Free Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen

of sweat start on his neck. He put his hand up to wipe it off and at the same time greeted the other men. He dried his hand on the side of his pants.
    "Well, boy?" It was Balakk.
    "Last night—" Jakkin began.
    "Oh, we heard about your late night," chuckled Jo-Janekk, smoothing his mustache with one hand. "Woke the whole bondhouse, you did."
    Jakkin's hand went up to his bag and he squeezed it, letting the tension flow out of his fingers onto the familiar soft bag surface. "Last night," he continued, "a drakk flew overhead. Near the henyard."
    Likkarn looked up again. The distaste still
showed in his eyes. "A drakk? Are you sure?" he asked quickly.
    "Do you know what you're saying? What a drakk hunt will mean to the schedule here on the farm?" added Balakk.
    "It was a drakk," Jakkin said, hoping they would not question him more.
    "Describe it," said Likkarn, standing up and coming over to him. His red-rimmed eyes glistened. He was close enough so that Jakkin could see the gray-and-black beard stubble breaking through the scarred surface of his face.
    Jakkin took a breath.
    "What you
saw,
bonder," Likkarn added. "Not what you expected to see."
    "It was a shadow. A black, silent shadow overhead. Wings stretched so." He spread his arms. "And a long snaky shadow of a head."
    "A drakk," Balakk complained.
    "Flying which way?" Likkarn asked, as if he did not believe a word.
    Jakkin closed his eyes and saw again the great wings of the drakk. "Flying east to west, from beyond the bondhouse toward the incubarn."
    "Fewmets!" Balakk's fist slammed against the table. "Those pieces of lizard waste seem to grow out of nothing. Nothing! I've a mind to quit farming and take a job in Rokk. I thought we had wiped them out seven years ago."
    Likkarn's lips moved in and out purposefully. "Sometimes a new colony starts when the young are forced out by their elders," he said. "Out to find new territory—and new food. Across the desert sands, closer to civilization." He glared at Jakkin.
    "And we were going to take the hatchlings out this very evening for their first airing," said Crikk, Balakk's right hand and his closest friend. He was a young man, just out of childhood, his arms pitted with blood scores. He had helped Sarkkhan several times in the minor pits before asking to be transferred back to the farm. "We don't dare take them out now. They'd just be meat for those monsters."
    "So it's a hunt, then," said Balakk wearily. "A regular de-bagged roundup."
    "Well, I've got plenty of knives, but they'll need honing," Frankkalin said as he
rose. "I'll take some of the boys and get started." He went over to the table and fingered Errikkin, his special favorite, and two of the younger boys. They followed him silently; his one-word explanation was enough.
    "I'll start Slakk and the other boys on the dragon food. The baths will have to wait until this is over," Likkarn said. Any sign of weed in his eyes was now gone. "I'll meet you back here in an hour. You take the boy"—he signaled with his chin at Jakkin—"and chart that flight."
    Likkarn left, dragging Slakk and the others behind him.
    "He acts as if he's still head here," complained Kkittakk, Balakk's second helper, a bonder new to the nursery. "And he's only a lower stallboy now."
    "You've not been here long enough to know," Balakk said. "When it comes to fighting drakk, I'll stand behind Likkarn any day. He's got a nose for them, he has. He's as bloody-minded as they are. I remember once he fought a drakk bare handed ... but there's time to tell that later." Balakk stood up. "Come, boy, show me where you saw that
piece of worm waste. We'll have to take soundings." He sighed loudly and unfolded his long body from the bench.
    They followed Balakk into the hall, where he unlocked a free-standing cupboard full of instruments. He took out a metal and glass object and polished the base of it with his sleeve. Then, finding a package of soft material in the cupboard, he polished the