Dragon's Heart by Jane Yolen Read Free Book Online

stay, begged in a sending, but she left, anyway, Terakkina at her heels. He was angered by Akki's preferring Kkarina, who she'd already admitted was overwhelmingly talkative, to helping him here at the table, bombarded with questions.
    "
Runaway!
" he snapped at her in a sending, forgetting their promise. "
Coward!
" The sending was bright yellow, puslike.
    She didn't turn around, but her return sending—a long black lance—pierced the yellow pus-bubble, which suddenly looked surprisingly like his head.
    Errikkin had been sitting silently for some time with his tongue between his teeth, the sign that he was thinking deeply. Suddenly he burst out with, "Surely you had more to eat than boil." His face reddened as he spoke. "In a year. In an entire fewmetty year." Those were the first words he'd uttered to Jakkin since he'd come home.
    Jakkin smiled. "Some eggs. Some cave mushrooms, some berries, some—"
    "Have
you
ever eaten boil?" Balakk's helper, the moon-faced boy, asked.
    "Aye, Arakk. It's awful," L'Erikk, another of the boys, answered, making a face. "Thin, bland."
    "It's not bad. And awful only if you're not hungry," Jakkin pointed out. He was gratified to see some of the new folk nodding at that. Especially Arakk.
    "No one goes hungry anymore," Trikko said. "'With work comes food.'" It was an old nursery saying.
    Slakk laughed, though there was little mirth in it. "And there's plenty of work." He gestured grandly around them with his hand. "We're expanding."
    "Expanding?" Jakkin asked. That certainly explained the new faces.
    "They're building up Rokk Major again," L'Erikk told him. "Never mind the embargo. Because there won't always be one. And we have to be ready." He said that as if quoting authority and not speaking on his own.
    "Embargo?" Golden hadn't said anything about an embargo. Jakkin turned on the bench and stared at Slakk. "What embargo?" He didn't actually say he hadn't any idea what was meant by the word.
    "For up to fifty years," Slakk said flatly. "No Feder ships in ..." His arm made a swooping movement.
    "Until we prove ourselves," Errikkin interrupted, his handsome face now darkening with some sort of anger. "Always
proving
ourselves."
    "Or
im
proving ourselves," Slakk shot back, and a ripple of laughter ran around the table. It was clearly an old argument between them.
    "As bonders we didn't need any improving," Errikkin said.
    The table now erupted in laughter.
    Arakk said, "
Im
proving,
dis
proving,
un
proving."
    "
Re
proving," added Trikko.
    "That's not a word," Arakk said.
    "Is too."
    "Is not."
    Arguing like little boys,
Jakkin thought, suddenly feeling old. "I don't understand," he began. "If no Feder ships can fly in, how does rebuilding the Rokk Major pit make any sense? Who will go to the pit to bet on dragon fights? Who will bring in money? How do we fill our bags?" Though he'd already filled his and was a master himself.
Some master, with no money and no great dragon.
    Arakk's face registered surprise. "There aren't any."
    One of the girls said, "No bond bags."
    "Aren't any
bonders
anymore," said Slakk. "While you were off in the mountains playing with dragons, we were all set free." He pulled up his leather shirt to show Jakkin his bare chest. It was pasty white, hairless, and a bit flabby. He slapped himself with the flat of his palm. "No bond bag." He laughed. "No more trying to fill that fewmetty bag and failing. No more feeling guilty when I use a coin for pleasure."
    "You never felt guilty," Trikko said.
    "And you rarely have any pleasure," added Arakk.
    Everyone laughed, Jakkin loudest of all.
    And then Jakkin remembered Golden telling them about freeing the bonders, when he'd first picked them up in the copter. But Jakkin had been so exhausted and exhilarated at the same time, he hadn't paid much attention. Getting back to the nursery, settling Auricle, dealing with the questions from the nursery folk, had taken all his concentration. But of course now he recalled what