Steelhands

by Danielle Bennett

  I wondered if this was the way Royston’s power manifested itself. Then I didn’t have any more time for wondering, as out of the rubble burst a dragon. Smaller than I’d been expecting but no less beautiful. There were a few streaks of dirt on her here and there, and her face was half dog, half horse, with giant nostrils and a rooster’s comb made of sharp steel pieces, but all in all she was pristine, the kind of craftsmanship that’d make everyone who knew what they were looking at feel weak in the knees.

  “Bastion fuck,” I said.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Troius added, sounding all wet and pissed from the blood. “Ironjaw! Attack them!”

  “We’re going to be killed,” Toverre practically shrieked, ruining our stalwart moment. Everyone else was just too stunned to react.

  At least there wasn’t too much room down there for the dragon to maneuver. It took her too long to turn around, claws scraping at chunks of stone, shaking her tail out and nearly bowling over one of her allies. The time that bought us was all Adamo needed, howling at us like the Chief Sergeant he’d always been—even in the lecture room.

  “Fall back!” he bellowed, and even Toverre hopped to like a trained soldier, all of us pressing back into the tunnel, where most of the advantage a beast like that had over us would be squandered.

  Excepting, of course, if she had firepower.

  Then, we were all cooked. Literally.

  I was crowded behind Raphael and Luvander, who were, I realized, using their own bodies like shields for Toverre and Gaeth and me. They didn’t have to do that, I wanted to tell them, though I’d already put myself between Toverre and the dragon, knowing how delicate his skin was. I guessed we were all just trying to protect each other.

  But something was rumbling beneath my feet. An earthquake, I wondered, or the whole place being brought down on top of us from the impact as the dragon broke through foundations to protect Troius?

  I was gonna have to stop wondering, because nothing I came up with ever got close to reality. It wasn’t any earthquake, but a second dragon. I couldn’t see it as well as the first, what with Ghislain blocking my view, but from what I could see, they weren’t identical. The new one was patchier all over, made out of different metals, though I was no expert on what dragons were supposed to look like. If there were two dragons against us now, I thought darkly, then we didn’t stand a chance.

  “Don’t worry,” I heard Gaeth tell Toverre, as Toverre did his best not to be thrown down onto the dirty floor. “That’s just Cornflower.”

  The second dragon was on our side, I realized. Or, at least that’s what I thought Gaeth was saying.

  Everyone scrambled to get out of her way as she clawed up from the ground like she thought she was a groundhog. There were parts of her that were silver, too, and parts that were another metal with kind of a blue sheen to it. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d’ve assumed that was what’d given Gaeth the idea to name her Cornflower. As she oriented herself in the tunnel, facing our attacker, I could see that all the exposed gears under her belly and her arm and leg joints were bronze, and she had a sharper snout than Ironjaw, with the same enormous nostrils and rows of glittering silver teeth.

  Then she lunged forward with a shriek that sounded like metal scraping on rock—or maybe she wasn’t screaming, and what we were hearing was just her claws tearing through stone. Gaeth shouted, and Adamo pushed the group by using Ghislain as a shield, moving us clear back through the tunnel while I scrambled to see what was going on.

  Cornflower, like any loyal animal worth her salt, had thrown herself in the way of danger, not letting anyone or anything threaten her master. I could see her tail whipping around, scraping at the tunnel walls and sending little showers of sparks and rock down around her. Ironjaw let out a growl and slashed out at her with those mean-looking claws, but Cornflower dodged the blow and held her ground. Likewise, Adamo was holding our ground, moving us just out of range of those razor-sharp tails as they whipped back and forth, driving the guards in green back same as us.

  The lucky thing about the dragons being between us was it meant that slimy snake Troius couldn’t get any closer to us than we could to him. We were trapped on either side of the dragon battle, and I could only hope that man’s nose was hurting him something fierce.

  Sparks showered up like fireworks around the tunnel as Ironjaw lunged at Cornflower, trying to dart past her. For the second time, Cornflower knocked her back, jaws snapping as she kept her opponent at bay. In a way—though I’d never say this to Toverre, since I could feel him trembling next to me—there was something beautiful about the way they fought, neither one giving quarter but both surging up at once, claws flying and metal gleaming.

  Ironjaw rose up on her hind legs and Cornflower sprang at her throat, jaws seizing around the gears there and tugging at one of the cog pieces.

  “Attagirl,” I heard Adamo mutter, just ahead of me.

  But the battle wasn’t won, not by a long shot. Ironjaw was slapping at Cornflower with the sharp end of her tail, and it seemed to me like they were pretty much evenly matched, capable of tearing each other to pieces before the fight ended in a draw. I didn’t know how much it must’ve cost to build ’em, but I knew how much of a loss it’d be if they destroyed one another. It didn’t seem right to me to be pleased about it, just because of how ticked off th’Esar would be, after all the things he’d sacrificed—his honor chief among them—to build them in the first place.

  I heard something else then, real close by, over the clang of metal meeting metal and Toverre’s whimpering beside me. It was a funny whispering sound, the likes of which I’d heard before, but I’d never welcomed it. Balfour wasn’t even with us anymore, so I couldn’t sneak a glance sideways to see if he was twitching around like he was hearing things, too.

  “Everyone get back,” Gaeth said suddenly in a firm voice I’d never heard him use before. He’d already taken Toverre by the arm and started pulling—assuming rightly that he’d gone catatonic on us now that there was so much danger and dirt around. The rock dust was especially thick in the close tunnel air. To Toverre, it probably felt like the end of the world. “Ironjaw breathes fire, and Cornflower says she’s about to—just get back!”

  None of us asked how a dragon would know something like that.

  “You heard the boy!” Adamo roared, tearing his eyes away from the fight and pushing the line back. Ghislain followed suit after a split second, though I could tell it almost killed him not to be watching, to say nothing of giving up more ground. But it wouldn’t matter how much ground we held if we all ended up fried to a crisp.

  Gaeth’s warning hadn’t come a moment too soon, either. As we were still scrambling to get clear of the battlefield, orange flames surged around all four walls of the tunnel; they licked hungrily along the stone and swallowed up my sight line of the two dragons. I felt like I’d stuck my head too close to the oven; I couldn’t imagine what it must’ve felt like at the center of the blast, with the tunnel walls so tight and the ceiling so close it practically was an oven down there. We were still near enough to the center of action that it made my face feel hot, but I was behind Adamo, so I knew I wasn’t in any danger.

  If he let himself get singed, though, we’d be having some words. No amount of him taking me out to dinner was gonna make it all right for him to go and get hurt.

  “Oh,” Raphael murmured, sounding like he was attending a meeting of the Brothers and Sisters of Regina, not boiling in the stewpot. “Isn’t that just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life?”

  “Quiet,” Adamo said. Privately—for the very first time—I almost agreed with Raphael. I could be in awe of something and not want it to kill me at the same time.

  “I want you all to know that I consider it an honor to die at your sides,” Toverre muttered, like he couldn’t keep it down anymore. I didn’t blame him, really. He’d tried as long as he could; some people just didn’t have the stomach for fighting.

  �
��No one’s dying here,” Gaeth said quietly, patting Toverre on the back. In the dimness of the tunnel, I thought I noticed something strange about his eyes. One of them looked darker than the other. “Don’t write my Cornflower off just yet.”

  Just as he’d said that—like I really needed proof they were connected on the inside—I saw a blue-and-silver head protrude from the flames, which themselves were rapidly petering out. I guess we’d got lucky, and the dragons themselves had to be fireproof, or else what was the point?

  Both girls looked singed in the aftermath, but it was the kind of thing that’d polish off in time—that was proof Toverre was rubbing off on me, if nothing else.

  As soon as she was clear of the flames, Cornflower lunged again, and I heard something metal go flying, hitting the wall and falling to the ground of the tunnel. I couldn’t tell who it’d come from, though, and neither of them seemed particularly injured. I guessed they didn’t miss a cog or two the same way people missed limbs. Clearly pissing mad—I don’t know how I knew, but I just did—Ironjaw whipped her tail around quick, scoring the walls and catching Cornflower across the face, though it only stunned her for a second.

  “Deadlocked,” Ghislain said, as Cornflower’s sinewy body reared up to claw at Ironjaw, who was beating her small wings to try to fan what remained of the flames our way.

  “You don’t really think you can hide back there forever, do you?” Troius called, so I guess he hadn’t choked on his blood or burned up. Our luck wasn’t perfect, then. “Come, now. My reluctance to kill you right away may have spared you thus far, but do you really imagine that boy can square off against me?”

  “Seems to me like he’s doing all right,” Adamo shouted back. “Seems like your girls are pretty evenly matched, actually, since we’ve seen that your fire’s about as useful as a boat with no oars in this place.”

  Troius said something else—probably an idiot rejoinder about how he thought he was only toying with us or some trash; I’d read it a thousand times in my da’s old romans—but I couldn’t hear him, because the whispering in my head’d just gotten a whole lot louder.

  I know that smell, it said, in a woman’s voice that reminded me a bit of Antoinette’s, though it wasn’t exactly the same, either. It was the voice I’d heard during my fever, but a whole lot clearer now, speaking words instead of babbling a whole lot of gibberish. I’ve been waiting for you.

  All of a sudden, though I couldn’t’ve said why, I felt like it was drawing nearer. Even though I knew the voice was inside my own noggin, trapped between my ears, I could feel whatever it was coming closer to me over the screech of metal and the sharp scrape of Ironjaw’s wings against the cavern wall. I lifted my hands to my head, pushing my thumbs against the temples. Everybody was so busy watching the fight, they didn’t notice me. And I was so busy trying to clear my head, I was the only person looking at the ground, which meant I was the one who got to see her first.

  Past all the boots, something bright shifted underneath the rubble. I knew what it was before it poked its golden crown through the hole Cornflower had made. It was a dragon, with patches of silver steel around her snout, making her look like a doll that’d been sewn together from a bunch of separate parts. She lifted her head, questing about like a dog scenting its prey; Ironjaw and Cornflower were too busy with one another to pay any attention to her.

  But that was okay, because she was too busy looking for something to pay any attention to them.

  Then she looked straight at me.

  At once I felt a roaring in my head, like I was being held under rushing water, and it was impossible to concentrate on anything else—not Raphael and Luvander standing tense in front of us, or Adamo shouting back and forth with Troius, or even the dragons locked in combat, jaws around each other’s throats now like wolves going in for the slaughter.

  You, said the voice, as the dragon pulled its way out of the hole, standing between us and the fight. I really have been waiting.

  Toverre tugged at my sleeve. He’d noticed. But I shook him off because now wasn’t the time, and yeah, I’d seen it. Did he think I was blind?

  For me? I wondered.

  Of course, the voice replied. I like you. That foolish big man thinks he can call us all to him with his blood, but that’s not how it works. I want you.

  Ironjaw knocked Cornflower back and metal grated against the tunnel wall, sending up sparks everywhere like we were in the middle of a forge. I didn’t know what that damned dragon meant, or why she was talking to me, or if I could even do anything when I didn’t have one of those handy circles in my palm like Gaeth did, but if this meant she was my dragon, then I had an obligation to help out.

  Even if I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.

  “Okay, so help us!” I bellowed, as loud as I could—almost as loud as Adamo managed during class when he caught some poor bastard napping.

  Without blinking, the gold dragon whipped around, folding her wings in tight to make use of the small space and launching herself like a sleek, long missile right at Ironjaw’s chest. She caught our enemy off-balance and sent Ironjaw over onto her back, giving Cornflower time to get up and shake just to see if anything crucial’d been knocked loose.

  “No!” I heard Troius shout. He sounded pretty furious, which made me downright tickled. “This shouldn’t be possible. The fail-safe—only the Esar should have control over her at this stage! How are you commanding her?”

  “Guess you should’ve asked an expert, Troius,” Adamo yelled back. “I could’ve told you—nothing’s as contrary as a dragon!”

  “Except maybe a woman,” Luvander added, his eyes on my girl.

  “You in charge of that one?” Ghislain asked; it took me a second to realize he was talking to me, but only because of how I was staring at the dragons battling it out in front of us. Two on one now; the odds were definitely in our favor, though Ironjaw was clearly the best trained of all three.

  “Maybe,” I said, which was as honest as I could get without betraying how out-of-my-mind piss-terrified I was.

  My girl—if I could call her that—was screeching something fierce, beating her wings and scraping at the rock. All of a sudden it was real hard to tell who was winning and who was losing. I couldn’t see Ironjaw anymore, and my heart was about pounding out of my chest when I felt another rumble in the earth—this one coming from somewhere behind us.

  “Do they just keep popping up out of the ground like daisies in spring?” Raphael murmured. “If so, I would like one as well.”

  “Brace yourselves!” Adamo hollered, and everyone grabbed on to somebody else, since the walls didn’t exactly seem safe at the minute. The very foundations were shaking with all the excitement, and if this kept up, then eventually the tunnel was gonna collapse around us, and it wouldn’t matter who was on whose side when we were all caved in.

  Moments later, with a horrible screeching sound like metal being shorn in two, another dragon burst through the ground in an explosive shower of gravel. Gaeth threw himself in front of Toverre, and Ghislain was shielding Luvander and Raphael at once, but I could still see— enough to realize that this dragon, too, looked different from the others. She was the dull color of old piping, and her wings looked half-finished, though that didn’t seem to be hindering her progress any. She seemed to believe nothing should stop her, and so nothing did.

  Oh, her, the voice in my head sighed. What a show-off. Has to be finished quicker than the rest of us, and now here she is trying to steal all the glory.

  Is she on our side or not? I asked, fighting down the panic I felt.

  Who knows? was the cryptic reply. That’s where the big man lives.

  Everyone froze, but the new girl didn’t rush us. She didn’t even so much as glance in our direction. Instead, with another screech, she launched herself up toward the ceiling, shearing through the rock with her thick iron claws in an attempt to barrel straight through. If she wasn’t careful, she was gonna bring the whole tunnel down around
us.

  It didn’t seem like she much cared.

  Whatever was up above was more important to her than our little fight. I could see the dragons staring at her for a brief moment, pausing in their fight to wonder at her actions, same as the rest of us. Then they started up again, not distracted for too long.

  “That’s where th’Esar is,” Gaeth said, turning his head to watch her, same as the rest of us.

  “Shit,” Adamo muttered, looking back toward our dragons. Cornflower and my gold beauty had Ironjaw pinned, and there were terrible tearing sounds coming from that direction; I saw a few silver gears go flying. It was like watching vultures tear apart a corpse.

  Just pin her down, I said, feeling sorry all of a sudden. She was only following orders, trying to protect her man. Maybe she didn’t know how wrongheaded he was.

  Don’t worry, my girl said. I’ll teach you to outwit pity.

  FIFTEEN

  BALFOUR

  The tunnel was a tight fit even for me; it was lucky that we’d decided that just the two of us should press on, since Ghislain would never have made it past the first turn.

  We were traveling steeply upward, the rough stone snagging on my sleeves. Antoinette seemed unaffected though it was catching on her skirts, and I was surrounded by the noise of fabric ripping.

  It was better than the alternative—the strange, sweet whispers of a distant voice, one I only half recognized. I tried to tell myself that it had been Antoinette calling out to us, but I knew that wasn’t the case. There was nothing else it could be but the remains of the voices from the fever. At least now I knew what it was.

  All further speculation could be saved for later. I was here to protect Antoinette—though I was certain she didn’t need my help, if rumors and my own assessment were true—and help her make her case.

  I knew the Esarina though Antoinette clearly knew her better than I did. She knew her well enough to call her by her given name; I was backup, there to snipe in fast and buy the main event some extra time should the negotiations turn to fighting. This was a job I knew well, almost as though I’d been born for it. It had a little to do with diplomacy and a little to do with flight-time reconnaissance—a humorous combination of those things that everyone told me I was suited, both of them as different as different as could be.