A Sending of Dragons by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

15

BY THE TIME the echo of the scream had faded, Jakkin was once again at the dragon’s head, checking her eyes and tongue. There was no change. He put his head down by the dragon’s mouth and breathed deeply. The smell was slightly sour, not unusual for a dragon, but also strangely bland. In the nursery such a smell usually meant a worm needed extra rations of burnwort, but he’d no idea what they fed dragons here.

At the head of the stall was an iron hook on which several handfuls of dry grasses hung. Jakkin walked over and tore out some. Crumbling it between his fingers, he spread it along his palm. He could identify sedgeseeds and skkagg grass, but there were other things new to him, including a fleshy wine-colored fungus. In the nursery they’d never feed a dragon that. What was it Likkarn used to say? Mushrooms red, dragon dead. He held out his hand and pointed to it. “This?” he sent bluntly.

The older woman came over to him and stared at his hand. She didn’t meet his eyes, and her sending was so tentative, he couldn’t make out any name for the fungus. But it was obviously no surprise to her.

Still, he asked again because of Likkarn’s warning and because food was always the first thing examined when a dragon fell sick. It was just too easy to poison one of them, large as they were, especially a fighting dragon at one of the major pits. He held out his hand and this time sent directly to the woman before him, “This?”

The woman’s answer was clearer this time, though she still wouldn’t look up at him. “That makes bearing easy. Women eat too.”

Jakkin nodded and let the stuff drift to the floor. Both women were quick to broom it away, which made Jakkin smile. No wonder these stalls were so clean. No fewmets, no extra straw, no pieces of half-chewed meals. The women were quicker at their tasks than any stallboy he’d ever known, including himself. He turned back to the dragon. Her tail was twitching ever so slightly.

“Lift that tail again!”

This time both women hauled the tail up and to the side.

Jakkin knelt down. A grayish fluid was leaking from the birth channel. He put his hand in and discovered that the swelling he’d squeezed had burst. The smell of it was overpowering.

Hearing a noise behind him, he turned around. Akki was standing at the entrance to the stall.

“Akk—” he started to say aloud, and her hand went immediately up as if to cover his mouth.

“Shhh,” came her sending, a bright green cloud covering the mouth of a golden sun. It was the loveliest color he’d seen in ages. “Later.” She smiled.

***

IT WAS ONLY after Akki knelt to examine the dragon that Jakkin realized she’d lost weight and her hair was dirty and tangled. There was a bruise under her right eye and a scratch along her right arm. He wanted both to hold her and to shout at her and shake her.

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