A Sending of Dragons Read Online Free PDF Page B

jagged, threatening landscape. Over the last months he’d come to know its beauty. And how it reminded him of a dragon’s necklinks, not only handsome but essential for defense. He and Akki knew these mountains as no one else did. They were part of the landscape now. But if the rebels found them, their lives would be forfeit. If the trackers were wardens or Fedders, and they were caught—well, there were worse things than death. Austar had no physical punishment excepting
transportation.
Break the laws a little, and you were fined. Break the laws a lot, and you were sent offworld, transported to another of the penal planets where life was even harsher than on the tamed Austar. Ice planets like Sedna or water planets like Lir, where the voices of dragons and the color patterns would be gone forever.
    â€œJakkin, please don’t do this.” Akki’s hands were pressed to her head. “Please talk to me. All I’m getting from you are sendings of windstorms and fire, snowstorms and storms at sea. That may be good enough for the dragons, but I need words as well.”
    â€œWords? All right, then, how about these words—we’re leaving. Now. We’ll take jars of berries and boil but leave everything else.”
    â€œFine,” Akki said, her voice hushed. “We can find other caves. Better ones.” Her tone was cheery, but the picture from her mind was of empty, cheerless rooms.
    Suddenly Jakkin wished she had disagreed and put up a fight. He wished she’d come up with an argument to make them stay. Yet he knew the decision to leave was the right one. Then why did he feel so bad?
    â€œIt’s all right, Jakkin,” Akki said. She put her arms around him.
    He broke away angrily. “Lizard waste, Akki. How can I be strong when every little doubt or fear broadcasts itself to you. I hate it!”
    Akki turned away, biting her lip and letting a stray apology wind into his mind. He fought the sending for a long, bitter moment,
but at last accepted it, twined it with a blue braid, and let the two colors slowly fade as he walked back into the cave.
    ***
    U SING CARRY-SLINGS fashioned from woven weeds, they packed the jars, carefully separating them with mattress grass. They corked two jars of boil with pieces of wood Jakkin shaved down to fit. Then he helped Akki slip the smaller sling over her shoulders. She in turn helped him take up the heavier load.
    Besides the food, they packed Jakkin’s knife, the old book of dragon stories Golden had given them, and a spear Jakkin had made by sharpening a dragon femur he’d found in one of the lower caves. They knew they’d have to browse for other food, but they were both expert scavengers by now. In the mountains berries, mushrooms, and skkagg for boil were common all year around. If they were lucky, in the higher meadows they might find lizard eggs and even kkrystals, the translucent six-legged insects that lived in lizard nests. A kkrystal dipped in beaten egg and crisped over
a fire was delicious. Insects had no sendings, or at least none they could hear, and so Jakkin and Akki felt no remorse about eating them.
    Akki walked around the cave one last time, as if memorizing it. There was so little there, yet it had taken them months to make it seem like home.
    â€œWe might never see it again,” she whispered.
    â€œIf we don’t leave soon, we might never see
anything
again,” Jakkin answered. Quite deliberately he shaped a picture of a copter in his mind, a blood red copter winging toward them. There were three men in it, one wearing a Fedder flight cap, one a warden’s hat, and the other had a mustache over a slash of mouth.
    â€œIf we don’t leave soon, I might change my mind,” Akki added.
    Jakkin was glad she had said it, and he worked very hard to keep the same thought out of any of his own sendings.
    Walking into the false dawn, they scarcely felt the bitter cold.

5
    T HEY WALKED UP