Iron Jaw and Hummingbird Read Online Free PDF Page B

keeping hold of his hand, she wrenched his arm up behind his back until the tips of his fingers nearly touched his head, and heard a satisfying popping noise from his shoulder joint.
    Temujin rolled off across the floor, his arm flopping painfully at his side, sobbing. In the dim light, Gamine could see tears flowing down his hollow cheeks, his face twisted into a mask of agony. He crab-walked across the floor to his own sleeping mat and collapsed in a heap.
    â€œExcuse you,” Gamine said, only slightly annoyed, and promptly went back to sleep.
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    The next morning, they breakfasted down in the main room, Temujin eating in stony silence. Gamine thought nothing of his attempt at intimacy of the night before; while she found it in poor taste, it didn’t bother her any more than his belching, or farting, or any of the other antisocial things he’d done since they met. She simply didn’t understand his actions. What she knew of human sexuality was relegated only to biology and courtly dance steps, and she had no concept of the dealings of men and women.
    Temujin, still without full range of motion in his left arm, set down his bowl and looked at Gamine across the table.
    â€œWell, my little sprite, you must think me a right nick-ninny for my crude antics of the night, but you must understand it was all a lark. It was just . . . tickling, like. And I certainly won’t do anything of that sort again, no sir.” With his right hand, he drew his robe aside slightly and prodded at his left shoulder, which was swollen and discolored. “You can take care of yourself, and no question. But that engenders in me a concern, I must admit. If you stay here in the city, on your own, you’ll as likely as not be starving again in days. You’re a dab hand at the martial arts, but your skills at the maunding arts are lackluster at best.”
    Gamine blinked at him, solemnly, making it clear she’d no idea what Temujin was saying.
    â€œMaunding, as in ‘to beg,’ my dear,” Temujin explained. “You’re no beggar, I say, but you’ve got the makings of a great trickster within you. If you come with me on the open road, I could teach you a trick or two, and we’d be able to turn a tidy profit in a short amount of time. You told me yesternight about all your schooling and tutoring and such. Well, with your ability to speak in a half dozen languages, quote scientific fact and formula, and discourse at a high level on matters of politics and economics, you’d make a gem of a confidence man . . . er, um, confidence woman .”
    Gamine set down her teacup. “Do you really think so?”
    â€œWhy, undoubtedly. We could even retool the con I used as a young man, making you the lost daughter of a bureaucrat’s family, perhaps even one with blood ties to the Dragon Throne, and me in the role of the faithful family retainer. With you as part of the spiel, we can cadge rides and handouts from bureaucrats and noble families on the road, and from poorer merchants of sufficient means and greed, reeling them in with the hope for a grand reward in exchange.”
    Gamine had no real reason to stay in the city. She couldn’t get back into the household of her mistress, and she had nowhere to live and no means by which to support herself. The only sort of kindness she’d had since she was tossed out of the governor’s hall into the dirt had come from Temujin, and apart from his horrible manners and his untoward advances of the night before, he seemed a decent enough sort.
    â€œVery well,” Gamine said, bowing from the waist. “I will go with you.”
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    Gamine and Temujin left the city, heading east on the Grand Trunk, the road that traveled from the northwest to the southeast along the bottom of the Tianfei Valley, through the provinces of Fangzhang, Penglai, and Yingzhou. As the story went, when man first came to Fire Star, his initial residence had