"Do we need to run?" asked Jakkin. "Can't we just explain?
"Don't be thick, Jakkin," Akki said. "Explain what? That we didn't really know about the bombs - except for the one in the case, which really wasn't ours, anyway? That we were forced to bring it in? I expect Kkalkkav doesn't really care."
"I expect you're right," said Golden. "He has to bring in a bomber. And any bomber will do for now, just so the public's satisfied something's being done. Now about that back door..."
"This way," said Akki, starting toward a short hall.
"I'm not running anymore," said Jakkin. "I've finally figured it out - this is where I've been running to."
"What do places matter?" asked Golden, grabbing his hand and jerking him along.
Jakkin yanked back and the two scuffled briefly. Akki put her hand on the door handle and was about to open it when it was flung outward.
Standing in the entrance were a dozen wardens, Errikkin standing sheepishly at the back of the lot. Jakkin welled up with anger. He was about to reprimand the bonder when he was roughly shoved into the wall. Kkalkkav pushed his way to the front of the anti-rebel squad. "Golden. Go. We'll deal with you later," as soon as he was given the instruction, Golden hurried out of the room. "As for you two bonders, you're coming with us." The wardens raised their guns menacingly. Jakkin's heart pounded in his ears. Without thinking, he grabbed Akki's wrist and ran through the front door.
When they reached outside Akki whispered, "Do you hear that?". Jakkin heard it loud and clear. Heart's Blood's sending was dark and muddy and angry. Her usual rainbow was painted shades of vermillion. He began to send back an image of where they were when the wardens burst through the door. Jakkin shouted, "Run!" and they headed towards the barn where the stud dragons were kept and ran to Bloody Flag's stall.
The big brown sensed their worry and the dragon's fire in his eyes showed more than usual. Jakkin patted the dragon's nose and hummed a nursery tune both to calm himself and it. Flag began to thrum after awhile, and patting the dragon one final time on the head, Jakkin rose. He was lucky the wardens hadn't searched the stud barn yet, seeing as it was one of the more obvious places someone would hide. He turned to face Akki. She was leaning against the dragon's flank. She glanced at him. "Well, mister genius, have you thought up a place to hide?" Even though their lives were in danger, she still hadn't lost her mocking tone. Jakkin bit his lip and searched around the stall for a suitable place to hide.
A few minutes later, the only places he had come up with were in a pile of burnwort at the back of the stall and in the incubarn, which was too far away to risk going to; the wort would have to do. The sound of the squeaky hinges on the door being opened told Jakkin and Akki the wardens would be searching the stalls any minute. Jakkin pulled Akki into the pile of weed and wort. "Fewmets, Jakkin - have you lost your mind--!" Akki was cut off by Jakkin's hand over her mouth.
"...so they bombed Rokk Major, eh?" Jakkin was surprised to hear Likkarn's voice instead of Kkalkkav's. He couldn't believe he had trusted Likkarn for a minute! The old man was just going to turn them in to the wardens.
Bloody Flag soon became restless as did the other dragons. They were responding to the wardens like they would to an enemy in the pits. Blood Bather in stall 7B roared his challenge to them, and Flag hackled and fluttered his wings nervously, disturbing the layer of sawdust in the stall. A few more undistinguishable words were said by Likkarn and Kkalkkav. Above the noise of the dragons, Jakkin could just make out the opening and closing of stall doors and the scuffling of feet on the sawdust as the wardens searched for them.
At last, he heard footsteps outside Flag's stall. Flag screamed his opposition to the wardens and paced around the stall, tail waving wildly. He heard Kkalkkav's nervous voice outside the stall door. "Well, this is the last one - they have to be in here." There was a long pause. "Well, are you going to open the door or what?" the chief had become impatient. "Bloody Flag is one of the best fighters here - moves like lightning, e does. I expect e's already hackled by now." There was another awkward pause. So Likkarn was trying to save them. Or at least it seemed that way. "Dead bombers are better than no bombers. Like you bonders say: quitting fills no man's bag -- or was it regrets? Or looking back?" Kkalkkav had confused himself with the sayings. "It doesn't matter, just open that door!" His voice was more demanding now.
As the door swung open, many of the wardens had drawn their stingers and set them to 'stun'. Jakkin heard them go off, one, two, three, and then Bloody Flag's booming crash. He heard the wardens come closer to the stack of wort, look it over, and walk away. Jakkin's hand slipped on something as he shrugged away from the front of the pile. It seemed to be a handle to some secret door. "Chief, I think we've got something," the warden called. Kkalkkav was over there in no time, which was just enough time for Jakkin to slip through the door and pull Akki with him.
They found themselves in a musty passageway which smelled strongly of dragon, not that everything else didn't. Jakkin and Akki brushed through cobwebs until they saw a faint light. They headed towards it, Jakkin in the lead, and pushed open a door just the right size for them and squeezed through.
Jakkin squinted at the sudden burst of light and looked around. The floor was covered with sawdust and burnwort, and broken eggshells littered the area. Heart's Blood was cleaning her five new hatchlings which were now shoulder-to-shoulder with Akki. The triplets of the bunch piped their excitement. Sssargon, the largest male stamped on the floor with his tree-trunk legs and smoke trickled out of his nose slits. Sssasha's, ignoring her usual laid-back attitude, wings fluttered nervously. Jakkin looked at the triplets to see that they were crowding around something. Trisss looked up at him and let out a 'peep' that sounded much too high-pitched for her large body. She backed away to reveal Golden, who looked like he would pass out from the dragon-stench that outworlders weren't used to. "Jakkin! Akki! Good to see you two alive!" his face lit up at the sight of them. "Now, where are the wardens? We need to figure out a way to escape."
"That's a nice way to say hello," Akki commented, and crossed her arms over her chest. She looked at Jakkin. "I hope you've got a plan." Jakkin tried to look like he knew what he was doing. "I've gotten us this far... Maybe we could ride Heart's Blood?" Heart's Blood looked up at him and provided a nice mental picture of a red dragon carrying three humans running into a mountain with a sickening splat noise and shook her head. "But there's a spikka copse right outside the nursery. We could go there to camp for awhile, then we can come back when there's no danger," Akki suggested. "You're forgetting the Drakk there. They'd kill a human if it got to close to a nest," Golden replied. He was right. Drakk were viscious and could kill with a single swipe of their claw. "But Jakkin," Akki pointed at Jakkin, "has killed a drakk before with just a knife." "Have you, now?" Golden questioned. Jakkin hadn't mentioned to Akki that all he had really done was dip his knife into a drakk after it was killed by Likkarn. "Well, come on, there's a door leading out where there are no wardens. Let's go!" Akki was impatient. The wardens would probably do a second search, and the incubarn would probably be their first destination.
Akki guided them to the door and they walked out into the burning sunlight. Jakkin jumped and felt a hand on his shoulder. "Just where...do you think you're going?" Likkarn spat at them. Golden held up his finger as if to speak, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, and closed it again. Then he turned away from Likkarn and muttered something under his breath. Intimidation had got the better of him, but not Jakkin. "We're going to the spikka copse," he said and thrust Likkarn's hand off. "With no help from anyone!" He added, quickly. Surprisingly, Likkarn stepped back and said, "Fine. Go." Jakkin was shocked for a minute, then he walked a few steps forward, like a scared animal, to make sure Likkarn wasn't planning anything. After awhile, he felt more confident and moved forward swiftly, guiding the others to the forest. It only had 40 trees, but by Austar standards, that was a large forest.
(Heehee. Finally got this one up. insert happiness here Sorry for the sudden stop. More about setting up camp next chapter. You know, this was originally a book report I had to do; changing the ending, I mean. That points to last sentence wasn't the last sentence, though. It was like… the end of the second-to-last paragraph. But don't worry, I'll make it longer. 'til next time!)