Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

“Woods,” grunted Tul, and he split a big grin. “Will I ever get tired of em?

Logen took a drink from the canteen, then handed it back, and Tul took a swig himself. They sat there, silent, for a minute.

“I didn’t want this, you know, Tul.”

“Course not. None of us wanted this. Don’t mean we don’t deserve it, though, eh?” Tul slapped his big hand down on Logen’s shoulder. “You need to talk it over, I’m around.”

Logen watched him go. He was a good man, the Thunderhead. A man that could be trusted. There were still a few left. Tul, and Grim, and the Dogman. Black Dow too, in his own way. It almost gave Logen some hope, that did. Almost made him glad that he chose to come back to the North. Then he looked back at the file of men and he saw Shivers in there, watching him. Logen would have liked to look away, but looking away wasn’t something the Bloody-Nine could do. So he sat there on his rock, and they stared at each other, and Logen felt the hatred digging at him until Shivers was lost through the trees. He shook his head again, and sucked his teeth again, and spat.

You can never have too many knives, his father had told him. Unless they’re pointed at you, and by people who don’t like you much.

Tap, tap.

“Not now!” stormed Colonel Glokta. “I have all these to get through!” There must have been ten thousand papers of confession for him to sign. His desk was groaning with great heaps of them, and the nib of his pen was soft as butter. What with the red ink, his marks looked like dark bloodstains sprayed across the pale paper. “Damn it!” he raged as he knocked over the bottle with his elbow, splashing ink out over the desk, soaking into the piles of papers, dripping to the floor with a steady tap, tap, tap.

“There will be time later for you to confess. Ample time.”

The Colonel frowned. The air had grown decidedly chill. “You again! Always at the worst times!”

“You remember me, then?”

“I seem to…” In truth, the Colonel was finding it hard to recall from where. It looked like a woman in the corner, but he could not make out her face.

“The Maker fell burning… he broke upon the bridge below…” The words were familiar, but Glokta could not have said why. Old stories and nonsense. He winced. Damn it but his leg hurt.

“I seem to…” His usual confidence was all ebbing away. The room was icy cold now, he could see his breath smoking before his face. He stumbled up from his chair as his unwelcome visitor came closer, his leg aching with a vengeance. “What do you want?” he managed to croak.

The face came into the light. It was none other than Mauthis, from the banking house of Valint and Balk. “The Seed, Colonel.” And he smiled his joyless smile. “I want the Seed.”

“I… I…” Glokta’s back found the wall. He could go no further.

“The Seed!” Now it was Goyle’s face, now Sult’s, now Severard’s, but they all made the same demand. “The Seed! I lose patience!”

“Bayaz,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes closed, tears running out from underneath his lids. “Bayaz knows—”

“Tap, tap, torturer.” The woman’s hissing voice again. A finger-tip jabbed at the side of his head, painfully hard. “If that old liar knew, it would be mine already. No. You will find it.” He could not speak for fear. “You will find it, or I will tear the price from your twisted flesh. So tap, tap, time to wake.”

The finger stabbed at his skull again, digging into the side of his head like a dagger blade. “Tap, tap, cripple!” hissed the hideous voice in his ear, breath so cold it seemed to burn his bare cheek. “Tap, tap!”

Tap, tap.

For a moment Glokta hardly knew where he was. He jerked upright, struggling with the sheets, staring about him, hemmed in on every side by threatening shadows, his own whimpering breath hissing in his head. Then everything fell suddenly into place. My new apartments. A pleasant breeze stirred the curtains in the sticky night, washing through the one open window. Glokta saw its shadow shifting on the rendered wall. It swung shut against the frame, open, then shut again.

Tap, tap.

He closed his eyes and breathed a long sigh. Winced as he sagged back in his bed, stretching his legs out, working his toes against the cramps. Those toes the Gurkish left me, at least. Only another dream. Everything is—

Then he remembered, and his eyes snapped wide open. The King is dead. Tomorrow we elect a new one.

The three hundred and twenty papers were hanged, lifeless, from their nails. They had grown more and more creased, battered, greasy and grubby over the past few weeks. As the business itself has slid further into the filth. Many were ink smudged, covered with angrily scrawled notes, with fillings-in and crossings-out. As men were bought and sold, bullied and blackmailed, bribed and beguiled. Many were torn where wax had been removed, added, replaced with other colours. As the allegiances shifted, as the promises were broken, as the balance swung this way and that.

Arch Lector Sult stood glaring at them, like a shepherd at his troublesome flock, his white coat rumpled, his white hair in disarray. Glokta had never before seen him look anything less than perfectly presented. He must, at last, taste blood. His own. I would almost want to laugh, if my own mouth were not so terribly salty.

“Brock has seventy-five,” Sult was hissing to himself, white gloved hands fussing with each other behind his back. “Brock has seventy-five. Isher has fifty-five. Skald and Barezin, forty a piece. Brock has seventy-five…” He muttered the numbers over and over, as though they were a charm to protect him from evil. Or from good, perhaps. “Isher has fifty-five…”

Glokta had to suppress a smile. Brock, then Isher, then Skald and Barezin, while the Inquisition and Judiciary struggle over scraps. For all our efforts, the shape of things is much the same as when we began this ugly dance. We might as well have led the country then and saved ourselves the trouble. Perhaps it is still not too late…

Glokta noisily cleared his throat and Sult’s head jerked round. “You have something to contribute?”

“In a manner of speaking, your Eminence.” Glokta kept his tone as servile as he possibly could. “I received some rather… troubling information recently.”

Sult scowled, and nodded his head at the papers. “More troubling than this?”

Equally, at any rate. After all, whoever wins the vote will have but a brief celebration if the Gurkish arrive and slaughter the lot of us a week later. “It has been suggested to me… that the Gurkish are preparing to invade Midderland.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause. Scarcely a promising reception, but we have set sail now. What else to do but steer straight for the storm? “Invade?” sneered Goyle. “With what?”

“It is not the first time I have been told they have a fleet.” Trying desperately to patch my foundering vessel. “A considerable fleet, built in secret, after the last war. We could easily make some preparations, then if the Gurkish do come—”

“And what if you are wrong?” The Arch Lector was frowning mightily. “From whom did this information come?”

Oh, dear me no, that would never do. Carlot dan Eider? Alive? But how? Body found floating by the docks… “An anonymous source, Arch Lector.”

“Anonymous?” His Eminence glowered through narrowed eyes. “And you would have me go to the Closed Council, at a time like this, and put before them the unproven gossip of your anonymous source?” The waves swamp the deck…