Jane Yolen - Pit Dragon 03 - A Sending of Dragons

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Book 03 of The Pit Dragon Trilogy
A Sending of Dragons
By
Yolen, Jane
A SENDING OF DRAGONS. The spellbinding climax to the Pit Dragon Trilogy. Young dragon master
Jakkin Stewart and his beloved Akki are on the run. Behind them are murderous government forces;
ahead lies only a forbidding mountain wilderness. There they find a network of caves which they think will
provide a refuge from their pursuers. But within the caves is something bloodier than anything Jakkin and
Akki have ever imagined.
A SENDING OF DRAGONS Copyright (D 1987 by Jane Yolen First published 1987 by Delacorte
Press First Magic Carpet Books edition 1997
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from Harcourt Brace & Company.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to:
Permissions Department Harcourt Brace & Company 6277 Sea Harbor Drive Orlando, Florida
32887-6777
Science Fiction Book Club edition Published by arrangement with Harcourt Brace & Company First
SFBC Science Fiction printing: September 1998
Contents
Introduction
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
chapter 25
chapter 26
chapter 27
chapter 28
chapter 29
chapter 30
chapter 31
chapter 32
chapter 33
chapter 34
chapter 35
chapter 36
chapter 37
chapter 38
chapter 36
chapter 40
chapter 41
chapter 42
chapter 43
chapter 44
chapter 45
chapter 46
chapter 47
Introduction
Austar IV IS the fourth planet of a seven-planet rim system in the Erato Galaxy. Once a penal colony,
marked KK29 on the convict map system, it is a semi-and, metal-poor world with two moons.
Austar is covered by vast deserts, some of which are cut through by small and irregularly surfacing hot
springs, several small sections of fenlands, and zones of almost impenetrable mountains. There are only
five major rivers: the Narrakka, the Rokk, the Brokk-bend, the Kkar, and the Left Forkk.
Few plants grow in the deserts-some fruit cacti and sparse longtrunk palm trees known as spikka. The
most populous plants on Austar are two wild-flowering bushes called bumwort and blisterweed. (See
color section.) The mountain vegetation is only now being cataloged but promises to be much more
extensive than originally thought.
There is a variety of insect and pseudolizard life, the latter ranging from small rock-runners to
elephant-size dragons. (See Holo section, Vol. 6.) Unlike Earth reptilia, the Austarian dragon lizards are
warmblooded, with pneumaticized bones for reduction of weight and a keeled stemum where the flight
muscles are attached. They have membranous wings with jointed ribs that fold back along the animals’
bodies when the dragons are earthbound. Stretched to the fullest, an adult dragon’s wings are twice its
body size. The “feathers” are really light scales that adjust to wind pressure. From claw to shoulder,
some specimens of Austarian dragons have been measured at thirteen feet. There is increasing evidence
of level 4+ intelligence and a colorcoded telepathic mode of communication in the Austarian dragons.
These great beasts were almost extinct when the planet was first settled by convicts (KKS being the
common nickname) and guards from Earth in 2303. But several generations later the Austarians
domesticated the few remaining dragons, selectively breeding them for meat and leather and the gaming
arenas-or, as they were known from earliest times, the Pits.
The dragon Pits of Austar IV were more than just the main entertainment for early KKS. Over the years
the Pits became central to the Austarian economy. Betting syndicates developed and Federation starship
crews on long rimworld voyages began to frequent the planet on gambling forays.
Because such gambling violated cur-rent Galaxian law, illegal offworld gamesters were expelled in 2485,
from Austar IV and imprisoned on penal planet KK47, a mining colony where most of the surface is
ice-covered. Under pressure from the Federation, the Austarians then drafted a Protectorate constitution
spelling out the Federation’s administrative role in the economy of the planet, including regulation of the
gambling of offworlders and the payment of taxes (which Austarians call tithing) on gambling moneys in
exchange for starship landing bases. A fluid caste system of masters and bond slaves-the remnants of the
convict-guard hierarchy-was established by law, with a bond price set as an entrance fee into the master
class. Established at the same time was a senate, the members of which came exclusively from the master
class. The Senate performs both the executive and the legislative functions of the Austarian government
and, for the most part, represents the interests of the Federation. As in all Protectorate planets,
offworlders are subject to local laws and are liable to the same punishments for breaking them.
The Rokk, which was a fortress inhabited by the original ruling guards and their families when Austar IV
was a penal planet, is now the capital city and the starship landfall.
The entire Erato Galaxy is still only in the first stages of Protectorate status. However, because of the
fighting Pit dragons, Austar IV has become one of the better-known R & R planets in the explored
universe.
Excerpt from The Encyclopedia Galaxia, Thirtieth edition, vol. I: Aaabomia-BASE
chapter 1
NIGHT WAS APPROACHING. The umber moon led its pale, shadowy brother across the
multicolored sky. In front of the moons flew five dragons.
The first was the largest, its great wings dipping and rising in an alien semaphore. Directly behind it were
three smaller fliers, wheeling and circling, tagging one another’s tails. In the rear, along a lower trajectory,
sailed a middle-sized and plumper version of the front dragon. More like a broom than a rudder, its tail
seemed to sweep across the faces of the moons.
Jakkin watched them, his right hand shading his eyes. Squatting on his haunches in front of a mountain
cave, he was nearly naked except for a pair of white pants cut off at mid-thigh, a concession to modesty
rather than a help against the oncoming cold night. He was burned brown everywhere but for three small
pits on his back, which remained white despite their long exposure to the sun. Slowly Jakkin stood,
running grimy fingers through his shoulder-length hair, and shouted up at the hatchlings.
“ Fine flying, my friends!” The sound of his voice caromed off the mountains, but the dragons gave no
sign they heard him. So he sent the same message with his mind in the rainbow-colored patterns with
which he and the dragons communicated. Fine flying. The picture he sent was of gray-green wings with
air rushing through the leathery feathers, tickling each link. Fine flying. He was sure his sending could
reach them, but none of the dragons responded.
Jakkin stood for a moment longer watching the flight. He took pleasure in the hatchlings’ airborne
majesty. Even though they were still awkward on the ground, a sure sign of their youth, against the sky
they were already an awesome sight.
Jakkin took pleasure as well in the colors surrounding the dragons. Though he’d lived months now in the
Austarian wilds, he hadn’t tired of the evening’s purples and reds, roses and blues, the ever changing
display that signaled the approaching night. Before he’d been changed, as he called it, he’d hardly seen
the colors. Evenings had been a time of darkening and the threat of Dark-After, the bonechilling, killing
cold. Every Austarian knew better than to be caught outside in it. But now both Dark-After and dawn
were his, thanks to the change.
“Ours!” The message invaded his mind in a ribbon of laughter. “Dark-After and dawn are ours now.”
The sending came a minute before its sender appeared around a bend in the mountain path.
Jakkin waited patiently. He knew Akki would be close behind, for the sending had been strong and Akki
couldn’t broadcast over a long range.
She came around the bend with cheeks rosy from running. Her dark braid was tied back with a
fresh-platted vine. Jakkin preferred it when she let her hair loose, like a black curtain around her face, but
he’d never been able to tell her so. She carried a reed basket full of food for their dinner. Speaking aloud
in a tumble of words, she ran toward him. “Jakkin, I’ve found a whole new meadow and…”
He went up the path to meet her and dipped his hand into the basket. Before she could pull it away, he’d
snagged a single pink chikkberry. Then she grabbed the basket, putting it safely behind her.
“All right, worm waste, what have you been doing while I found our dinner?” Her voice was stern, but
she couldn’t hide the undercurrent of thought, which was sunny, golden, laughing.
“I’ve been working, too,” he said, careful to speak out loud. Akki still preferred speech to sendings when
they were face-to-face. She said speech had a precision to it that the sendings lacked, that it was clearer
for everything but emotions. She was quite fierce about it. It was an argument Jakkin didn’t want to
venture into again. “I’ve some interesting things-”
Before he could finish, five small streamlike sendings teased into his head, a confusion of colored images,
half-visualized.
“Jakkin… the sky… see the moons… wind and wings, ah… see, see…”
Jakkin spun away from Akki and cried out to the dragons, a wild, high yodeling that bounced off the
mountains. With it he sent another kind of call, a web of fine traceries with the names of the hatchlings
woven within: Sssargon, Sssasha, and the triplets Tri-sss, Trissskkette, and Tri-sssha.
“Fewmets!” Akki complained. “That’s too loud. Here I am, standing right next to you, and you’ve fried
me.” She set the basket down on an outjut of rock and rubbed her temples vigorously.
Jakkin knew she meant the mind sending had been too loud and had left her with a head full of brilliant
hot lights. He’d had weeks of similar headaches when Akki first began sending, until they’d both learned
to adjust. “Sorry,” he whispered, taking a turn at rubbing her head over the ears, where the hot ache
lingered. “Sometimes I forget. It takes so much more to make a dragon complain and their brains never
get fried.”
“Brains? What brains? Everyone knows dragons haven’t any brains. Just muscle and bone and…”
and claws and teeth,“ Jakkin finished for her, then broke into the chorus of the pit song she’d referred to:
Muscle and bone And claws and teeth, Fire above and Fewmets beneath.
Akki laughed, just as he’d hoped, for laughter usually bled away the pain of a close sending. She came
over and hugged him, and just as her arms went around, the true Austarian darkness closed in.
“You’ve got some power,” Jakkin said. “One hug-and the lights go out!”
“Wait until you see what I do at dawn,” she replied, giving a mock shiver.
To other humans the Austarian night was black and pitiless and the false dawn, Dark-After, mortally
cold. Even an hour outside during that time of bone chill meant certain death. But Jakkin and Akki were
different now, different from all their friends at the dragon nursery, different from the trainers and bond
boys at the pits, different from the men who slaughtered dragons in the stews or the girls who filled their
bond bags with money made in the baggeries. They were different from anyone in the history of Austar
IV because they had been changed. Jakkin’s thoughts turned as dark as the oncoming night,
remembering just how they’d been changed. Chased into the mountains by wardens for the bombing of
Rokk Major, which they had not really committed, they’d watched helplessly as Jakkin’s great red
dragon, Heart’s Blood, had taken shots meant for them, dying as she tried to protect them. And then, left
by the wardens to the oncoming cold, they had sheltered in Heart’s Blood’s body, in the very chamber
where she’d recently carried eggs, and had emerged, somehow able to stand the cold and share their
thoughts. He shut the memory down. Even months later it was too painful. Pulling himself away from the
past, he realized he was still in the circle of Akki’s arms. Her face showed deep concern, and he realized
she’d been listening in on his thoughts. But when she spoke it was on a different subject altogether, and
for that he was profoundly grateful.
“Come see what I found today,” she said quietly, pulling him over to the basket. “Not just berries, but a
new kind of mushroom. They were near a tiny cave on the south face of the Crag.” Akki insisted on
naming things because-she said-that made them more real. Mountains, meadows, vegetations, eaves-they
all bore her imprint. “We can test them out, first uncooked and later in with some boil soup. I nibbled a
bit about an hour ago and haven’t had any bad effects, so they’re safe. You’ll like these, Jakkin. They
may look like cave apples, but I found them under a small tree. I call them meadow apples.”
Jakkin made a face. He wasn’t fond of mushrooms, and cave apples were the worst.
“They’re sweeter than you think.”
Anything, Jakkin thought, would be sweeter than the round, reddish cave apples with their musty, dusty
taste, but he worried about Akki nibbling on unknown mushrooms. What if they were poisonous and she
was all alone on the mountainside?
Both thoughts communicated immediately to Akki and she swatted him playfully on the chest. “Cave
apples are good for you, Jakkin. High in protein. I learned that from Dr. Henkky when I studied with her
in the Rokk. Besides, if I didn’t test these out, we might miss something good. Don’t be such a worrier. I
checked with Sssasha first and she said dragons love them.”
“Dragons love bumwort, too,” muttered Jakkin. “But I’d sure hate to try and eat it, even if it could help
me breathe fire.”
“Listen, Jakkin Stewart, it’s either mushrooms-or back to eating dragon stew. We have to have protein
to live.” Her eyes narrowed.
Jakkin shrugged as if to say he didn’t care, but his thoughts broadcast his true feelings to her. They both
knew they’d never eat meat again. Now that they could talk mind-to-mind with Heart’s Blood’s
hatchlings and even pass shadowy thoughts with some of the lesser creatures like lizards and
rock-runners, eating meat was unthinkable.
“If meadow apples are better than cave apples,” Jakkin said aloud, “I’m sure I’ll love them. Besides, I’m
starving!”
“You and the dragons,” Akki said. “That’s all they ever think about, too. Food, food, food. But the
question is-do you deserve my hard-found food?”
“I’ve been working, too,” Jakkin said. “I’m trying to make some better bowls to put your hard-found
food in. I discovered a new clay bank down the cliff and across Lower Meadows. You know - - .”
Akki did know, because he never went near Upper Meadows, where Heart’s Blood’s bones still lay,
picked clean by the mountain scavengers. He went down toward the Lower Meadows and she scouted
farther up. He could read her thoughts as clearly as she could read his.
He continued out loud, there’s a kind of swamp there, the start of a small river, pooling down from the
mountain streams. The mountain is covered with them. But I’d never seen this particular one before
because it’s hard to get to. This clay is the best I’ve found so far and I managed a whole sling of it.
Maybe in a night or two we can build a fire and try to bake the pots I’ve made.“
They both knew bake fires could be set only at night, later than any humans would be out. Just in case.
Only at night did they feel totally safe from the people who had chased them into the mountains: the
murderous wardens who had followed them from the bombed-out pit to the dragon nursery and from
there up into the mountains, and the even more murderous rebels who, in the name of “freedom,” had
fooled them into destroying the great Rokk Major Dragon Pit. All those people thought them dead, from
hunger or cold or from being crushed when Heart’s Blood fell. It was best they continue to believe it. So
the first rule of mountain life, Jakkin and Akki had agreed, was Take no chances.
“Never mind that, Jakkin,” Akki said. “Don’t think about it. The past is the past. Let it go. Let’s enjoy
what we have now. Show me your new pots, and then we can eat.”
They walked into the cave, one of three they’d claimed as their own. Though Jakkin still thought of them
as numbers-one, two, and three-Akki had named them. The cave in the Lower Meadows was Golden’s
Cave, named after their friend who had fled with them and had most certainly died at the wardens’
hands. Golden’s Cave had caches of berries for flavoring and for drinks. Akki had strung dried flowers
on vines that made a rustly curtain between the main cave and the smaller sleeping quarters, which they
kept private from the dragons. Higher on the mountain, but not as high as the Upper Mead ows, was
Likkarn’s Lookout. It was as rough and uncompromising a place as the man it was named after, Jakkin’s
old trainer and enemy Likkam. But Likkam had proved a surprising ally in the end, and so had the
lookout cave, serving them several times in the early days of their exile when they’d spotted bands of
searchers down in the valley. But the middle cave, which Akki called the New Nursery, was the one they
really considered their home.
What had first drawn them to it had been its size. It had a great hollow vaulted room with a succession of
smaller caves behind. There were wonderful ledges at different levels along the walls on which Jakkin’s
unfired clay bowls and canisters sat. Ungainly and thick the clay pots certainly were, but Jakkin’s skills
were improving with each try, and the bowls, if not pretty, were functional, holding stashes of
chikkberries, dried mushrooms like the cave apples Jakkin so disliked, and edible grasses. So far his
own favorite bit of work was a largebellied jar containing boil. It was the one piece he had successfully
fired and it was hard and did not leak.
The floor of the cave was covered with dried grasses that lent a sharp sweet odor to the air. There was a
mattress of the same grass, which they changed every few days. The bed lay in one of the small inner
chambers where, beneath a natural chimney, they could look up at night and see the stars.
“There!” Jakkin said, pointing to the shelf that held his latest, still damp work. “This clay was a lot easier
to work.”
There were five new pots, one large bowl, and two slightly lopsided drinking cups.
:“What do you think?”
“Oh, Jakkin, they’re the best yet. When they’re dry we must try them in the fire. What do you think?”
“I think…” And then he laughed, shaping a picture of an enormous cave apple in his mind. The
mushroom had an enormous bitesized chunk out of it.
Akki laughed. “If you are hungry enough to think about eating that,” she said, “we’d better start the
dinner right away!”
“ We come. Have hunger, too.” The sendings from the three smallest dragons broke into Jakkin’s head.
Their signature colors were shades of pink and rose.
“We wait. We ride your shoulder. Our eyes are yours.” That came from the largest two of Heart’s
Blood’s hatchlings. They were already able to travel miles with neither hunger nor fatigue, and their
sendings had matured to a deeper red. Sssargon and Sssasha, the names they had given themselves with
the characteristic dragon hiss at the beginning, spent most of the daylight hours catching currents of air
that carried them over the jagged mountain peaks. They were, as they called themselves, Jakkin’s and
Akki’s eyes, a mobile warning signal. But they were not needed for scouting at night because there was
nothing Jakkin and Akki feared once the true dark set in.
“Come home. Come home.” Jakkin’s sending was a green vine of thought.
“Yes, come home.” Akki’s sending, much weaker than Jakkin’s, was a twining of blue strands around his
brighter green. Blue and green, the braiding of the cooler human colors.
“Come home, ” called the blue once again. “Come home. I have much food And I have a new song for
you.” The sending was soothing and inviting at the same time. The young dragons loved songs, loved the
thrumming, humming sounds, especially if the songs concerned great flying worms. Baby dragons, Akki’s
thought passed along to Jakkin, thought mostly about two things-themselves and what they wanted to
eat.
chapter 2
“THEY’LL BE HERE SOON,” Akki said in the sensible tone she often used when talking about the
hatchlings. “So we’d better eat. You know how much attention they demand once they’re down-rubbing
and coaxing and ear scratching.”
“Nursery dragons are worse,” reminded Jakkin. “They can’t do anything for themselves. Except eat. At
least these are finding grazing on their own. And they groom themselves. And…”
“They’re still babies, though.”
“Some babies!” Jakkin laughed and held his hand above Akki’s head. Sssargon’s broad back already
came that high, and with his long ridged neck and enormous head, he was twice Jakkin’s height and still
growing.
“Big babies!” Akki amended.
They laughed aloud together and then walked to the pathway, where they sat down on the flat rocks that
flanked the cave mouth. Akki shared out the bits of mushroom and then the berries. She had found three
kinds: tart chikkberries, black and juicy warden’s heart, and the dry, pebbly wormseye. They washed the
meal down with a cup of boil, the thin soup made from cooking the greasy brown skkagg grass of the
high meadow. Boil was only drinkable cold-and then just barely. Jakkin made a face.
“I still miss a cup of hot takk with my dinner,” he said. He wiped away a purple smear from his mouth, a
trace of warden’s heart, and slowly looked up at the sky. A dark smudge in the west resolved itself into a
dragon form. As it came closer, Jakkin stood.
“Sssargon come.” Sssargon always announced himself, keeping up a running commentary on his actions.
“Sssargon lands.”
His wings stiffed the dust at the cave mouth, and for a moment obscured his landing, but Jakkin knew it
was a perfect touchdown. For such a large and clumsy-looking beast, Sssargon was often quite dainty.
“Sssargon folds wings.” The great pinions swept back against his sides, the scaly feathers fluttering for
just a moment before quieting. Sssargon squatted, then let his large ribbed tongue flick in and out
between his jaws. “Sssargon hungers.”
Jakkin went back into the cave and came out with a handful of wild bumwort, just enough to take the
edge off Sssargon’s hunger and to quiet his pronouncements. Though Heart’s Blood’s hatchlings had
begun to graze on their own in the various high meadows full of wort and weed, they hated giving up their
ritual of sharing. Jakkin had to admit that he also hated to think about giving it up. He smiled tenderly at
the dragon.
“Big babies,” Akki whispered.
Jakkin ignored her and focused on Sssargon. “Here, big fellow,” he said aloud, adding a quick
green-tinged visualization of the wort.
Sssargon’s rough tongue snagged the plant from Jakkin’s hand, and his answer was the crisp snip-snap
of wort being crunched between his teeth.
Sssasha landed just as Sssargon began to eat, with neither fanfare nor commentary. She stepped over his
outstretched tail but folded her wings a second too soon, which made her cant to one side. She had to
flip her outside wing open again in order to right herself The red flicker of amusement that Sssargon sent
through all their minds made Jakkin sputter. Akki broke into a cascade of giggles, but Sssasha was too
even-tempered to mind. She was as sunny as the splash of gold across her nose, a slash of color
that-along with her even disposition and placid ways-would have made her unfit either to fight in the pits
as had her mother, Heart’s Blood, or to be considered for spaying and dwarfing as a beauty, a house
pet. Jakkin realized, with a kind of dawning horror, that Sssasha would have been one of the early culls in
the nurseries, where hatchlings were bred for only one of three destinies. The bonders said, pit, pet, or
stew. Jakkin swallowed hastily at the thought of Sssasha in one of the stews, a green-suited steward
standing over her, placing a stinger to her ear, a knife at her throat. He bit his lip, all laughter gone.
“What pain?” Sssasha’s question poked into his mind.
“No pain,” Jakkin said aloud, but his mind transferred a different thought.
“Yes, pain, ” insisted Sssasha.
“Old pain. Gone. Jakkin made his mind a careful blank. It was hard work, and he could feel himself
starting to perspire.
“Good, ” said Sssasha.
“Yesssssss, good, ” Sssargon interrupted suddenly, exploding red bomb bursts in Jakkin’s head.
“Sssargon have great hunger.”
Akki, who had been following this silent exchange thoughtfully, soothed them all with a picture of a cool
blue rain, holding it in mind long enough for Jakkin to go back into the cave for two more large handfuls
of won.
Once in the cave, Jakkin was able to let his guard down for a minute, though he reminded himself that
even in the cool darkness of the cave, behind walls of stone, he could not be private. His mind was an
open invitation to Akki or any dragon who wanted to enter it. Only with the most careful and arduous
concentration could he guard its entrance. He had to visualize a wall built up plank by plank or a heavy
drapery drawn across it inch by inch. And usually by the time he had carefully constructed these images,
the traitor thoughts had already slipped out. He wondered how dragons kept secrets or even if they had
secrets to keep. Everything he thought or felt was now open and public.
“Open to me, anyway,” Akki said as Jakkin emerged from the cave.
He realized with sudden chagrin that she had been listening to his self-pitying thoughts. The more
powerful the emotion, the farther it seemed to broadcast. Akki, listening quietly, had sent nothing in
return. Flushing with embarrassment, Jakkin looked down at the ground, trying to think of a way to
phrase what he had to say out loud. He knew he could control words, because he didn’t actually have to
say anything until he was ready. At last he spoke. “Sometimes,” he began reluctantly, “sometimes a man
needs to be alone.” He held out the wort to Sssargon and concentrated totally on that.
‘ ’ Sometimes,“ Akki said to his back, ”sometimes a woman needs to be alone, too.“
He turned his head to apologize. Words, it seemed, could be slippery, too. But Akki wasn’t looking at
him. She had her hands up to her eyes, as if shading them from the too-colorful dark.
“Jakkin, this is a strange gift we’ve been given, being able to sneak into one another’s minds. But…”
“But at least we’re together,” Jakkin said, suddenly afraid of what else Akki might say, suddenly afraid
that the words, more than any thoughts, might hurt terribly.
We may be together more than we ever meant to be,“ Akki said. But even as she said it she touched his
hand.
He concentrated on that touch and let the rest of it go, making his mind a blank slate like the evening sky.
At last little spear points of violet blue pushed across that blank and Jakkin realized Akki was worried.
“Where are the triplets?” she asked. “They should have been here by now. And that’s a worry I don’t
mind sharing.”
“Sssargon not worry. You not worry.” Munching contentedly on the last few straws of wort, the dragon
gave off waves of mindless serenity. His mood changed only when he noticed that he had finished what
was in his mouth, at which point he stretched his neck out to its greatest length and stole a few bites from
his sister.
“That’s very reassuring, Sssargon, ” Akki sent.
Jakkin could only guess at the sarcasm behind her thought. There was no color translation for it.
Sssasha let Sssargon take the last of her wort and rose clumsily. She clambered toward Jakkin to see if
she could nose out some more food. Bumping against his shoulder, she nearly knocked him to the
ground.
“Fewmets!” he cried out. “I may be able to see and hear like a dragon now, but I still can’t fly, Sssasha.
If you knock me off the mountain, I’ll land splat!” He tried to send the sound of it with his mind.
“Splat!” Jakkin said, then shouted, “SPLAT!”
Akki cupped her hand and slapped it against the dragon’s haunch. It made a strange sound.
Sssasha blinked, then sent a barrage of red bubbles into Jakkin’s mind. Each one burst with a noise that
sounded remarkably like splat!
“Exactly,” Jakkin said aloud. “And if you think that sounds funny, you should see how funny I’d look
splattered all over the landscape.” His laugh was a short barking sound.
But the joke was untranslatable to the dragon and all she received was an unfocused color picture of
Jakkin’s mood: a net of wistfulness, a slash of anger, and a wisp of lingering self-pity. She turned her
head away and gazed out across the mountains that edged into the valley below. If she was amused or
worried or upset, no one could tell from her rosy sending and her casual stance.
“Dragons!” Jakkin muttered to himself. Even with his dragon sight he could not pierce the darkness to
see what drew her gaze, so he settled down next to her on his haunches, ran his hands through his hair,
and waited.
It was five minutes before the triplets began sounding in his mind.
摘要：

 Color---1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9-TextSize--10--11--12--13--14--15--16--17--18--19--20--21--22--23--24Book03ofThePitDragonTrilogyASendingofDragonsByYolen,JaneASENDINGOFDRAGONS.ThespellbindingclimaxtothePitDragonTrilogy.YoungdragonmasterJakkinStewartandhisbelovedAkkiareontherun.Behindthemaremurderou...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：93 页 大小：239.17KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-18

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