Steelhands - Jaida Jones [166]
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hoping I was pandering to Troius’s idea of me as the gruff old Chief Sergeant who just needed a push to let go of his outdated, preconceived notions.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