Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

“At long bloody last!” snapped West. “Now perhaps we’ll have some answers. Where the hell is that bastard?” He shouldered Brint aside, and froze. Poulder lay on a stretcher held by four muddy and miserable-looking members of his staff. He had the expression of a man in peaceful sleep, to the degree that West kept expecting to hear him snore. A huge, ragged wound in his chest rather spoiled the effect, however.

“General Poulder led the charge from the front,” said one of the officers, swallowing his tears. “A noble sacrifice…”

West stared down. How often had he wished that man dead? He jerked one hand over his face at a sudden wave of nausea. “Damn it,” he whispered.

“Damn it!” hissed Glokta as he twisted his trembling ankle on the topmost step and nearly pitched onto his face. A bony Inquisitor coming the other way gave him a long look. “Is there a problem?” he snarled back. The man lowered his head and hurried past without speaking.

Click, tap, pain. The dim hallway slid by with agonising slowness. Every step was an ordeal, now, but he forced himself on, legs burning, foot throbbing, neck aching, sweat running down his twisted back under his clothes, a rictus of toothless nonchalance clamped onto his face. At every gasp and grunt through the building he had expected a challenge. With each twinge and spasm he had been waiting for the Practicals to flood from the doorways and butcher him and his thinly disguised hirelings like hogs.

But those few nervous people they had passed had scarcely looked up. Fear has made them sloppy. The world teeters at a precipice. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man’s efficiency.

He lurched through the open doors and into the ante-room outside the Arch Lector’s office. The secretary’s head jerked angrily up. “Superior Glokta! You cannot simply…” He stumbled on the words as the mercenaries began to tramp into the narrow room behind him. “I mean to say… you cannot…”

“Silence! I am acting on the express orders of the king himself.” Well, everyone lies. The difference between a hero and a villain is whether anyone believes him. “Step aside!” he hissed at the two Practicals flanking the door, “or be prepared to answer for it.” They glanced at each other, then, as more of Cosca’s men appeared, raised their hands together and allowed themselves to be disarmed. The instinct of self-preservation. A decided disadvantage.

Glokta paused before the doorway. Where I have cringed so often at the pleasure of his Eminence. His fingers tingled against the wood. Can it possibly be this easy? To simply walk up in broad daylight and arrest the most powerful man in the Union? He had to suppress a smirk. If only I had thought of it sooner. He wrenched the doorknob round and lurched over the threshold.

Sult’s office was much as it had always been. The great windows, with their view of the University, the huge round table with its jewelled map of the Union, the ornate chairs and the brooding portraits. It was not Sult sitting in the tall chair, however. It was none other than his favourite lapdog, Superior Goyle. Trying the big seat out for size, are we? Far too big for you, I’m afraid.

Goyle’s first reaction was outrage. How dare anyone barge in here like this? His second was confusion. Who would dare to barge in here like this? His third was shock. The cripple? But how? His fourth, as he saw Cosca and four of his men follow Glokta through the door, was horror. Now we’re getting so mew here.

“You!” he hissed. “But you’re—”

“Slaughtered? Change of plans, I’m afraid. Where’s Sult?”

Goyle’s eyes flickered around the room, over the dwarfish mercenary, the one with a hook for a hand, the one with the hideous boils, and came to rest on Cosca, swaggering round the edge of the chamber with one fist on his sword-hilt.

“I’ll pay you! Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it!”

Cosca held out his open palm. “I prefer cash in hand.”

“Now? I don’t have… I don’t have it with me!”

“A shame, but I work on the same principle as a whore. You’ll buy no fun with promises, my friend. No fun at all.”

“Wait!” Goyle stumbled up and took a step back, his trembling hands held up in front of him. But there’s nowhere to go but out the window. That’s the trouble with ambition. It’s easy to forget, when you’re always looking upwards, that the only way down from the dizzy heights is a long drop.

“Sit down, Goyle,” growled Glokta.

Cosca grabbed his wrist, twisted his right arm savagely behind him and made him squeal, forced him back into the chair, clamped one hand round the back of his head and smashed his face into the beautiful map of the Union. There was a sharp crunch as his nose broke, spattering blood across the western part of Midderland.

Hardly subtle, but then the time for subtlety is behind us. The Arch Lector’s confession, or someone close to him… Sult would have been better, but if we cannot have the brains, I suppose we must make do with the arsehole. “Where is that girl with my instruments?” Ardee crept cautiously into the room, came slowly across to the table and put the case down.

Glokta snapped his fingers, pointed. The fat mercenary ambled up and took a firm grip on Goyle’s free arm, dragged it sharply out across the table. “I expect you think you know an awful lot about torture, eh, Goyle? Believe me, though, you don’t really understand a thing until you’ve spent some time on both sides of the table.”

“You mad bastard!” The Superior squirmed, smearing blood across the Union with his face. “You’ve crossed the line!”

“Line?” Glokta spluttered with laughter. “I spent the night cutting the fingers from one of my friends and killing another, and you dare to talk to me about lines ?” He pushed open the lid of the case and his instruments offered themselves up. “The only line that matters is the one that separates the strong from the weak. The man who asks the questions from the man who answers them. There are no other lines.”

He leaned forward and ground the tip of his finger into the side of Goyle’s skull. “That’s all in your head! The manacles, if you please.”

“Eh?” Cosca looked to the fat mercenary, and the man shrugged, the blurred tattoos on his thick neck squirming.

“Pffft,” said the dwarf. Boil-face was silent. The one-handed mercenary had pulled down his mask and was busy picking his nose with his hook.

Glokta arched his back and gave a heavy sigh. There really is no replacement for experienced help. “Then I suppose we must improvise.” He scooped up a dozen long nails and scattered them jingling across the table-top. He slid out the hammer, its polished head shining. “I think you can see where we’re going with this.”

“No. No! We can work something out, we can—” Glokta pressed the point of one nail into Goyle’s wrist. “Ah! Wait! Wait—”

“Would you be good enough to hold this? I have only one hand to spare.”

Cosca took the nail gingerly between finger and thumb. “Mind where you aim with the hammer, though, eh?”

“Don’t worry. I am quite precise.” An awful lot of practice.

“Wait!” screeched Goyle.

The hammer made three metallic clicks, almost disappointingly quiet, as it drove the nail cleanly between the bones of Goyle’s forearm and into the table beneath. He roared with pain, spraying bloody spit over the table.

“Oh, come now, Superior, compared to what you did to your prisoners in Angland this is really quite infantile. Try to pace yourself. If you scream like that now, you’ll have nowhere to go later.” The fat mercenary seized Goyle’s other wrist in his pudgy hands and dragged it out across the map of the Union.