[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
not was a nursery axiom. Jakkin grabbed on to a bucket and quickly got into a
familiar rhythm of filling and emptying.
As he worked, he felt the tentative minds of the nursery dragons reach out to
him. L Erikk was in the middle of a new Fewmets Ferkkin joke, but Jakkin never
heard the punch line. He was more intent on the individual patterns the
dragons threw.
Heart Breaker, one of Heart s Blood s clutchmates, had a similar rainbow
signal, but with the colors faded, drifting off around the edges. As he passed
S Blood s stall, the big brown fighter gave off sharp, jagged images. His body
worked in the Pit in that same jagged way, with little fluidity in his
motions. He fought with a series of strikes of such slashing intensity that he
had won twenty-two of twenty-six fights-a wonderful Pit record-losing three
early fights because of immaturity and one recent one when he was exhausted
from having fought two days in a row. Heart Worm, the best brood hen in the
nursery, had a signal that was a series of yellow globes. Every sending from
her contained these golden auras somewhere: sometimes as free-floating
bubbles; sometimes stacked like a clutch of golden eggs;
sometimes as balls bounding in intricate rhythms. She had that same sunny
personality.
which is why -L Erikk was finishing yet another joke ferlckin had no nose.
Slakk and Errikkin howled. That s new, Slakk said. Brand-new, L Erikk
admitted. Where do you get them? asked Effikkin. Straight from the Fewmets
factory, answered L Erikk. Signed, sealed, and delivered.
Delivered is right, Slakk said. You have the best delivery in the nursery.
I ve got a great idea. Let s switch and get Bond-Off together. I d like to
take you into Krakkow to this terrific stewbar I know. It s called The Pits!
And I ll lay a bet that you can tell jokes without stopping for, say, three
hours.
Four, said L Erikk.
Four then. And we ll get some gold to back us from the boys here. And-
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I ve got a better idea, interrupted Jakkin. Why don t you save your money
and buy yourselves out of bond? Four hours is a long time for jokes. And
you ll probably lose. L Erikk needs only one or two drinks and he forgets his
name, much less his jokes, and you know it.
Where s your sense of adventure, Jakkin? said Slakk.
In my nose, Jakkin answered. And it tells me these fewmets are growing
riper by the hour. As are
L Erikk s jokes. So let s get to it.
Yes, Master, the three said in unison, bobbing their heads together.
Jakkin gritted his teeth but didn t answer back. Anything he said now would
make things worse. Ever since he had become a master, a distance had opened up
between him and his old friends. He hated that.
The boys worked in silence, and even the dragons refused to send.
It is a conspiracy, Jakkin thought. He was being forced to think about the one
thing he didn t want to think about. He remembered Akki s hovering over him at
the hospice when she had tended his wounds, the black wings of her hair, her
crooked smile. He shook his head. Despite what Golden had written, Jakkin was
worried. A week was an awfully long time.
Then he pushed the thoughts of Akki out of his mind. The dragons needed every
bit of his attention.
Dragon time is now.
As he let his mind fill up with dragons, he came to S Blood s stall. This time
the big brown responded. A
jagged stroke of yellow lightning flashed through his head, and Jakkin smiled
at last. I ve got a week with you coming, he whispered to S Blood. A week
of training and waiting for the eggs to hatch.
The same flash of lightning jagged through his head, less an answer to what he
had said than an emotional response to his presence. A week, he said again,
the smile suddenly gone.
chapter 13
S BLOOD WAS SLUGGISH at first. The morning mud baths had cooled his temper and
dulled the sharper movements of his body. But as Jakkin put the great brown
through his paces, he knew the dragon would soon be back to normal. Normal for
S Blood meant slashing at the dummies with the erratic, jagged movement that
was his hallmark, dodging and feinting abruptly when Jakkin made passes at him
with the metal-tipped reed wands.
Jakkin tried to reach way into S Blood s mind the way he did with his own red,
but he was always stopped at what he called the landscape level. He could see
a general signature of the particular dragon drawn in his head, as if it were
a picture of a foreign country. But the many mood changes and colorations, the
actual pictures that he could receive from Heart s Blood, were missing. He
wondered if it was because he had imprinted Heart s Blood so early and had
come to the big brown fighter only when they both were adults. Or, he thought,
it might have had something to do with his having shared blood with his hen.
She had licked his wounds, first when she was a day-old hatchling and he had
cut himself on an eggshell and then again when he had been gashed badly by a
drakk, and ever after her mind had been as open to him as his own.
S Blood gathered himself into a hind-foot rise and slashed quickly at the
dragon-form. He roared his defiance, a sound as sharp as his movements. It was
a good roar, and Jakkin praised him. S Blood was never as reluctant as some to
sound. Many dragons needed to be blooded before giving roar.
Sing out, thou mighty worm, Jakkin called, encouraging the big lizard, for
punters in the Pits judged a fighter in part by the timbre of its voice.
S Blood roared again in response. Then he dropped suddenly and whipped his
tail around with a loud, wind-whistling sound. The tail snapped against the
heavy yellow-hide dummy, which toppled over, part of its reed skeleton
crushed. Quickly S Blood straddled it and made the ritual slashes on its neck,
adding to the many other scars there. One slash was so deep it tore open the
Page 24
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
skin, allowing several small stone weights to spill out. There would have to
be a lot of work done on that dummy to salvage it for another practice.
Immediately S Blood backed away and stood trembling near the fallen form. His [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
not was a nursery axiom. Jakkin grabbed on to a bucket and quickly got into a
familiar rhythm of filling and emptying.
As he worked, he felt the tentative minds of the nursery dragons reach out to
him. L Erikk was in the middle of a new Fewmets Ferkkin joke, but Jakkin never
heard the punch line. He was more intent on the individual patterns the
dragons threw.
Heart Breaker, one of Heart s Blood s clutchmates, had a similar rainbow
signal, but with the colors faded, drifting off around the edges. As he passed
S Blood s stall, the big brown fighter gave off sharp, jagged images. His body
worked in the Pit in that same jagged way, with little fluidity in his
motions. He fought with a series of strikes of such slashing intensity that he
had won twenty-two of twenty-six fights-a wonderful Pit record-losing three
early fights because of immaturity and one recent one when he was exhausted
from having fought two days in a row. Heart Worm, the best brood hen in the
nursery, had a signal that was a series of yellow globes. Every sending from
her contained these golden auras somewhere: sometimes as free-floating
bubbles; sometimes stacked like a clutch of golden eggs;
sometimes as balls bounding in intricate rhythms. She had that same sunny
personality.
which is why -L Erikk was finishing yet another joke ferlckin had no nose.
Slakk and Errikkin howled. That s new, Slakk said. Brand-new, L Erikk
admitted. Where do you get them? asked Effikkin. Straight from the Fewmets
factory, answered L Erikk. Signed, sealed, and delivered.
Delivered is right, Slakk said. You have the best delivery in the nursery.
I ve got a great idea. Let s switch and get Bond-Off together. I d like to
take you into Krakkow to this terrific stewbar I know. It s called The Pits!
And I ll lay a bet that you can tell jokes without stopping for, say, three
hours.
Four, said L Erikk.
Four then. And we ll get some gold to back us from the boys here. And-
Page 23
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I ve got a better idea, interrupted Jakkin. Why don t you save your money
and buy yourselves out of bond? Four hours is a long time for jokes. And
you ll probably lose. L Erikk needs only one or two drinks and he forgets his
name, much less his jokes, and you know it.
Where s your sense of adventure, Jakkin? said Slakk.
In my nose, Jakkin answered. And it tells me these fewmets are growing
riper by the hour. As are
L Erikk s jokes. So let s get to it.
Yes, Master, the three said in unison, bobbing their heads together.
Jakkin gritted his teeth but didn t answer back. Anything he said now would
make things worse. Ever since he had become a master, a distance had opened up
between him and his old friends. He hated that.
The boys worked in silence, and even the dragons refused to send.
It is a conspiracy, Jakkin thought. He was being forced to think about the one
thing he didn t want to think about. He remembered Akki s hovering over him at
the hospice when she had tended his wounds, the black wings of her hair, her
crooked smile. He shook his head. Despite what Golden had written, Jakkin was
worried. A week was an awfully long time.
Then he pushed the thoughts of Akki out of his mind. The dragons needed every
bit of his attention.
Dragon time is now.
As he let his mind fill up with dragons, he came to S Blood s stall. This time
the big brown responded. A
jagged stroke of yellow lightning flashed through his head, and Jakkin smiled
at last. I ve got a week with you coming, he whispered to S Blood. A week
of training and waiting for the eggs to hatch.
The same flash of lightning jagged through his head, less an answer to what he
had said than an emotional response to his presence. A week, he said again,
the smile suddenly gone.
chapter 13
S BLOOD WAS SLUGGISH at first. The morning mud baths had cooled his temper and
dulled the sharper movements of his body. But as Jakkin put the great brown
through his paces, he knew the dragon would soon be back to normal. Normal for
S Blood meant slashing at the dummies with the erratic, jagged movement that
was his hallmark, dodging and feinting abruptly when Jakkin made passes at him
with the metal-tipped reed wands.
Jakkin tried to reach way into S Blood s mind the way he did with his own red,
but he was always stopped at what he called the landscape level. He could see
a general signature of the particular dragon drawn in his head, as if it were
a picture of a foreign country. But the many mood changes and colorations, the
actual pictures that he could receive from Heart s Blood, were missing. He
wondered if it was because he had imprinted Heart s Blood so early and had
come to the big brown fighter only when they both were adults. Or, he thought,
it might have had something to do with his having shared blood with his hen.
She had licked his wounds, first when she was a day-old hatchling and he had
cut himself on an eggshell and then again when he had been gashed badly by a
drakk, and ever after her mind had been as open to him as his own.
S Blood gathered himself into a hind-foot rise and slashed quickly at the
dragon-form. He roared his defiance, a sound as sharp as his movements. It was
a good roar, and Jakkin praised him. S Blood was never as reluctant as some to
sound. Many dragons needed to be blooded before giving roar.
Sing out, thou mighty worm, Jakkin called, encouraging the big lizard, for
punters in the Pits judged a fighter in part by the timbre of its voice.
S Blood roared again in response. Then he dropped suddenly and whipped his
tail around with a loud, wind-whistling sound. The tail snapped against the
heavy yellow-hide dummy, which toppled over, part of its reed skeleton
crushed. Quickly S Blood straddled it and made the ritual slashes on its neck,
adding to the many other scars there. One slash was so deep it tore open the
Page 24
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
skin, allowing several small stone weights to spill out. There would have to
be a lot of work done on that dummy to salvage it for another practice.
Immediately S Blood backed away and stood trembling near the fallen form. His [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]