Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself

“The Prophet does not walk with the likes of you, beggar!”

“I might surprise you. We knew each other well, long ago.”

“I will give our master your respects then,” jeered the woman, “with the news of your recent death!” Ferro twisted her wrist, felt the knife drop into her palm.

“Oh, Khalul would enjoy that news, but he will not receive it yet. The two of you have cursed yourselves. You have broken the Second Law. You have eaten the flesh of men, and there must be a reckoning.”

“Old fool!” sneered the woman. “Your laws do not apply to us!”

Yulwei slowly shook his head. “The word of Euz governs all. There can be no exceptions. Neither one of you will leave this place alive.” The air around the old man shimmered, twisted, blurred. The woman gave a gurgle and dropped suddenly to the earth, more than falling—melting, flopping, dark silk flapping around her collapsing body.

“Sister!” The man let go of Ferro, sprang at Yulwei, arms outstretched. He got no further than a stride. He gave a sudden, shrill scream and dropped to his knees, clutching at his head. Ferro forced her stumbling feet forward, grabbed hold of his hair with her broken hand and drove the knife into his neck. Dust blew out into the wind. A fountain of dust. Flames flickered around his mouth, charring his lips black, licking burning hot at her fingers. She dropped on top of him, bearing him back onto the ground, choking, snorting. The blade opened up his stomach, scraped against his ribs, snapped off in his chest. Fire licked out. Fire and dust. She hacked at the body mindlessly with the broken knife, long after it had stopped moving.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “He is dead, Ferro. They both are dead.” She saw it was true. The man lay on his back, staring up at the sky, face charred round his nose and mouth, dust blowing from the gaping wounds.

“I killed him.” Her voice cracked and broken in her throat.

“No, Ferro. I did that. They were young Eaters, weak and foolish. Still, you are lucky they wanted only to catch you.”

“I am lucky,” she mumbled, dribbling bloody spit onto the Eater’s corpse. She dropped the broken knife, crawled away on all fours. The body of the woman lay next to her, if you could call it that. A shapeless, lumpy mass of flesh. She saw long hair, and an eye, and lips.

“What did you do?” she croaked through her bloody mouth.

“I turned her bones to water. And burned him from the inside. Water for one, fire for the other. Whatever works, for their kind.” Ferro rolled over on the grass, looked up at the bright sky. She held her hand in front of her face, shook it. One of her fingers flopped back and forth.

Yulwei’s face appeared above, staring down at her. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” she whispered, letting her arm drop back to the earth. “It never does.” She blinked up at Yulwei. “Why does it never hurt?”

The old man frowned. “They will not stop seeking for you, Ferro. Do you see now, why you have to come with me?”

She nodded slowly. The effort was immense. “I see,” she whispered. “I see…” The world grew dark again.

“Ah!” cried Jezal, as the point of Filio’s steel dug hard into his shoulder. He stumbled back, wincing and cursing, and the Styrian smiled at him and flourished his steels.

“A touch to Master Filio!” bellowed the referee. “That’s two each!” There was some scattered clapping as Filio strutted back to the contestant’s enclosure with an irritating smile across his face. “Slippery bastard,” Jezal hissed to himself as he followed. He should have seen that lunge coming. He had been careless, and he knew it.

“Two apiece?” hissed Varuz, as Jezal flopped down into his chair, breathing hard. “Two apiece? Against this nobody? He’s not even from the Union!”

Jezal knew better than to point out that Westport was supposed to be a part of the Union these days. He knew what Varuz meant, and so did everyone else in the arena. The man was an outsider as far as they were concerned. He grabbed the cloth from Wests outstretched hands and wiped his sweaty face. Five touches was a long match, but Filio looked far from exhausted. He was springing up and down on his toes as Jezal glanced across, nodding his head to the noisy Styrian advice spilling from his trainer.

“You can beat him!” West murmured, as he handed Jezal the water bottle. “You can beat him, and then it’s the final.” The final. That meant Gorst. Jezal wasn’t entirely sure he wanted any of that.

But Varuz was in no doubt. “Just damn well beat him!” hissed the Marshal, as Jezal took a swig from the bottle, swilled it round in his mouth. “Just beat him!” Jezal spat half out into the bucket and swallowed the rest. Just beat him. Easy to say, but he was a devious bastard, this Styrian.

“You can do it!” said West again, rubbing Jezal’s shoulder. “You’ve come this far!”

“Kill him! Just kill him!” Marshal Varuz stared into Jezal’s eyes “Are you a nobody, Captain Luthar? Did I waste my time on you? Or are you somebody? Eh? Now’s the time to decide!”

“Gentlemen, please!” called the referee, “the deciding touch!”

Jezal blew out hard, took his steels from West, got to his feet. He could hear Filio’s trainer shouting encouragements over the swelling noise of the crowd. “Just kill him!” shouted Varuz one last time, then Jezal was off on his way to the circle.

The deciding touch. The decider. In so many ways. Whether Jezal would be in the final or not. Whether he would be somebody or not. He was tired though, very tired. He had been fencing solidly for nearly half an hour, in the heat, and that takes it out of you. He was sweating again already. He could feel it leaking out of his face in big drops.

He moved towards his mark. A bit of chalk on some dry grass. Filio was standing there waiting, still smiling, anticipating his triumph. The little shit. If Gorst could club those others around the circle, then surely Jezal could grind this fool’s face in the turf. He squeezed the grips of his steels and concentrated on that nauseating little smile. He wished for a moment that the steels weren’t blunted, until it occurred to him that he might be the one who got stabbed.

“Begin!”

Jezal sorted through his cards, shuffling them this way and that in his hands, barely even looking at the symbols on them, barely caring whether he kept them out of sight of the others.

“I’ll raise you ten,” said Kaspa, sliding some coins across the table with a look that said… oh, something probably, Jezal didn’t care what, he really wasn’t concentrating. There was a lengthy pause.

“It’s your bet, Jezal,” grumbled Jalenhorm.

“It is? Oh, er…” He scanned across the meaningless symbols, unable to take any of it too seriously. “Erm, oh… I’ll fold.” He tossed the cards on to the table. He was down today, well down, for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long. Ever probably. He was too busy thinking about Ardee: wondering how he could bed her without doing either one of them lasting harm, most particularly without his being killed by West. He was still no closer to an answer, unfortunately.

Kaspa swept up the coins, smiling broadly at his most unlikely victory. “So that was well fought today, Jezal. A close one, but you came through, eh?”

“Uh,” said Jezal. He took his pipe from the table.

“I swear, I thought he had you for a minute there, but then,” and he snapped his fingers under Brint’s nose, “just like that! Knocked him right over. The crowd loved it! I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself, I swear!”

“Do you reckon you can beat Gorst?” asked Jalenhorm.