The Collected Joe Abercrombie (129 page)

‘Of course! There’s nothing like a stroll in the evening air after a skirmish.’ The mercenary strutted over. Even in the gloom, Glokta could see the difference in him. He walked with a spring in his step, a glint in his eye, his hair neatly brushed, his moustache waxed stiff.
An inch or two taller and a good ten years younger, all of a sudden.
He pranced to the parapet, closed his eyes and sucked a deep breath through his sharp nose.

‘You look remarkably well for someone who has just fought in a battle.’

The Styrian grinned at him. ‘I wasn’t so much in the battle as just behind it. I’ve always felt the very front is a poor place to fight from. No one can hear you with all the clatter. That, and the chances of being killed there are really very high.’

‘Doubtless. How did it go for us?’

‘The Gurkish are still outside, so I’d say, as far as battles go, it went well. I doubt the dead would agree with me, but who cares a shit for their opinion?’ He scratched happily at his neck. ‘We did well today. But tomorrow, and the day after, who can say? Still no chance of reinforcement?’ Glokta shook his head and the Styrian took in a sharp breath. ‘It’s all the same to me, of course, but you may want to consider a withdrawal while we still hold the bay.’

Everyone would like to withdraw. Even me
. Glokta snorted. ‘The Closed Council hold my leash, and they say no. The King’s honour will not permit it, they inform me, and apparently his honour is more valuable than our lives.’

Cosca raised his brows. ‘Honour, eh? What the hell is that anyway? Every man thinks it’s something different. You can’t drink it. You can’t fuck it. The more of it you have the less good it does you, and if you’ve got none at all you don’t miss it.’ He shook his head. ‘But some men think it’s the best thing in the world.’

‘Uh,’ muttered Glokta, licking at his empty gums.
Honour is worth less than one’s legs, or one’s teeth. A lesson I paid dearly for.
He peered towards the shadowy outline of the land walls, studded with burning bonfires. The vague sounds of fighting could still be heard, the odd flaming arrow soared high into the air and fell in the ruined slums.
Even now, the bloody business continues.
He took a deep breath. ‘What are our chances of holding out for another week?’

‘Another week?’ Cosca pursed his lips. ‘Reasonable.’

‘Two weeks?’

‘Two?’ Cosca clicked his tongue. ‘Less good.’

‘Which would make a month a hopeless cause.’

‘Hopeless would be the word.’

‘You seem almost to revel in the situation.’

‘Me? I’ve made a speciality from hopeless causes.’ He grinned at Glokta. ‘These days, they’re the only ones that will have me.’

I know the feeling.
‘Hold the land walls as long as you can, then pull back. The walls of the Upper City must be our next line of defence.’

Cosca’s grin could just be seen shining in the darkness. ‘Hold as long as we can, and then pull back! I can hardly wait!’

‘And perhaps we should prepare some surprises for our Gurkish guests when they finally make it past the walls. You know,’ and Glokta waved his hand absently, ‘tripwires and hidden pits, spikes daubed with excrement and so on. You’ve some experience in that type of warfare, I daresay.’

‘I am experienced in all types of warfare.’ Cosca snapped his heels together and gave an elaborate salute. ‘Spikes and excrement! There’s honour for you.’

This is war. The only honour is in winning.
‘Talking of honour, you’d best let our friend General Vissbruck know where your surprises are. It would be a shame if he were to impale himself by accident.’

‘Of course, Superior. A dreadful shame.’

Glokta felt his hand bunching into a fist on the parapet. ‘We must make the Gurkish pay for every stride of ground.’
We must make them pay for my ruined leg.
‘For every inch of dirt.’
For my missing teeth.
‘For every meagre shack, and crumbling hut, and worthless stretch of dust.’
For my weeping eye, and my twisted
back, and my repulsive shadow of a life.
He licked at his empty gums. ‘Make them pay.’

‘Excellent! The only good Gurkish are the dead ones!’ The mercenary spun and marched through the door into the Citadel, his spurs jingling, leaving Glokta alone on the flat roof.

One week? Yes. Two weeks? Perhaps. Any longer? Hopeless. There may have been no ships, but that old riddler Yulwei was still right. And so was Eider. There never was any chance. For all our efforts, for all our sacrifices, Dagoska must surely fall. It is only a matter of time, now.

He stared out across the darkened city. It was hard to separate the land from the sea in the blackness, the lights on the boats from the lights in the buildings, the torches on the rigging from the torches in the slums. All was a confusion of points of light, flowing around each other, disembodied in the void. There was only one certainty in all of it.

We’re finished. Not tonight, but soon. We are surrounded, and the net will only draw tighter. It is a matter of time.

Scars

O
ne by one, Ferro took out the stitches – slitting the thread neatly with the shining point of her knife, working them gently out of Luthar’s skin, dark fingertips moving quick and sure, yellow eyes narrowed with concentration. Logen watched her work, shaking his head slowly at the skill of it. He’d seen it done often, but never so well. Luthar barely even looked in pain, and he always looked in pain lately.

‘Do we need another bandage on it?’

‘No. We let it breathe.’ The last stitch slid out, and Ferro tossed the bloody bits of thread away and rocked back on her knees to look at the results.

‘That’s good,’ said Logen, voice hushed. He’d never guessed that it could come out half so well. Luthar’s jaw looked slightly bent in the firelight, like he was biting down on one side. There was a ragged notch out of his lip, and a forked scar torn from it down to the point of his chin, pink dots on either side where the stitches had been, the skin around it stretched and twisted. Nothing more, but for some swelling that’d soon go down. ‘That’s some damn good stitching. I never saw any better. Where d’you learn healing?’

‘A man called Aruf taught me.’

‘Well he taught you well. Rare skill to have. Happy chance for us that he did it.’

‘I had to fuck him first.’

‘Ah.’ That did shine a bit of a different light on it.

Ferro shrugged. ‘I didn’t mind. He was a good man, more or less, and he taught me how to kill, into the bargain. I’ve fucked a lot of worse men for a lot less.’ She frowned at Luthar’s jaw, pressing it with her thumbs, testing the flesh round the wound. ‘A lot less.’

‘Right,’ muttered Logen. He exchanged a worried glance with Luthar. This conversation hadn’t gone at all the way he’d imagined. Maybe he should’ve expected that with Ferro. He spent half the time trying to prise a word out of her, then when she did give him something, he didn’t have a clue where to go with it.

‘It’s set,’ she grunted, after probing Luthar’s face for a moment in silence.

‘Thank you.’ He grabbed hold of her hand as she moved back. ‘Truly. I don’t know what I’d have—’

She grimaced as if he’d slapped her and snatched her fingers away. ‘Fine! But if you get your face smashed again you can stitch it yourself.’ And she got up and stalked off, sat down in the shifting shadows in the corner of the ruin, as far away from the others as she could get without going outside. She seemed to like thanks even less than she liked any other kind of talk, but Luthar was too pleased to finally have the dressings off to worry much about it.

‘How does it look?’ he asked, peering down cross-eyed at his own chin, wincing and prodding at it with one finger.

‘It’s good,’ said Logen. ‘You’re lucky. You might not be quite so pretty as you were, but you’re still a damn sight better-looking than me.’

‘Of course,’ he said, licking at the notch in his lip, half-smiling. ‘It isn’t as though they cut my head right off.’

Logen grinned as he knelt down beside the pot and gave it a stir. He was getting on alright with Luthar now. It was a harsh lesson, but a broken face had done that boy a power of good. It had taught him some respect, and a lot quicker than any amount of talk. It had taught him to be realistic, and that had to be a good thing. Small gestures and time. Rarely failed to win folk over. Then he caught sight of Ferro, frowning at him from the shadows, and he felt his grin sag. Some folk take longer than others, and a few never really get there. Black Dow had been like that. Made to walk alone, Logen’s father would have said.

He looked back to the pot, but there wasn’t much encouragement in it. Just porridge with some shreds of bacon and some chopped-up roots. There was nothing to hunt out here. Dead land meant what it said. The grass on the plain had dwindled to brown tufts and grey dust. He looked round the ruined shell of the house they’d pitched camp in. Firelight flickered on broken stone, crumbled render, ancient splintered wood. No ferns rooted in the cracks, no saplings in the earth floor, not even a shred of moss between the stones. Seemed to Logen as if no one but them had trodden there in centuries. Maybe they hadn’t.

Quiet too. Not much wind tonight. Only the soft crackling of the fire, and Bayaz’ voice mumbling away, lecturing his apprentice about something or other. Logen was good and glad the First of the Magi was awake again, even if he did look older and seem grimmer than ever. At least now Logen didn’t have to decide what to do. That had never worked out too well for anyone concerned.

‘A clear night at last!’ sang Brother Longfoot as he ducked under the lintel, pointing upwards with huge smugness. ‘A perfect sky for Navigation! The stars shine clearly for the first time in ten days and, I do declare, we are not a stride out from our chosen course! Not a foot! I have not led us wrong, my friends. No! That would not have been my way at all! Forty miles to Aulcus, as I reckon it, just as I told you!’ No congratulations were forthcoming. Bayaz and Quai were deep in their ill-tempered muttering. Luthar was holding up the blade of his short sword and trying to find an angle where he could see his reflection. Ferro was frowning in her corner. Longfoot sighed and squatted down beside the fire. ‘Porridge again?’ he muttered, peering into the pot and wrinkling up his nose.

‘Afraid so.’

‘Ah, well. The tribulations of the road, eh, my friend? There would be no glory in travel without the hardship.’

‘Uh,’ said Logen. He could have managed with a lot less glory if it meant a decent dinner. He prodded unhappily at the bubbling mush with a spoon.

Longfoot leaned over to mutter under his breath. ‘It would seem our illustrious employer is having some further troubles with his apprentice.’ Bayaz’ lecture was growing steadily louder and more bad-tempered.

‘. . . being handy with a pan is all very well, but the practice of magic is still your first vocation. There has been a distinct change in your attitude of late. A certain watchfulness and disobedience. I am beginning to suspect that you may prove a disappointing pupil.’

‘And were you always a fine pupil?’ There was a trace of a mocking smile on Quai’s face. ‘Was your own master never disappointed?’

‘He was, and the consequences were dire. We all make mistakes. It is a master’s place to try to stop his students making the same ones.’

‘Then perhaps you should tell me the history of your mistakes. I might learn to be a better student.’

Master and apprentice glared at each other over the fire. Logen did not like the look of Bayaz’ frown. He had seen such looks before on the First of the Magi, and the outcome had never been good. He couldn’t understand why Quai had shifted from abject obedience to sullen opposition in the space of a few weeks, but it wasn’t making anyone’s life easier. Logen pretended to be fascinated by the porridge, half-expecting to be suddenly deafened by the roar of searing flame. But when sound came it was only Bayaz’ voice, and speaking softly.

‘Very well, Master Quai, there is some sense in your request, for once. Let us talk of my mistakes. An expansive subject indeed. Where to start?’

‘At the beginning?’ ventured his apprentice. ‘Where else should a man ever start?’

The Magus gave a sour grunt. ‘Huh. Long ago, then, in the Old Time.’ He paused for a moment and stared into the flames, the light shifting over his hollow face. ‘I was Juvens’ first apprentice. But soon after starting my education, my master took a second. A boy from the South. His name was Khalul.’ Ferro looked up suddenly, frowning from the shadows. ‘From the beginning, the two of us could never agree. We both were far too proud, and jealous of each other’s talents, and envious of any mark of favour the other earned from our master. Our rivalry persisted, even as the years passed and Juvens took more apprentices, twelve in all. In the beginning, it drove us to be better pupils: more diligent, more devoted. But after the horror of the war with Glustrod, many things were changed.’

Logen gathered up the bowls and started spooning steaming slop out into them, making sure to keep one ear on Bayaz’ talk. ‘Our rivalry became a feud, and our feud became a hatred. We fought, with words, then with hands, then with magic. Perhaps, left to ourselves, we would have killed each other. Perhaps the world would be a happier place if we had, but Juvens interposed. He sent me to the far north, and Khalul to the south, to two of the great libraries he had built long years before. He sent us there to study, separately and alone, until our tempers cooled. He thought the high mountains, and the wide sea, and the whole breadth of the Circle of the World would put an end to our feud, but he misjudged us. Rather we each raged in our exile, and blamed the other for it, and plotted our petty revenges.’