Steelhands (2011)

by Jaida Jones

  “I’ve been looking forward to your reaction for a long time,” Troius said, stopping short in front of this new door to remove one of his gloves. I saw a flash of metal against the palm of his hand—probably a key—but he just wrapped his fingers around the steel knob, palm flat against it. I heard the turning of heavy gears, the sound of them grinding as some mechanism was unlocked, then the door swung open.

  We were standing on the threshold of a large room with high ceilings and fine tiles, with a few other young men—and women, too—dressed in the same style as Troius, wearing all black like they were attending Thremedon’s funeral.

  But I wasn’t looking at them, not after the first moment. Not with the dragon in the room.

  She was little, looking like barely more than a baby, and built with all streamlined silver metals. Her eyes were smoky and pale. There were smaller differences between her and the girls I was used to seeing, but the most important one was size. There was no way a grown man could ride her; she was only about the height of a grown man herself, with a narrower wingspan and no carved place for a harness and saddle.

  The moment Troius stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, she came forward with her talons scraping the floor, stinking the way the old girls used to, of forges and fire on metal.

  “Very handy to have an army you don’t need to feed, isn’t it?” Troius asked. “Although the cost of making just one could feed an army itself. A good thing the Ke-Han Empire needed to pay us so much tribute. And a good thing we had so much scrap metal left over from the first round.”

  So this was one of ours, I realized, melted down and re-formed. It would’ve felt as wrong as if I’d seen a baby made out of Roy’s and Luvander’s and Balfour’s body parts all sewn together, but Troius had achieved his life’s dream and I was rendered speechless.

  “Adamo, meet Ironjaw,” Troius said, holding his hand out for the dragon to press her sharp muzzle directly into it, like a dog rooting around for a treat. I could see there was a round piece of metal actually implanted in the center of his palm; there was a jewel the color of blood right in the middle. “She was the first, and I was a suitable match for her. Can you imagine? Just when I thought I’d never have my chance to be a member of the Dragon Corps—a new Dragon Guard was built, and I the premier member.”

  I didn’t ask the obvious question—the one he clearly wanted me to ask, about whether or not he was king of Dragonland, and all that horseshit. “ ‘A suitable match?’ ” I repeated instead.

  “A great deal of blood was tested,” Troius explained, momentarily disappointed by what’d piqued my interest. “The Esar couldn’t have anyone from the city join these ranks, not with their biases. They could be too easily manipulated by members of the Basquiat, you see. But as it turned out, there were more Talentless bastards in the countryside than in the city anyway, so he brought them all in, myself included. A few were tested before me; Ironjaw rejected all the other potential matches. The fever even killed two of them. But not me.”

  “How many did she go through?” I asked. Troius would probably like answering that.

  “Ten,” he replied proudly.

  “And what about the others she rejected? The ones that didn’t die?” I pressed.

  Ironjaw was coming closer to me—though I, despite everything, had been trying to keep my distance. The floor was all cut up with talon marks, just from her taking her daily walks, and her metal-lined nostrils were enormous, bigger than Proudmouth’s had been. She was scenting me out, I realized, and I held still.

  If there was anything of Proudmouth left inside her, I wondered if she’d recognize me. But there was nothing recognizable about Proudmouth as far as I could see.

  Holding it together, talking about business, making sure I got some answers—doing all that with a dragon circling me and not letting on to the way my heart was beating—was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. And I’d fought Ke-Han magicians in my time. Head-fucking-on.

  “A few of them are my assistants,” Troius replied. “Some work on the other two.”

  I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice. “There are more?” I asked. I really was feeding into the drama Troius wanted, but I would’ve dared any other man in my shoes not to react the same way as I had.

  “Well, yes,” Troius said, sounding slightly distressed. “One of them, unfortunately, chose a very simple country boy, and he named her Cornflower. After one of his cows, apparently.”

  My head was swirling. “And the third?” I asked.

  Troius’s lips twitched. “The young woman she chose has not yet presented herself,” he replied.

  “Sounds sensible to me,” I said, talking to try to keep my head above water, at this point. “Maybe you scared her off.”

  “She’s being tracked down as we speak,” Troius said. “With the massive expenses involved, you can’t very well just let someone go if one of the dragons takes a liking to her. We’re still ironing out all the kinks.” He flexed his palm idly; the metal in the center looked stiff, like it was bothering him. Something about it reminded me of Balfour, and I remembered what Troius had said about that fever killing people. He was lucky it hadn’t done the same to Balfour—though I had to wonder why Balfour’d fallen ill in the first place. Th’Esar wanted fresh blood, obviously, and young fools whose minds he could shape any way he wanted, so they’d always agree with him on how the wind was blowing. That was why he hadn’t brought this plan to me or the other boys, despite the pain in the ass it’d be training new recruits. We were probably too opinionated for him.

  So why had Balfour gotten sick? Some kinda mix-up with his hands, or something worse?

  I didn’t have enough information yet, so I was gonna have to keep this conversation going.

  “Never did any of this stuff with the old dragons,” I muttered, hoping I was pandering to Troius’s idea of me as the gruff old Chief Sergeant who just needed a push to let go of his outdated, preconceived notions. To him, I was a stodgy old man who needed to be shown the light of progress. It’d give him a charge to think he was teaching his mother to suck eggs, and I’d have to swallow my pride and let him believe it.

  “Well, that’s not entirely true,” Troius said. At his feet, Ironjaw was still staring at me. It was real difficult not to hold my hand out or something—just like Troius had—the way I’d do for a friendly dog, or even for my girl, back in the day. “Part of the problem with the initial run of dragons was that the Esar himself had very little control over them. They chose who pleased them at will, and that gave you a little too much power, don’t you think? Power over a very expensive and personal endeavor put forward by the Esar. Does that seem fair to you? It’s no wonder he wanted to try again—and this time, be able to actually control the experiment.”

  “So what makes these ones so special, then?” I asked, like I was real skeptical. “Other than them being pint-size, and probably house-trained.” I knew men like Troius. All I had to do was convince him he already had me all figured out and he’d let down his guard.

  ’Course, what I was gonna do after that was anyone’s guess, but at least I had a starting point.

  “I’m so glad you asked,” Troius said, and he really did look pleased—with himself, mostly. “I must say, I did hope that once you saw our progress for yourself, it would put you in a more compliant state of mind. That being said, well, I’m sure my particular … situation didn’t escape your sharp eyes?”

  He held out his hand, giving me a better look at it this time. The metal in his palm was about the size of a watch’s face, silver like the dragon’s knobby spine, and the red jewel bigger than I’d thought at first glance. There was also something moving inside, like a liquid, though the gem was too dark for me to be able to see it too clearly.

  Lucky for me, Troius was the kind of idiot who liked talking about himself more than anything else.

  “Never seen anything like it before,” I grunted, ’cause he’d love that.

  S
ure enough, he brightened like I’d told him he was the son I’d never had and we were gonna go berry-picking in the fields together, just us and his pet dragon.

  “I’m honored to be the man who gets to show it to you,” Troius said, passing his good hand through his hair. “Truly, I know that to you it must sound as though I’m repeating myself, but … I’ve admired you for a long time, Adamo. Well, anyway, this little gem solves the problem of loyalty quite handily. Once the dragon makes her selection, our Margrave takes the accepted donor’s blood and mixes it with the dragonsoul material. She obeys my commands, true enough, but our relationship goes deeper than that. I hate to throw philosophy in where it doesn’t belong, but you could say we’re one being. I hear her now and then, but unlike your ‘girls,’ she doesn’t have complete independence. She can’t act on her own; she needs me to approve or disapprove of her decisions. In turn, I issue the commands, and she fulfills them.”

  I was starting to feel a little too much like a teacup in a tempest for my comfort. Even though I’d joked about Royston being the last person you’d want to come and bust you out of jail, I sure wished I had him there, to listen to all this, and not forget a single detail. He was an ace at sorting through shit piles of information real quick—not to mention he had a lot more experience in dealing with pompous jackasses than I did. My jackasses tended to be the regular type—the snotty ones that cried when you blew too hard in their direction.

  I was just trying not to stare at Ironjaw.

  She had begun pacing between me and Troius, sharp claws digging into the floor for purchase. Our girls had never done a lot of walking; I guess now I knew why. They’d practically been caged up, only let out on rare occasions; they definitely didn’t make good house pets.

  This one could probably have slept curled up on a kiddie bed, having the whole run of an apartment without her tail slapping against any walls. That is, if nobody minded ruining the floorboards.

  “So what you’re saying is th’Esar doesn’t need to worry about losing control of his dragons this time since he’s got ’em hooked up to some of his most loyal citizens,” I summarized. If I were ever to get out of there, I needed to make the story short, sweet, and scary enough that it’d be able to mobilize people to do something instead of just wag their tongues.

  Th’Esar was crazy for trying to pull a stunt like this, and Troius so glory-hounded he would’ve gone along with anything to see a piece of the action.

  “Something like that,” Troius admitted. “The Esar trusts me of course, but some of the others can hardly be called loyal. Or even citizens, for that matter. While we made a considerable number of improvements to the arrangement this time around, what we weren’t able to change was that pesky side effect of dragons needing to choose their riders. Or their owners, I suppose, given the circumstances and allowances made for size. We presented vials of each candidate’s blood, and wouldn’t you know it—I was the only member of the Esar’s trusted guard to be chosen at all. The others didn’t pass the test. I’m not sure whether that makes me lucky—I’m inclined to believe it makes me special. In any case, we mixed that blood with the well water in each dragon’s soul, binding machine and man together; part of that mixture resides in the dragons, and part is kept with the Esar. You see, in the absence of working with those he can trust, the Esar had to resort to a contingency plan. He has the power to destroy both dragon and guard if he sees fit should they attempt to betray him. Considering what occurred during the run of the first Dragon Corps, we thought it best to do things this way.”

  I rubbed my hands over my eyes. My first thought was, At least there aren’t more of them, but I couldn’t deny that part of me almost wanted to see it. Maybe even have one of my own, like I really was lonely enough that I’d trade in the real deal for a toy version.

  There was no bastion-damned way I was gonna be happy with it, though. I was just pissed because of how cockeyed the plan was—and also how I’d been left out of a system I’d once considered, however foolishly, mine.

  “So what do you need me for?” I asked. “Sounds like you’re all set. Three dragons, three people, and a bunch of lackeys to spit and polish. Th’Esar’s brand-new Dragon Guard. You’re all set.”

  “Well, we are currently working on a fourth,” Troius said shrewdly. And where was all this damn coin coming from? “But no, I can’t mislead you in all good conscience—were you to sign on with us, you wouldn’t be granted a dragon of your own. Of course, I trust you, but the Esar … Well, he’s his own matter entirely. He made certain provisions in order to avoid the mess that happened with your era. What we would like—what I would like—would be for you to join as an advisor. A mentor, really. Your experience is invaluable. No magician’s experiment can replicate that, no matter how hard they may try. You know the old guard in and out. In my opinion, from my studies, I believe that any Dragon Corps or Dragon Guard would be in need of its Chief Sergeant.”

  “Chief Sergeants fight alongside their men,” I explained. He’d probably read about that part, too—or had he conveniently forgotten it?

  “That wouldn’t be possible,” Troius replied, looking disappointed himself. “Unfortunately.”

  “So, I’d be a mascot,” I said, rubbing at my jaw. I’d been clenching it so tight that it felt like iron. “Someone to ride in carriages at parades and let all of Thremedon know this ain’t just some upstart’s idea of throwing his predecessors to the dogs. That this has history; that all they have to do is take a look at the statue to know they can trust their good old hero.”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,” Troius said. “I know it’s a lot to take in at once.”

  “Yeah, and I need some time to think it over,” I replied, because it was what he’d been expecting. If Antoinette turned out to be right, then there was gonna be some kind of rescue headed our way, and I needed to be in my cell in order to get rescued.

  Then again, knowing what I knew, I didn’t want anyone coming for us. I could only assume these new girls were weapons; those talons looked mighty sharp, and I could tell by Ironjaw’s stink that she was a fire-breather. Whether or not she was a smaller version than the one I was intimate with, I knew firsthand how dangerous she could be.

  “Of course you need some time,” Troius said, looking mighty relieved. “I hope you won’t take it personally when I return you to your cell. Proper protocols must be observed, even in these times of upheaval. And you can’t imagine I’d be able to let you go free now after everything I’ve showed you.”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  Being thrown in a cell wasn’t something I’d chosen to take personally. But having everything I’d stood for resurrected, torn apart, and stitched back together like every nightmare I’d ever had after the war’d ended—that was a different story.

  Still, I let Troius usher me out, real polite-like, stopping only to pat his dragon on the head like she was his pet cat. She looked after him, expression unreadable, but she met my eyes when I finally allowed myself to really look at her. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad, or even if she felt anything.

  I didn’t look back again, but the image of her stuck in my mind like a well-aimed dart. It wasn’t until we’d made it back across the bridge that I realized what’d been bothering me about Ironjaw: All that time in the room, and she’d never said a word.

  TWELVE

  LAURE

  Ex–Chief Sergeant Professor Adamo had been arrested, and I was starting to think it was a miracle we’d won the war at all considering how the rest of the Dragon Corps chose to respond. By doing absolutely nothing.

  That wasn’t exactly fair of me—better they come up with some sort of a plan than charge in and make an already bad situation ten times worse—not to mention we didn’t know whether Adamo was being kept in the regular prison or, more likely, somewhere else. But I was feeling so mixed up that being fair was the least of my worries. I was spitting mad, sure, but there was something else going on that made my ch
est feel tight—and for once it wasn’t an old bodice I’d squeezed myself into. Every man there was feeling turned on his head, but I could tell from a glance around the room that none of ’em was feeling like I was. It was part responsible and part awful, and another part I wasn’t willing to examine too closely just yet. It was gonna mean a heap of trouble once the dust’d gone and settled, but it looked like I wasn’t going to have to worry about that for a long time yet. I didn’t even have it in me to stop Toverre from polishing all the spoons in Luvander’s kitchen, though I’d stopped him short of starting on the cupboard handles.

  “Now isn’t the time,” I told him a little too sharply.

  “It won’t take long,” he hissed back, but he did drop his hands. After that, with nothing to do, he looked like a wilted marsh reed.

  But if he got started, I was afraid I’d join him. It was getting that bad, just sitting crammed in Luvander’s upstairs apartment, which was at least more comfortable than waiting in the stockroom of the hat shop. Only none of us deserved to be feeling comfortable.

  I felt like a traitor and a deserter—like we’d all abandoned our captain in the middle of wartime. And he’d taken the heat for us while we sat around polishing spoons and drinking hot cups of tea and talking about the weather.

  “It shouldn’t be too long now,” Balfour’d said, but that’d been two hours ago, going by the shrieking clock downstairs. I was keeping count.

  With every hour that passed, I felt more and more hopeless.

  It was an hour and a half past sunset. If Germaine had sent anyone looking for me at the dorms, then they were shit out of luck since I was spending tonight with my fiancé and what remained of the Dragon Corps. Now, there was something to write home to Da about. I was lucky I was already engaged since no man would marry me if he heard about a night like this one.