Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen Page B

thy thanks such a pleasure." He remembered, suddenly, how Blood Brother had tried to groom him in the baths, lifting off skin with his rough tongue. And he remembered what had happened to Blood Brother after. He shuddered.
    "No one shall do such a thing to thee, little wormling," Jakkin promised. "I will not allow it. Not ever."
    The dragon turned its black eyes toward him and Jakkin felt as if he could see strange constellations being born in the endless night of its eyes. "Be thou ever my friend," he whispered.
    The dragon answered him with a weak trickle of smoke through its nose slits. It was no more than a patch of light fog that for a moment obscured the dragon's mouth, then was gone. But that it
was
smoke, the first conjurings of the fire of a fighting dragon, Jakkin was sure.
    He laughed, a loud eruption that startled the snatchling into backing up.
    "No, no, thou fire breather, do it once again," said Jakkin, his voice alive with laughter. "A great pit dragon must breathe fire and smoke. I will give thee
more
juice to stoke thy furnace, for blisterweed and burnwort are the fuel for thy flames." He stood up and started for the weed patch, chattering at the dragon as he went. He continued his monologue down one row, looking for the healthiest, most mature plants, and up the next until he found the plant he wanted at the row's end.
    He stopped abruptly. In the sand by the stalk, almost hidden by a leaf, was a single shoeprint. For a moment, Jakkin was ready to dismiss it. He himself had walked around the weed and wort patch in sandals. But the fact that there was only the tip of the print showing, as if the rest had been broomed away, puzzled him. He turned and ran back to the shelter and picked up his own sandals. Then, reluctantly, he walked back to the patch.
    Kneeling down, he matched up the toe of his sandal with the print. The print was slightly smaller than his own.
    Jakkin sat down in the sand to consider. Bigfoot was a name that the boys had often called him, for he had had enormous feet since he was very young. His mother, he remembered, used to say that someday he would
grow into his feet, and he was growing still. But if his own sandal had not made that print, then someone else's had.
    He tried to think who it might be. Had any of the boys said anything to make him think they knew of the oasis and the snatchling? He recalled them teasing him about Akki. Had Slakk been a little less sarcastic than usual? Or Errikkin a little more willing to please? Or any of the younger boys too familiar? Perhaps ... yet he couldn't imagine them spying on him. He thought about the men, listing them in his mind. Balakk and his two were busy in the fields today. And Jo-Janekk was inventorying the store—or so he said. Frankkalin had been given the day as Bond-Off. Perhaps it had been Frankkalin. Or old Likkarn. What had he said before their march back? He had turned to Jakkin and spit out: "You'll have tomorrow as Bond-Off. I'm sure you'll
need
it, boy." At the time, Jakkin had thought old Likk-and-Spittle had meant he would need the time to recover from the bloody roundup. "But perhaps," Jakkin said aloud, "perhaps what Likkarn meant was that I would need the time for my dragon."
    And Likkarn was a small man, small and
wiry. He would have a smallish foot. Jakkin thought about it, and the more he thought, the more it all fit. Likkarn must have followed him out and watched as he and the dragon slept. It all fit except for one piece. Why, if Likkarn knew about the dragon, had he not reported it? What subtle motives did the old man have in keeping such a thing secret?
    Jakkin got back on his knees and held his sandal over the print again. There was no mistake. His sandal
was
bigger, though not by much. Likkarn must have been there at some point, all right, watching. Watching and waiting. Jakkin looked around the oasis. It was no longer as bright, as clean, as beautiful. Likkarn's presence there cast a long