Dragon's Heart (30 page)

Silently, he hefted the pole. When he set it down on end again, he leaned heavily on it as if hardly able to move.
At least—at least now I have a weapon in hand.

HIS THOUGHT WALL held and none of the trogs showed the slightest bit of interest in him, other than to push him on. He stumbled along as if he could barely move any faster. Clearly, he had them all fooled.

Big Boss, the tracker of the group, stopped every once in a while to point out the way to the others. The trogs listened to him, gabbling mind-to-mind, and there was hardly any argument. He seemed to have some kind of hold over them. Jakkin couldn't figure out what it was. Maybe he was just that much bigger or older or stronger or smarter. Maybe he'd been appointed the head of this group of four. Whatever that hold, Big Boss was definitely the one to worry about.

Jakkin tried to listen in on their mind conversations through a small chink he'd bored through his thought wall. He'd hoped to overhear something of their plans, but the only thing that leaked through was a kind of
gabble-gabble-gabble.
He could find out nothing tangible.

He began to panic. There was now little between the trogs and the nursery but sand and oasis and time. And not much time, at that. Glancing up at the sky, he saw that the twin moons were gone from the horizon. Dark-After was about to start.

Since there'd been little wind over the past few days, his tracks showed clearly. It wouldn't take much skill to follow the trail to the oasis, even in Dark-After. How naive he'd been.

"Fewmetty trogs," Jakkin muttered to himself, earning a smack on the head from the one behind him.

"Ow!" Jakkin turned without warning and whacked back at the trog, hitting him on the head with a closed fist, which surprised them both.

The trog made a sound like
whaaa
and Big Boss glared at him.

"
No kriah!
" The sending went directly to the crying trog, but Big Boss's anger leaked out so that Jakkin also caught some of it. It was like a sliver in the eye. Jakkin wondered what the full blast must have felt like and was glad he didn't know.

Poor trog!
he thought sarcastically.
Hope it hurt like drakk's blood.
He remembered Slakk kneeling in the barn, burned by such blood, and the sudden burst of fear that had emanated from him in a kind of sending. He was suddenly sorry he hadn't visited Slakk before leaving and wondered if he'd ever see his friend again.

Then he shook himself mentally.
What worm drivel.
His left hand made a fist, the right held tight to the pole.
I have to be cold. I have to be tough. I have to be
...

He never got to finish that thought, because they'd found the oasis from the back end, looking down on it from a dune. Jakkin was startled. The oasis—this soon? He was not used to coming upon it this way, and he was certainly not ready to be there. He took a deep breath, a gasp really. The stars gazed pitilessly on them all, outlining them in shadow.

Jakkin didn't move. He stood leaning against the pole, watching as Big Boss and the trogs slid down the sand hill on their bellies and into the water. They gulped noisily as they drank.

Big Boss looked up, suddenly realizing that all three of his companions were with him, which meant no one was guarding Jakkin. He began to give them a mental lashing. One of the trogs started to stand, ready to go back and take care of their prisoner.

Jakkin was parched as well, but he was furious, too. The trogs were trashing his most private memories simply by being in Heart's Blood's pool. And he stoked that fury to a white heat, all in seconds, then ran screaming down the dune, flailing with the pole.

At the pool's edge, he struck forward and back with the pole, hitting out as hard as he could. He connected first with the head of the standing trog, who fell sideways and immediately slipped under the water, wavelets lapping at his now submerged head. On the backswing, Jakkin connected with the trog next to Big Boss. It didn't drown him, but smashed his shoulder, and his right arm drooped as if the bone were broken, effectively putting him out of commission.

Big Boss turned and, still sitting in the water, grabbed at the pole end and yanked it out of Jakkin's hands, though the action sent him sprawling backward and he lay for long seconds in the water.

At this point, Jakkin simply let him have the pole. Then showing speed none of them expected from him, he raced around the far side of the pool and ran through the patch of wort. Since it was night, and Dark-After, the leaves were closed tight and so none of the wort burned his legs.

He kept on running, and even though the cold of Dark-After was snaking across his body, he was sweating. He guessed that at least two of the trogs would soon be on his trail, but they'd have to stop to check his tracks in the dark.

Advantage,
he thought grimly,
to me.

As he ran, he gave a quick shout and a sending to the dragons. It was like a bright red and white fire fall. This was not the time to worry about the trogs hearing him. Of course they'd hear. But he needed to find the dragons—and fast. He needed their fire and their might.

They didn't answer.

He kept calling and sending as he ran. But all he met with was silence. Wherever the brood was, it wasn't here.

So now he kept quiet and used his energy for running. He broke into a loping, ground-eating run, and made it back to the weir in record time.

As he crossed the weir, he hoped that it would also buy him time, since the trogs wouldn't know which way he'd gone in the water. Though when they got this far, they would be able to smell the dragons in the barns. If he was lucky, they'd go to the stud barn first. That would slow them down.
If
he was lucky. The way things were going, Jakkin didn't plan to rely on luck.

Dripping, cold, he stayed in the weir until the last minute, then dashed across the yard to the incubarn and tried to open the door. It was locked from the inside, so he hammered on it.

After long moments, the door squalled as it was opened a crack.

I'm worm waste,
he told himself.
I should have oiled that door when I first thought about it.
Slipping in, he turned, pulled the noisy door shut after him, and put the latch back on. The hall was unlit. There was a roaring fire in the hearth.

"Jakkin?" The voice was high, querulous, unsure. Light from the hearth behind him outlined a boy looking sleepy, disheveled, unbelieving, shuddering from his single moment near Dark-After. "But it's bone-chill out there. You're soaking wet. How can you—"

"Not now, Errikkin," Jakkin said. "Is there anyone here with you?"

Errikkin rubbed a fist in his eye, nodded.

"Who?" Jakkin pressed.

"Old Lik-and-Spittle."

"Where is he?"

"It's not his watch yet and you know how he—"

"
Get ... him ... here now!
" Jakkin said in a loud whisper. "We have major trouble!"

Errikkin's eyes got wide. "More drakks?"

"For God's sake." Jakkin couldn't believe this: of all the worst combinations to fight off trogs, Errikkin and Likkarn were it. He'd rather have fat Kkarina and mopey old Balakk. "Get him while I bar the door." He went to the nearest table and dragged it over to the door.

"He's on the—"

Shoving the table against the door, Jakkin raced back to the visitors' room to get the sofa.

"—sofa," Errikkin finished.

Likkarn was already sitting up. He looked alert for a man who'd just been awakened, though his face seemed to have fallen in on itself.

"We have visitors," Jakkin blurted out. "From the mountains. Coming to steal the breeding dragons." He didn't want to single out Auricle. It would take too much explanation. "And kill me. Because I know where they live."

"How many?" Likkarn stood, and grabbed a stinger from a small table. When he saw that, Jakkin's eyes went wide.

"We weren't sure we'd gotten all the drakks," Likkarn said. "And with two dragons near to laying..."

Jakkin nodded. He understood. Then he told Likkarn, "These are worse than drakks."

"Worse?"

"They're humans. Well, sort of."

"Ah..." Likkarn said, as if he understood.

And perhaps
—Jakkin remembered that Likkarn had spoken about being in the mountains himself—
perhaps he does.

"How many?" Likkarn asked again as they pushed the sofa against the door, the stinger close at hand on one of the sofa cushions.

"Two, maybe three. I—" Jakkin gulped. "I drowned one. Was only trying to slow him down. Broke another's shoulder. Two definitely and one wounded." He said it baldly, trembling at the memory.

"Good boy," Likkarn said. "You only did what needed to be done. So we're three to two." His steady voice helped, and Jakkin stopped shaking.

"Don't be fooled. They're tough, and we're—"

Likkarn nodded. "Not so tough."

Errikkin cleared his throat. "But it's Dark-After."

"Not now, Errikkin," Jakkin and Likkarn said together, then looked at each other and laughed. For the first time in days, Jakkin felt a ray of hope.

Just then the front door shuddered. Somebody pounded on it. Pushed at it. Cursed. Or at least that gabble sounded like a curse. Jakkin's head suddenly hurt with a sending of bright orange fire.

The trogs had arrived.

Likkarn rubbed a knuckle in his good eye.

Trying to wake up? Or did he get some of that sending?
Jakkin wondered.

Likkarn simply shook his head, then picked up the stinger. "Sorry—there's just one here," he said. "But I'm a good shot, so I'll keep hold of this."

"
Who's
out there?" Errikkin asked, his voice quivering. "Who could
possibly
be out there? It's Dark-After."

"So you've observed," Likkarn said coolly.

The door shuddered again, but the latch, supported by the table and sofa, held.

"
What's
out there?"

"Get your knife," Likkarn told Errikkin in a steadying kind of voice. "And there's a hammer by the door of Heart's Ease's stall. Bring it for Jakkin." He turned to Jakkin. "Stall needs work."

Errikkin was still staring at the door.

"
NOW!
" Likkarn shouted, and added, "You pulsating bit of worm slime."

Errikkin took off at a run.

That's when Likkarn looked hard at Jakkin, his good eye steely. "He just wants a strong master. Makes him feel strong himself. Coddle him, and he feels nothing but pity—and shame. Now, Jakkin, tell me everything I need to know."

For a moment, Jakkin considered lying. But lying served no purpose. They had to live through this in order to save the dragons. He'd swear Likkarn to secrecy afterward. Likkarn was good at keeping secrets. "The men out there are the great-greats of the earliest settlers who escaped from bond and made their own communities in the caves," he told Likkarn.

"I've met a couple," Likkarn said laconically. "Or rather I spied on them. Never got
that
close. Quiet sort of folk."

"They don't talk out loud much," Jakkin said. "Mind link. With each other. With the dragons."

Likkarn nodded as if he understood.

Just then Errikkin returned with the knife and hammer.

At the same moment, the trogs stopped trying the door and suddenly everything went horribly quiet.

After a bit, Errikkin asked, "What do you think they're doing now?"

"We'll find out soon enough," Likkarn told him.

The silence from outside stretched on and on.

Jakkin tried to imagine what the trogs might be getting up to. Tackling the stud barn? The bondhouse? Going back to the mountains to get reinforcements?
Whatever they're thinking, it won't be good for us.

He felt a probe into his mind, and he hastily built up the wall again. But the probe told him one thing. The trogs hadn't left. Yet.

The sound of glass breaking made the three of them jump.

"The window!" Errikkin cried, saying what they already knew.

Probably used the pole.

Likkarn turned, stared at the window, grunted. "The shutters should hold for a while."

"But the cold," Errikkin whined.

"Give me the stinger," Jakkin said. "I can stand the cold. You two get back in with the dragons. Their bodies will help keep you warm."

"How?" Errikkin would simply not shut up. "How can you stand the cold?"

"Don't ask." Jakkin held out his hand for the extinguisher.

Without a single question of his own, Likkarn showed Jakkin how to use the stinger, his comments concise. "This setting to stun, this to kill. Here's the trigger. Sight along the barrel. Don't hesitate. Keep firing in a circular motion. Don't worry—you'll hit something that way."

Though Jakkin said nothing, his face gave him away.

"Kill!" Errikkin said. "You've got to kill them all, whoever they are. Listen to Likkarn. Don't hesitate!"

"Will the stun setting stop them?"

Likkarn puffed his lips out for a moment. "It can stun drakks and a small dragon. It can certainly drop a man in his tracks, scramble his brains for a while. But these fellows ... I don't know. Errikkin is probably right." He jammed the stinger into the kill position.

The trogs were now pulling at the heavy wooden shutters. At each pull, frigid air flooded in. Errikkin's teeth were already chattering.

"Latch the door into the stall area and don't open it, even if you hear me beg, unless I say Heart's Blood's name," Jakkin told them. He held out a hand to Likkarn, who shook it. And then to Errikkin, who did not.

"Go!" Jakkin said as they heard the sound of the shutters being pulled off.

The two bolted toward the stall area, slamming the door behind them. Jakkin turned and went to the doorway of the visitors' room, readying the stinger. He stood in the darkened hall; that gave him a bit of cover. The window was partly lit by the hearth fire, which was vainly trying to beat back the cold. At least Jakkin knew he would be able to see to shoot.

A figure was half through the window, already picking its way past the broken glass.