Steelhands (2011) Read Online Free PDF Page B

where my skin ended and metal began.
    One of the magicians who’d fitted me for my prosthetics had told me I was suffering from phantom limb—and he was right, though I was also suffering from phantom airmen alongside it.
    Only at present I was suffering from all-too-tangible Arlemagne diplomats more than anything else, and not even rubbing at my wrists under the table could distract me from the gaping despair I suddenly felt. It was hopeless. After all we’d done to Arlemagne, they would never really forgive us.
    At that, I thought of what Rook would have done in my situation—found someone to call a Cindy, insulted a wife or two, and insinuated he had slept with them all and could ride their horses better, too, making everything far worse but at least far more entertaining—and then Ismiled from the fond memories it brought because quite obviously I was going insane.
    “Well,” Diplomat Chanteur, a large man with a red nose who had once spat on me by accident while speaking of the troubles involving one of our Margraves and their own Crown Prince, “I am famished from all this talking. Despite what little your people have to offer by means of food, perhaps it is time for us all to lunch?”
    “What a wonderful idea,” I said. “I commend you for your sharp thinking.”
    Privately, I thought to myself that such sharp thinking would have been better appreciated almost two hours ago—about the point at which my stomach finally gave up growling.
    In the Airman, one could have meals at any time one wished to, provided one was also prepared to share one’s meal at least three ways, depending on who was awake at the time. Then there were the boys complaining that there wasn’t enough, that it tasted like pig’s shit, that they’d chipped a tooth and how did I intend to pay for it? Despite all the talk, the bastion could also be silent on occasion; not so with the Airman. So it was not that I preferred providing breakfast and lunch and dinner for men just as picky about their food as the Arlemagne were—and the Arlemagne loathed Volstovic fare, especially Volstovic attempts to serve traditional Arlemagne dishes. Nostalgia hadn’t taken hold of me quite so badly, at least not yet.
    “Don’t commend me,” Chanteur suggested. He stood in his chair; it creaked almost as loudly as his back. “Commend some better chefs, that’s what I say.”
    “My lord,” I told Chanteur, bowing stiffly as he brushed past me on his way out. “It has been a pleasure, as always.”
    What an excellent liar I was.
    The diplomats all filed out after their leader. They were dressed fashionably, a few of them absolutely reeking of perfume. Those who didn’t smelled distressingly of other things—a sharp body odor that reminded me of myself after a particularly grueling flight, only with less oil and more human sweat. I cleared my throat, keeping my head down and my thoughts to myself. When they’d arrived in Thremedon, they’d been expecting a cold winter. What they hadn’t been expecting was a hot room in a bastion tower, and I didn’t envy them their brocade coats and stiff ruffles.
    How I ever managed to be given this position, I had no idea. It was because I wasn’t as slippery as Luvander, who’d managed to wriggle free of all obligations, or as intimidating as Ghislain, who’d said he planned on heading out to sea, and no one, it seemed, felt like arguing with him. Adamo and I had unfortunately been caught up in some bizarre, terrible system of being rewarded as living heroes.
    And as for Rook … I had been informed of his progress here and there by Thom, who seemed to be weathering those troubles with his usual distress and stubbornness.
    “Lost in thought, I see?” a familiar voice said beside me. “Or is it simply that your stomach has digested itself? I’d personally eat a bale of oats right now, fine cooking aside.”
    Now that Thom was gone for parts unknown, fighting his way through the desert and dealing