Joe Abercrombie: Last Argument of Kings

“Did you find Calder and Scale?”

“Aye. I found ’em.”

“Dead, then, are they?”

“Not yet. Thought I’d try something different. We been talking.”

“Talking is it? To those two bastards?”

“I can think o’ worse. Where’s the Dogman at?”

“Still back there, trading words with the Union, sorting out an understanding.”

“Grim?”

Logen shook his head. “Back to the mud.”

“Huh. Well, there it is. Makes this easier, anyway.” Dow’s eyes flickered sideways.

“Makes what easier?” Logen looked round. Shivers was standing right at his shoulder, scowling as if he had someone’s murder in mind. No need to ask whose. Steel gleamed beside him in the shadows. A blade, out and ready. He could’ve stabbed Logen in the back with time to spare. But he hadn’t done, and he didn’t now. It seemed as if they all stayed still for quite a while, frozen as the cold valley out beyond the windows.

“Shit on this.” Shivers tossed the knife away clattering across the floor. “I’m better’n you, Bloody-Nine. I’m better than the pair o’ you. You can get your own work done, Black Dow. I’m done with it.” He turned round and strode out, shoving his way past the two Carls from the gate, just now coming the other way. One of them hefted his shield as he frowned at Logen. The other one pulled the doors shut, swung the bar down with a final-sounding clunk.

Logen slid the Maker’s sword out of its sheath, turned his head and spat on the boards. “Like that, is it?”

“Course it is,” said Dow, still sat in Skarling’s chair. “If you’d ever looked a stride further than the end o’ your nose you’d know it.”

“What about the old ways, eh? What about your word?”

“The old ways are gone. You killed ’em. You and Bethod. Men’s words ain’t worth much these days. Well then?” he called over his shoulder. “Now’s your chance, ain’t it?”

Logen felt the moment. A lucky choice, maybe, but he’d always had plenty of luck, good and bad. He dived sideways, heard the rattle of the flatbow at the same moment, rolled across the floor and came up in a crouch as the bolt clattered against the wall behind him. He saw a figure in the dark now, kneeling up at the far end of the hall. Calder. Logen heard his curse, fishing for another bolt.

“Bloody-Nine, you broken dog!” Scale came pounding out of the shadows, boots battering the floorboards, an axe in his great fists with a blade big as a cart-wheel. “Here’s your death!”

Logen stayed where he was, crouching loose and ready, and he felt himself smile. The odds were against him, maybe, but that was nothing new. It was almost a relief, not to have to think. Fine words and politics, none of that meant anything to him. But this? This he understood.

The blade crashed into the boards, sent splinters flying. Logen had already rolled out of the way. Now he backed off, watching, moving, letting Scale cleave the air around him. The air healed quick, after all. The next blow flashed sideways and Logen dodged back, let it chop a great lump of plaster from the wall. He stepped in closer as Scale snarled again, his furious little eyes bulging, ready to swing his axe round in a blow to split the world.

The pommel of the Maker’s sword crunched into his mouth before he got the chance, jerked his head up, spots of black blood and a chunk of white tooth flying. He staggered back and Logen followed him. Scale’s eyes rolled down, axe going up high, opening his bloody mouth to make another bellow. Logen’s boot rammed hard into the side of his leg. His knee bent back the wrong way with a sharp pop and he dropped to the boards, axe flying from his hands, his roar turning to a shriek of pain.

“My knee! Ah! Fuck! My knee!” He thrashed on the floor, blood running down his chin, trying to kick his way back with only one good leg.

Logen laughed at him. “You bloated pig. I warned you, didn’t I?”

“By the fucking dead !” barked Dow. He sprang up out of Skarling’s chair, axe and sword in his hands. “If you want a thing done fucking right, you’d best get ready to set your own hand to it!”

Logen would’ve liked to stab Scale right through his fat head, but there were too many other men needed watching. The two Carls were still standing by the door. Calder was loading up his next bolt. Logen sidled into space, trying to keep his eye on all of them at once, and Dow most of all. “Aye, you faithless bastard!” he shouted. “Let’s have you!”

“Faithless, me?” Dow snorted as he came on slow down the steps, one at a time. “I’m a dark bastard, aye, I know what I am. But I’m nothing to you. I know my friends from my enemies. I never killed my own. Bethod was right about one thing, Bloody-Nine. You’re made of death. If I can put an end to you, d’you know what? That’ll be the best thing I’ve done in my life.”

“That all?”

Dow showed his teeth. “That, and I’m just plain sick o’ taking your fucking say-so.”

He came on fast as a snake, axe swinging over, sword flashing across waist high. Logen dodged the axe, met the blade with his own, metal clanging on metal. Dow caught him in his sore ribs with his knee and sent him gasping back towards the wall, then came at him again, blades leaving bright traces in the darkness. Logen sprang out of the way, rolled and came up, strutting out into the middle of the hall again, sword hanging loose from his hand.

“That it?” he asked, smiling through the pain in his side.

“Just getting the blood flowing.”

Dow leaped forward, made to go right and came left instead, sword and axe sweeping down together. Logen saw them coming, weaved away from the axe, turned the sword off his own and stepped in, growling. Dow jerked back as the Maker’s blade hissed through the air right in front of his face, stumbled away a step or two. His eye twitched, some red leaking down his cheek from a nick just under it. Logen grinned, spun the grip of his sword round in his hand. “Blood’s flowing now, eh?”

“Aye.” Dow gave a grin of his own. “Just like old times.”

“I should’ve killed you then.”

“Damn right you should’ve.” Dow circled round him, always moving, weapons gleaming in the cold light from the tall windows. “But you love to play the good man, don’t you? Do you know what’s worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he’s a hero. A man like that, there’s nothing he won’t do, and he’ll always find himself an excuse. We’ve had one ruthless bastard make himself King o’ the North, and I’ll be damned before I see a worse.” He feinted forward and Logen jerked back.

He heard the click of Calder’s flatbow again and saw the bolt flash right between them. Dow scowled over at him. “You trying to kill me? You loose another bolt and you’re spitted, you hear?”

“Stop pissing around and kill him, then!” snapped Calder, cranking away at his flatbow.

“Kill him!” bellowed Scale, from somewhere in the shadows.

“I’m working at it, pig.” Dow jerked his head at the two Carls by the door. “You two going to pitch in or what?” They looked at each other, none too keen. Then they came forward into the hall, their round shields up, their eyes on Logen, herding him towards one corner.

Logen bared his teeth as he backed off. “That’s how you’ll get it done, is it?”

“I’d rather kill you fair. But kill you crooked?” Dow shrugged his shoulders. “Just as good. I ain’t in the business o’ giving chances. Go on then! At him!”

The two of them closed in, cautious, Dow moving off to the side. Logen scrambled back, trying to look scared and waiting for some kind of chance. It wasn’t long coming. One of the Carls stepped a touch too close, let his shield drop low. He chose a bad moment to raise his axe and a bad way to do it. There was a click as the Maker’s sword took his forearm off, left it hanging from his elbow by a scrap of chain-mail. He stumbled forward, dragging in a great wheezing breath, making ready to scream, blood spurting out of the stump of his arm and splattering on the boards. Logen chopped a great gash out of his helmet and he dropped down on his knees.