Steelhands

by Danielle Bennett

  FOURTEEN

  LAURE

  Toverre was wrapped up enough with making sure Gaeth was all right, and that left me free to cast glances at Adamo in the dark—just to make sure he wasn’t trying to pull one over on us, telling everybody he was feeling okay when he wasn’t. I wasn’t the sort to pull a sneaky maneuver like trying to keep an eye on someone without him knowing it, but then I wasn’t the sort to go inviting men to dinner, either. I imagined Toverre would have a thing or two to say about that once we were out of here, but for once it didn’t matter to me what he thought. Or what anyone else thought, really.

  For the time being, I was content enough to keep an eye on Adamo. There was being strong-willed, then there was getting your troops into trouble because of your stubbornness, and while I shouldn’t’ve been thinking I needed to tell him how to do his job, I still had to make sure he was feeling all right.

  At least he didn’t seem to be limping or anything like that. The most I could pick out was that there was a cut on the back of his neck, real shallow, like he’d accidentally broken skin while scratching. If that was the extent of his injuries, then I guessed he was gonna make it, and I could turn my attention back to more important things—like focusing on where I was going, and maybe also what I was gonna do once we got there.

  And I wasn’t hearing anything anymore, so I could thank whoever was listening for the small favors they were finally granting me.

  It’d started out quiet enough, back when we’d first come down the stairs. I’d heard the voice before, too, though now that it’d disappeared, I wondered if I hadn’t been overthinking things, spooked because of how creepy that workroom was, with all those scattered pieces.

  It made me feel stupid once I realized what those metal parts’d been for—like I maybe should’ve thought of it earlier, only how could I have known? It wasn’t like the Dragon Corps did parades through the countryside; everyone knew what the dragons were, but I’d never seen one up close, and definitely not enough to know what one would look like broken down into doll-size pieces.

  Still, if I’d been smart enough to figure it out right away, then maybe I could’ve told Adamo sooner, and a big chunk of the mess we’d got into might’ve been outright avoided.

  I hated feeling useless more than anything. It wriggled in deep under my skin and stuck there like milk thistles in cotton.

  But if it made me mad, then I figured that was barely scraping the surface of what Adamo and the others must’ve felt like. I’d tried to come up with some kind of comparison, but the only one that even came close was if someone’d gone and dug up White Star, my first pony, from behind the barn. Most people would’ve told me the comparison was crazy—Toverre, for one—but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit.

  She’d been an old girl, but sweet as sugar and gentle as mother’s milk when I’d first been learning to ride, and she’d been a fast racing horse in her day. The way I saw it, the only thing harder than saying good-bye to her in the first place would be if some rich neighbor who thought everything in the world belonged to him, including my da’s property and everything on it, took it into his head to bring her back, just to ride her for fun.

  Something like that was impossible, of course, and that was the difference between a beast made of machinery and one made of flesh and bone. But at the same time, I didn’t think the two were as separate as most people would’ve liked to think. The dragons had definitely been alive to them that’d ridden them—I could tell by the way Luvander had gone all silent, not to mention the way Adamo looked gut-punched whenever he talked about the new ones.

  Compared to that kind of suffering, thinking I’d heard a few whispers seemed like a minor concern. Guess I felt a little silly worrying about myself when the others had just as much riding on what happened, and maybe more. I only wished I could’ve had a chance to talk to Balfour a bit more about whether or not he’d been hearing anything—since apparently he was my hearing-things buddy in all this mess, and I’d noticed him looking around a couple of times like he thought his mam was calling for him.

  I was probably imagining it. Deep dungeons could do something like that to a soldier, and with all we’d been through, I supposed I wasn’t as immune to flights of fancy as I’d always thought. It wasn’t as loud as it’d been during the fever, and like I’d said, that workroom had been fucking eerie. Not to mention we were traveling with a velikaia now. I’d never met one before, but I knew they got right into your head and stirred everything around like it was a pot of mashed potatoes. It was possible that had something to do with it. I sure didn’t know how it worked—I just knew enough not to trust that kind of magic for a second.

  No one was saying anything, which made matters worse. Even Toverre had fallen silent, giving up on telling Gaeth off to trudge beside him in the dark, casting glances toward him every so often just like I’d been doing with Adamo. Gaeth’d been gone a long time; Toverre could’ve been worried about his health or whether or not he’d been bathing properly. Either was likely, the latter even more than the former. But then there was something else I recognized, part of the same concern I felt for Adamo that I’d never felt for Gaeth, though I had been worried about him.

  I didn’t want to think about the meaning of that too closely, and since there were more important things going on, I could afford not to. We were all on edge, tense as nervous cats, and while I’d assumed earlier that the corps’s babbling was their way of bleeding off extra energy, apparently they had another stage that came right after that, when a situation got about as serious as it could.

  As much as I’d wanted it before, I found I really didn’t care for the silence.

  “Ah,” Gaeth said, the single syllable bouncing off the passage walls and echoing back at him. He looked nervous when everyone halted and rounded on him—we’d all been thinking we were under attack—but he held his ground all right. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt our progress none, I just realized that I’ve been this way before.”

  “And?” Antoinette asked, keeping a rein on her impatience but only just. She was someone I would’ve liked to get to know a little better—the kind of person who seemed like she could teach me more than I’d ever learned at the ’Versity if she didn’t decide one day that she didn’t like me and scrambled my brains like eggs at breakfast. But now wasn’t the time to think about that.

  Toverre was scowling at her, but only because she’d snapped at Gaeth, and I knew her magic had to make him fighting-anxious.

  “There’s another tunnel,” Gaeth explained, cutting through the group to stand at the front, with Toverre scurrying in his wake like he wasn’t about to let him out of his sight for an instant. I didn’t blame him. Gaeth was good at disappearing. “Should be right around here. They took me up it once with Cornflower, when I was supposed to meet th’Esar. We came out right in one of his audience chambers—huge room, that was. Big hole in the ceiling made of glass. I’d never seen anything like it, and Cornflower neither.”

  “Cornflower,” Luvander repeated, shaking his head faintly. It seemed like he felt the need to remark on the name every time it was brought up. I didn’t see what was so wrong with it. No need being stuck-up. “I’m sorry, I merely can’t reconcile the name with the image in my head. If I get the chance to meet her, I think I’ll be expecting a cow.”

  “I rather like it,” Raphael murmured. At least he was making an effort to keep his voice down. “I mean, just think—if we’d been allowed to name our own dragons, there could be worse decisions than a simple flower theme.”

  “I can’t even imagine what some of them might’ve come up with,” Luvander admitted with a sad nod. “ ‘Titsmercy’ would only have been the beginning.”

  “Would you boys have some fucking sense?” Adamo demanded. He turned to me and cleared his throat. “Pardon,” he said.

  “Just think of me like one of the boys,” I suggested, not wanting any special treatment for any reason.

  �
�Now, that might be difficult,” Luvander said with a knowing wink.

  “Here it is,” Gaeth called in a reckless whisper, having trekked on ahead of us down the tunnel.

  He pressed his hand against the wall, and I saw a flash of metal in his palm before the heavy grinding of stone sliding against stone filled my ears.

  “Secret tunnel hidden in a secret passageway,” Adamo snorted, low enough so that I was the only one who’d hear him. “What a piece of work. The man has an inflated sense of self-worth.”

  “He is th’Esar,” I pointed out. “At least it’s convenient for us since it’ll take us right to him.”

  “What’s that in your hand?” Toverre demanded, pulling at Gaeth’s fingers so he could see his palm.

  “Dunno what it’s called,” Gaeth admitted. He looked pretty uncomfortable—especially since Toverre hadn’t exactly kept his curiosity quiet, and now everyone was craning around to get a look at what he’d seen. “It’s what keeps me and Cornflower together, that’s all I know. It means she’s supposed to listen to me, even when she doesn’t.”

  “I don’t suppose it comes off?” Luvander asked, like he already knew the answer to that.

  “No, sir,” Gaeth said, shaking his head. “It’s planted real good into the skin. Only way to take it off is cutting the hand off, and Cornflower wouldn’t like that too much. So I expect they didn’t want anyone else to have control of her—excepting th’Esar maybe, but even I ain’t sure how he does that.”

  Far as I could tell, it was a circle of silver metal with a deep red jewel in the center. It looked clean enough, and the skin around it wasn’t angry, but the sight of it still made me wince. I didn’t like to think about how they’d gotten it in there in the first place, or how much it hurt at first. Poor Gaeth. I could just see Toverre doing his best to keep it polished, though, and came near to laughing despite myself.

  “Interesting that Nico should take such an exception to the former Ke-Han emperor’s use of blood magic, only to turn to it himself,” Antoinette said, studying the jewel. “Or turn it on himself, as the case may be.” The way she was looking at it reminded me of the way an owl studied a mouse—right before dinnertime.

  All at once Gaeth drew in a sharp breath and tugged his hand out of Toverre’s grip.

  “What is it?” Toverre asked immediately. “Does it hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” Gaeth said, pressing a hand to his head, like he’d got one of them killer aches my da got, right between the eyes. “It’s nothing; well, nothing bad. It’s Cornflower. She knows I’m getting farther away, and it makes her restless.”

  “Can you talk to her?” Adamo asked, coming to the foreground. “Might come in handy if we turn out to need a little backup.”

  “I can tell her where we’re going,” Gaeth said, nodding after a minute. His whole body relaxed, so that it didn’t look like he was in pain anymore. “Her pen—I mean, the room where they keep them; she doesn’t take much to being cooped up like a barn animal—is right below this one. ’Course, if anything happens to me, she’ll come running, whether or not we want her to.”

  “How convenient,” Antoinette said. I knew that light in her eyes—she was busy adding everything up, the way Adamo was, making sure she was keeping each piece of the puzzle in mind before she made her next move.

  “We should press on,” Adamo said, casting a glance back through the tunnel. “Hate to be the one to remind everyone, but time isn’t on our side.”

  “True enough,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the jewel in the center. Ke-Han blood magic, Antoinette had said; just the sound of it made me feel dirty. That jewel was the same color as the vial of blood Germaine had taken from me. Same color as Gaeth’s blood, too, I’d be willing to wager, since it probably was his blood.

  Was this what Germaine’d been planning to do with me? When I thought about how close I’d come to being trapped underground there myself, I felt like my lungs were being crushed.

  “I don’t mind going first again,” Balfour said, slipping into the tunnel pass.

  “Only the two of us will go,” Antoinette said, taking Balfour’s arm. “The rest of you wait here.”

  “Now, don’t be cruel,” Luvander said. “We’re not babes in arms. We’re seasoned soldiers.”

  “So you know when to follow orders, don’t you?” Antoinette asked. I glanced over at Adamo, who was chewing things over again.

  “Antoinette’s right,” he said finally, making me feel proud. “If an attack comes, I’m betting it’ll come through here. So we station our strongest men at the head of the pass, the rest of us standing behind them, and we buy Antoinette and Balfour some time to plead their case with th’Esarina.”

  “And for us?” Toverre asked, voice shaky.

  “Heading back through the tunnel’s too dangerous,” Adamo replied. “Besides, you made it this far, didn’t you? I won’t send you away.” He glanced at me, and I grinned at him, just to show him I planned on doing all right. So long as I was there, wasn’t nothing that was gonna be allowed to touch him.

  “Come,” Antoinette said simply, taking Balfour by the hand. He seemed startled, and I didn’t understand why, until I remembered all of a sudden what his hands were made of, and I guessed nobody ever had reason to touch them. Antoinette, to her credit, didn’t even flinch.

  Then, without any more talking, they disappeared into the tunnel.

  Ghislain shifted out to the front, and Adamo followed him. I wanted to go with them, but I knew I’d serve everyone better if I flanked Toverre and protected him.

  Staring at Adamo’s back made me feel like I was a real part of the battalion. Nobody’d told me to step aside because I wore skirts over my boots, not trousers. Da would’ve been proud to see me here—in his own way, after he asked me what in Regina’s name I thought I was doing going against th’Esar like this—but more importantly, I was proud of me.

  Gaeth stood on Toverre’s other side, twitching around like Cornflower was probably talking to him.

  I’d come real close to having a dragon in my head, I thought. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or like I’d missed out on something most people were too meek even to dream of.

  Adamo held up his hand suddenly—I knew what it meant even without him having to say anything. Someone was coming.

  A moment later, I heard it, too, the sound of feet against stone. Whether it was a few men or a whole damned army, we were ready for them. I swallowed and braced myself.

  It was about damn time. All this dillydallying didn’t make me too impressed with th’Esar’s ability to protect his people. He was so twisted around, busy looking after his own hide, that he’d probably forgotten about everyone else. And considering the Dragon Corps had given their lives to protect him once upon a time, I wasn’t too impressed with that kind of self-centered thinking.

  I felt sharp fingernails digging into my arm, and I glanced over at Toverre. He was white as a ghost in the darkness, probably scared out of his mind. But he’d come all this way for me, and I was oddly grateful—not as grateful to him as I was to whoever’d decided to let me have Adamo and Ghislain on my side, but it was a different kind of gratitude.

  He didn’t have to be afraid. Gaeth and I were gonna protect him.

  Then, all at once, the opposing force appeared.

  They were dressed the same as Gaeth, and I sensed him tensing immediately. Ghislain and Adamo stood between us and them—and there was Luvander and Raphael, too, as the second force, with us as the last resort—but it was too cramped to tell how many of them there were, or get a good sense of our odds and their numbers. That worked in our favor, actually, since it meant they wouldn’t be able to come at Ghislain or Adamo too many at a time, and I had a good feeling about whether or not they’d be able to pick off the opposition nice and easy, at a pace that suited them.

  “Bastion,” the man at the front said, slowing rather than leading the charge, so I knew straightaway what an asshole he was. “What kind of r
agtag effort is this? You can’t really think you have a chance, do you?”

  “Hey there, Troius,” Adamo said, like he was checking out dirt underneath his thumbnail. Whatever I’d been thinking about the man, Adamo clearly thought even less. “I was wondering when you’d show. Ain’t polite to keep people waiting.”

  “You’ll wish I had kept you waiting longer,” Troius replied. “You don’t really think you can stand against us? You know firsthand the damage we can do.”

  “Sure I do,” Adamo replied. “And back when the dragons were in testing, and none of us first wave knew if they’d be with us or turn against us, we were prepared to stand against ’em then. They were a damn sight bigger in those days, too.”

  “I really had thought you’d join us,” Troius said, sounding disappointed. “Did the offer not suit you? It gave you a real chance to be who you were again.”

  “Adamo knows who he is,” I said, since none of his other boys seemed prepared to speak up. “But who the hell’re you?”

  “I’m depressed,” Troius replied. “Sad that such a great man has been reduced to leading a depleted army—if it can even be called that—made up of women and children.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ghislain grunted. “And where do you figure me into that?”

  Troius didn’t have time to answer the question, because Ghislain had struck out to break his nose—fast for a giant and ten times as strong as a regular man.

  I recognized the sound from the number of stableboys back home who’d suffered the same fate at the hooves of one of Da’s wilder horses. I cringed and Toverre cried out, hiding his face so he wouldn’t have to see all the blood.

  “Damn it!” Adamo shouted.

  “Regina,” Gaeth whispered. “That’s no good.”

  “Are we hitting now?” Luvander asked, happily holding up his fists.

  I stepped forward—because if it was gonna come to simple brawling, then we were gonna have to show some solidarity—but then the reason for Gaeth’s distress became apparent as a metallic scream sounded out from below us. Not even a second later, the floor exploded.