The Collected Joe Abercrombie (122 page)

‘Oil!’ shouted Cosca.

A bottle with a burning wick was flung spinning from a tower on the left. It smashed against one of the wicker screens and lines of fire shot hungrily out across the surface, turning it brown, then black. It began to wobble, to bend, then gradually started to tip over. A soldier ran out howling from behind it, his arm wreathed in bright flames.

The burning screen fell to the ground, exposing a column of Gurkish troops, some pushing barrows full of boulders, others carrying long ladders, others with bows, armour, weapons. They yelled their war-cries, charging forward with their shields raised, shooting arrows up at the battlements, zig-zagging back and forth between the corpses. Men pitched on their faces, riddled with flatbow bolts. Men howled and clutched at wounds. Men crawled, and gurgled, and swore. They pleaded and bellowed defiance. They ran for the rear and were shot in the back.

Up on the walls bows twanged and clanked. More bottles of oil were lit and hurled down. Some men roared and hissed and spat curses, some cowered behind the parapet as arrows zipped up from below, clattering from stone or shooting overhead, occasionally thudding into flesh. Cosca had one foot up on the battlements, utterly careless, leaning out dangerously far and brandishing a notched sword, bellowing something that Glokta could not hear. Everyone was screaming and shouting, attackers and defenders both.
Battle. Chaos. I remember now. How could I ever have enjoyed this?

Another of the screens was blazing, filling the air with reeking black smoke. Gurkish soldiers spilled out from behind it like bees from a broken hive, milling around on the far side of the ditch, trying to find a spot to foot their ladder. Defenders further down the walls began to hurl chunks of masonry down at them. Another rock from a catapult crashed down far short and ripped a long hole through a Gurkish column, sending bodies and parts of bodies flying.

A soldier was dragged past with an arrow in his eye. ‘Is it bad?’ he was wailing, ‘is it bad?’ A moment later a man just beside Glokta squawked as a shaft hit him in the chest. He was spun half round, his flatbow went off and the bolt thudded into his neighbour’s neck, right up to the feathers. The two of them fell together right at Glokta’s feet, leaking blood across the walkway.

Down at the foot of the walls, a bottle of oil burst apart in the midst of a crowd of Gurkish soldiers, just as they were trying to raise their ladder. A faint tang of cooking meat joined the stinks of rot and wood smoke. Men burned, scrambling and screaming, charging around madly or flinging themselves into the flooded ditch in full armour.
Death by burning or death by drowning. Some choice.

‘You seen enough yet?’ Severard’s voice hissed in his ear.

‘Yes.’ More than enough. He left Cosca shouting himself hoarse in Styrian and pushed breathlessly through the press of mercenaries towards the steps. He followed a stretcher down, wincing at every painful step, trying to keep up while a steady stream of men shoved past the other way.
Never thought that I’d be glad to be going down a set of steps again.
His happiness did not last long, however. By the time he reached the bottom his left leg was twitching with the all-too-familiar mixture of agony and numbness.

‘Damn it!’ he hissed to himself, hopping back against the wall. ‘There are casualties more mobile than I am!’ He watched the wounded hobbling past, bandaged and bloody.

‘This isn’t right,’ hissed Severard. ‘We’ve done our bit. We found the traitors. What the hell are we still doing here?’

‘Fighting for the King’s cause beneath you, is it?’

‘Dying for it is.’

Glokta snorted. ‘You think there’s anyone in this whole fucking city enjoying themselves?’ He thought he heard the faint sound of Cosca screaming insults floating down over the clamour of the fighting. ‘Apart from that crazy Styrian of course. Keep an eye on him, eh, Severard? He betrayed Eider, he’ll betray us, especially if things look bleak.’

The Practical stared at him, and for once there was no trace of a smile round his eyes. ‘Do things look bleak?’

‘You were up there.’ Glokta grimaced as he stretched his leg out. ‘They’ve looked better.’

The long, dim hall had once been a temple. When the Gurkish assaults had begun the lightly wounded had been brought here, to be tended to by priests and women. It was an easy place to bring them: down in the Lower City, close to the walls. This part of the slums was mostly empty of civilians now, in any case.
The risks of raging fire and plummeting boulders can quickly render a
neighbourhood unpopular.
As the fighting continued the lightly wounded had gone back to the walls, leaving the more serious casualties behind. Those with severed limbs, with deep cuts, with terrible burns, with arrows in the body, lay scattered round the dim arcades on their bloody stretchers. Day by day their numbers had mounted until they choked every part of the floor. The walking wounded were dealt with outside, now. This place was reserved for the ruined, for the maimed.
For the dying.

Every man had his own special language of agony. Some screamed and howled without end. Some cried out for help, for mercy, for water, for their mothers. Some coughed and gurgled and spat blood. Some wheezed and rattled out their last breaths.
Only the dead are entirely silent.
And there were a lot of them. From time to time you would see them being dragged out, limbs lolling, ready to be wrapped in cheap shrouds and heaped up behind the back wall.

All day, Glokta knew, grim teams of men were busy digging graves for the natives.
According to their firmly-held beliefs. Great pits in the ruins of the slums, good for a dozen corpses at a time.
All night, the same men were busy burning the Union dead.
According to our lack of belief in anything. Up on the bluffs, where the oily smoke will be carried out over the bay. We can only hope it will blow right into the faces of the Gurkish on the other side. One last insult, from us, to them.

Glokta shuffled slowly through the hall, echoing with the sounds of pain, wiping the sweat from his forehead, peering down at the casualties. Dark-skinned Dagoskans, Styrian mercenaries, pale-skinned Union men, all mixed up together.
People of all nations, all colours, all types, united against the Gurkish, and now dying together, side by side, all equal. My heart would be warmed. If I still had one.
He was vaguely aware of Practical Frost, lurking in the darkness by the wall nearby, eyes moving carefully over the room.
My watchful shadow, here to make sure that no one rewards my efforts on the Arch Lector’s behalf with a fatal head wound of my own.

A small section at the back of the temple had been curtained off for surgery.
Or as close as they can get here. Hack and slash with saw and knife, legs off at the knee, arms at the shoulder.
The loudest screams in the whole place came from behind those dirty curtains. Desperate, slobbering wails.
Hardly any less brutal than what’s happening on the other side of the land walls.
Glokta could see Kahdia working through a gap, his white robe spattered, smeared, turned grubby brown with blood. He was squinting down at some glistening meat while he cut away at it with a blade.
The stump of a leg, perhaps?
The screams bubbled to a stop.

‘He’s dead,’ said the Haddish simply, tossing his knife down on the table and wiping his bloody hands on a rag. ‘Bring in the next one.’ He lifted the curtain and pushed his way through. Then he saw Glokta. ‘Ah! The author of our woes! Have you come to feed your guilt, Superior?’

‘No. I came to see if I have any.’

‘And do you?’

A good question. Do I?
He looked down at a young man, lying on dirty straw by the wall, wedged in between two others. His face was waxy pale, eyes glassy, lips moving rapidly as he mumbled some meaningless nonsense to himself. His leg was off just above the knee, the stump bound with a bloody dressing, a belt buckled tight round the thigh.
His chances of survival? Slim to none. A last few hours in agony and squalor, listening to the groans of his fellows. A young life, snuffed out long before his time, and blah, blah, blah.
Glokta raised his eyebrows. He felt nothing but a mild distaste, no more than he might have had the dying man been a heap of rubbish. ‘No,’ he said.

Kahdia looked down at his own bloody hands. ‘Then God has truly blessed you,’ he muttered. ‘Not everyone has your stomach.’

‘I don’t know. Your people have been fighting well.’

‘Dying well, you mean.’

Glokta’s laughter hacked at the heavy air. ‘Come now. There’s no such thing as dying well.’ He glanced round at the endless wounded. ‘I’d have thought that you of all people would have learned that by now.’

Kahdia did not laugh. ‘How much of this do you think we can stand?’

‘Losing heart, eh, Haddish? As with so many things in life, heroic last stands are a great deal more appealing in concept than in reality.’
The dashing young Colonel Glokta could have told us
that, dragged away from the bridge with the remains of his leg barely attached, his notions of how the world works radically altered.

‘Your concern is touching, Superior, but I’m used to disappointments. Believe me, I will live with this one. The question remains. How long can we hold out?’

‘If the sea lanes stay open and we can be supplied by ship, if the Gurkish cannot find a way round the land walls, if we can stick together and keep our heads, we could hold out here for weeks.’

‘Hold out for what?’

Glokta paused.
For what indeed?
‘Perhaps the Gurkish will lose heart.’

‘Hah!’ snorted Kahdia. ‘The Gurkish have no hearts! They did not subdue all Kanta with half measures. No. The Emperor has spoken, and will not be denied.’

‘Then we must hope that the war will be quickly settled in the North, and that Union forces will come to our aid.’
An utterly futile hope. It will be months before matters are settled in Angland. Even when they are, the army will be in no state to fight. We are on our own.

‘And when might we expect such help?’

When the stars go out? When the sky falls in? When I run a mile with a smile on my face?
‘If I had all the answers I’d hardly have joined the Inquisition!’ snapped Glokta. ‘Perhaps you should pray for divine help. A mighty wave to wash the Gurkish away would suit nicely. Who was it told me that miracles happen?’

Kahdia nodded slowly. ‘Perhaps we should both pray. I fear there is more chance of aid from my god than your masters.’ Another stretcher was carried past, a squealing Styrian stretched out on it with an arrow in his stomach. ‘I must go.’ Kahdia swept away and the curtain dropped back behind him.

Glokta frowned at it.
And so the doubts begin. The Gurkish slowly tighten their grip on the city. Our doom draws nearer, and every man sees it. A strange thing, death. Far away, you can laugh at it, but as it comes closer it looks worse and worse. Close enough to touch, and no one laughs. Dagoska is full of fear, and the doubts can only grow. Sooner or later someone will try to betray the city to the Gurkish, if only to save their lives, or the lives of those they love. They
might well begin by disposing of the troublesome Superior who set this madness in motion . . .

He felt a sudden touch on his shoulder and he caught his breath and spun round. His leg buckled and he stumbled back against a pillar, almost treading on a gasping native with bandages across his face. Vitari was standing behind him, frowning. ‘Damn it!’ Glokta bit on his lip with his remaining teeth against a searing spasm in his leg. ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to sneak up on people?’

‘They taught me the opposite. I need to talk to you.’

‘Then talk. Just don’t touch me again.’

She eyed the wounded. ‘Not here. Alone.’

‘Oh, come now. What can you have to say to me that you can’t say in front of a room full of dying heroes?’

‘You’ll find out when we get outside.’

A chain around the throat, nice and tight, courtesy of his Eminence? Or merely some chat about the weather?
Glokta felt himself smiling.
I can hardly wait to find out.
He held one hand up to Frost and the albino faded back into the shadows, then he limped after Vitari, threading their way through the groaning casualties and out through the door at the back, into the open air. The sharp smell of sweat swapped for the sharp smell of burning, and something else . . .

Long, lozenge shapes were stacked up shoulder high against the wall of the temple, swathed in rough grey cloth, some of it spotted and stained with brown blood. A whole heap of them. Corpses, waiting patiently to be buried.
This morning’s harvest. What a wonderfully macabre spot for a pleasant little chat. I could hardly have picked a better.

‘So, how are you enjoying the siege? It’s a bit noisy for my taste, but your friend Cosca seems to like it—’