A Sending of Dragons by Jane Yolen Read Free Book Online

after.
”
    Turning on her side, Akki mumbled something.
    â€œWhat?” His voice was a whisper.
    Out loud, in imitation of Sssargon’s sendings, Akki announced in a deep voice, “Akki sleeps.”
    Jakkin laughed and curled up by her side. “We’ll both sleep now and eat at dusk. Then we’ll find a way down from here when the moons begin to rise. It will be much safer that way.
    Akki’s only answer was a light, bubbly snore. Jakkin was still trying to figure out whether it was fake or real when he slipped into sleep himself.

6
    I N THE MIDDLE OF a dream in which he and a great red dragon were lazing by the side of a stream, Jakkin stirred uneasily. A dark cloud entered the dream, raining drops of fire onto the sand. He woke to an overpowering stench, a landscape in his head as barbed and as angry as any he had ever felt, and a steady babble of dragon voices churning across the picture.
    â€œ
Sssargon kill. Sssargon save.
”
    â€œ
Help. Help. Help.
”
    â€œ
Do not move. Do not thrash. Help comes.
”
    Jakkin leaped up and looked around, sleep still lapping at the edges of his sight. Akki, sitting on the ground, was as puzzled.
    Then in front of the first of the rising moons they saw their hatchlings flying, four of them, in a tight circle. They were back-winging, tails linked, holding up the fifth, whose wing drooped strangely. Around that circle was another circle of fliers, an attack force of silent winged shadows with long snaky necks and blunted heads.
    â€œDrakk,” breathed Jakkin.
    â€œUp this high?” Akki’s voice was strained. “I thought they ranged the lowlands.”
    â€œThey roost in trees. In spikkas . . .” He looked up the trunk of the tree warily but could see only the jagged teeth of the leaves. His hand went quickly to the knife on the braided belt. Then he shook his head. “Useless,” he muttered. “Useless against one drakk, and look—there’s a whole pod of them.”
    â€œHush. Listen.”
    Jakkin tuned in on the ring of dragons. Beyond their babbling he could feel the heavy dark thoughts of the drakk. Unlike smaller lizards, whose minds were uniformly pale pink or gray, the drakk’s sendings were sharp:
blue-black, barbed, eternally hungry. They fed on the fear of a wounded dragon long before they stripped the meat from its flesh. The pipings of a dragon hatchling roused them to a frenzy. And one of the triplets was piping its fear.
    Akki whispered, “I thought drakk hunted alone.”
    â€œSo did I,” Jakkin said. “But these are mountain drakk.”
    â€œThat awful drakk smell,” Akki added.
    The smell. Jakkin turned. That smell meant that somewhere nearby was a wounded or dead drakk. He looked below the ring of dragons and, by the edge of the meadow, saw a dark shape he had not noticed before, broken upon the stones.
    â€œThere,” he said, pointing. “The dragons have already gotten one.”
    Akki nodded. “How can we help them? As long as they’re up in the air, what can we do?”
    â€œLend me your mind. Think as I think. They have a bit of training. Maybe enough. Fewmets, I wish I’d taken more time with them. But Sssasha is pretty big and listens
well. And Sssargon is nearly full grown.” He reached out and Akki put her hand in his, for touching seemed to strengthen a sending.
    Concentrating, Jakkin sent a message to the dragons. “
At my signal, breathe out fire.
” He knew that, large as they were, they were still young, and he’d had no supply of burnwort to help stoke the flames. Of the five only Sssasha and Sssargon could even trickle smoke yet. But he also knew that fear and anger sometimes triggered a fiery display. Perhaps a flame or two would be enough of a surprise to move the ring of drakk back.
    â€œWishes fill no bags,” Akki reminded him. Then she squeezed his hand as if in apology.
    The bit of