The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(36)

Gray digs her little claws into the ground in anticipation of the whistles, and she digs them into him when she wants to play.

She’s a ferocious pouncer, spreading her wings to cover a wide area should the beetle try to escape, and she’s getting the hang of flying and striking while in the air, though her aim needs work. Jeryon is now on his fourth pole.

He’s impressed by the thread, which the poth has been hand-spinning around bamboo spindles. Early versions frayed or snapped at the slightest tug, but she’s continually improving her design. The poth says she’d be much better at spinning had she paid any attention to her lessons as a girl. Nonetheless, the wyrmling can chew off the beetle and the thread remains usable.

Her goal is to spin a thread thin enough for use with Jeryon’s needle, and still strong enough to fix the rips in her smock and underclothes. At least they’re clean. She made a crude olive press out of mats woven from thin strips of bamboo and a large stone, then turned some of the resulting oil into a stronger version of Jeryon’s campfire soap. Another pond nearby has become their washbasin. There’s even a nice flat rock for each of them to sit on while their clothes lie around them drying.

She made a flower out of palm fronds that, when mounted on a bamboo post, indicates a desire for privacy. Sometimes it’s her freedom rock. Sometimes it’s her weeping one.

Jeryon doesn’t waste much time bathing and less time drying. He spends more time agonizing over his stubble, which he has, on several occasions, attacked nearly fatally with his blade.

One night, when it’s her turn to cook, she sits him down while her meal sizzles to check his latest shaving wounds. “You could just grow out your beard,” she says. “It would look nice.”

“I like a clean face,” he says.

“By ‘clean’ you must mean ‘laced with scars.’ ” She dabs his cheek with a medicinal lotion she’s made. “I’ll trim it for you, if you’d like. I used to do my father’s.”

“Will you take away the lotion if I don’t?”

“No,” she says. “Who would do such a thing?”

Anyone in Hanosh. If a game’s going against you, take the ball. “Fine,” he says and turns away.

“Good,” she says. She fills a plate and holds it out. When he looks at her, she hands it to him.

A bite later he thinks, Hey, wait a minute.

After a month, Jeryon says Gray is big enough to learn a new game, Crab Fight. The pen is too small for what he has in mind, so he builds a six-foot-wide, three-foot-high bamboo arena out of logs piled between stakes. Into it will go a white crab and the wyrmling. Jeryon calls it the Hanoshi Sandbox.

“She’ll be so small in there,” the poth says.

“She’ll be fine,” Jeryon says. “Toss a kid off the dock, he learns how to swim.”

“Is that how you learned?” she says.

“Actually, I was thrown over the transom,” he says. “If it makes you feel better, you can stand in one corner and I’ll stand in the other and we’ll pull the combatants apart at the first sign of trouble.”

This placates her. They get into the arena.

Jeryon sets a crab in the pit. The poth hauls the wyrmling from her pocket. Gray struggles, but she isn’t scared. She smells her opponent. She knows what crab is for. The poth sets her down and whistles twice. She sits, staring at the crab.

The crab raises its claws and clacks once.

Jeryon whistles three times: Fight!

Gray crawls forward cautiously on her wing hands, assessing the crab, which circles sideways around the wyrmling. She turns, following its waggling eyes. The crab opens its claws as wide as they can go, then snaps them shut. Each is bigger than the wyrmling’s head. They could easily break her neck. She stands and stretches her wings and flaps a few times. The crab snips at them. Her head rears, her jaw drops, and she squeals at the crab. It snips at her face, gauging the distance between them.

The poth holds her sword, sheathed, ready to bat the crab away. Jeryon makes little feints with his fists.

Gray readies a pounce. The crab raises a claw to discourage her. She isn’t and springs into flight. She floats around the crab in tight circles, the crab scuttling around to follow her eyes. She darts at its back. She makes a grab for its claws to lift it up and drop it. She snaps at its face. The crab won’t let her get close. Its claws are a waving, clicking wall. Finally, frustrated, the wyrmling lands in a neutral corner and sits with her tail swishing at the crab.

“What’s she doing?” Jeryon says.

The crabs wonders too. It edges closer. Swish. Closer still. Swish. The crab reaches for her tail. The poth bites her lip. The wyrmling flicks its tail and snaps the crab right in the eye. It bows in pain as the wyrmling spins, slides her wing under the crab’s left legs, then lifts. The crab’s broad claw clamps down on the wing. Gray hisses. The crab’s legs come off the ground. It readies its other claw to strike. Gray heaves the crab over.

The crab lets go of the wyrmling’s bleeding wing and flings out its claws to press off the ground and right itself. Gray stands on one claw and bites off the other, then gnashes off the first. The crab waggles its stumps and legs, trying to rock itself right-side up. Gray studies the crab a moment before sitting on its apron and biting off its legs, one by one. The crab’s split mouth shouts silently.