from the largest two of Heart’s Blood’s hatchlings. They were already able to travel miles with neither hunger nor fatigue, and their sendings had matured to a deeper red. Sssargon and Sssasha, the names they had given themselves with the characteristic dragon hiss at the beginning, spent most of the daylight hours catching currents of air that carried them over the jagged mountain peaks. They were, as they called themselves, Jakkin’s and Akki’s eyes, a mobile warning signal. But they were not needed for scouting