Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

The Dogman sprang forward, knife raised and ready.

“Stop.”

He froze solid in a moment. He’d never heard a voice like it. One word and there was no thought in his head. He stared at the pale woman, his mouth open, his breath hardly moving, wishing that she’d say another.

“You too,” she said, glancing over at Grim, and his face went slack, and he grinned, halfway through drawing his bow.

She looked Dogman up and down, then pouted as if she was all disappointment. “Is that any way for guests to behave?”

Dogman blinked. What the hell had he been thinking barging in here with a drawn blade? He couldn’t believe he’d done such a thing. He blushed to the roots of his hair. “Oh… I’m sorry… by the dead…”

“Gugh!” said Grim, throwing his bow into the corner of the room as if he’d suddenly realised he had a turd in his hand, then staring down at the arrow, baffled.

“That’s better.” She smiled, and the Dogman found he was grinning like an idiot. Some spit might’ve come out of his mouth maybe, just a bit, but he weren’t that bothered. As long as she kept talking nothing else seemed o’ too much importance. She beckoned to them, long white fingers stroking at the thick air. “No need to stand so far away from me. Come closer.”

Him and Grim stumbled towards her like eager children, Dogman near tripping over his feet in his hurry to please, Grim barging into a table on the way and coming close to falling on his face.

“My name is Caurib.”

“Oh,” said Dogman. Most beautiful name ever, no doubt about it. Amazing, that a single word could be so beautiful.

“Harding Grim’s my name!”

“Dogman, they call me, ’count of a sharp sense o’ smell, and… er…” By the dead, but it was hard to think straight. There’d been something important he was meant to be doing, but for the life of him he couldn’t think what.

“Dogman… perfect.” Her voice was soothing as a warm bath, as a soft kiss, as milk and honey… “Don’t sleep yet!” Dogman’s head rolled, Caurib’s painted face a black and white blur, swimming in front of him.

“Sorry!” he gurgled, blushing again and trying to hide the knife behind his back. “Right sorry about the blade… no idea what—”

“Don’t worry. I am glad that you brought it. I think it would be best if you used it to stab your friend.”

“Him?” Dogman squinted at Grim.

Grim grinned and nodded back at him. “Aye, definitely!”

“Right, right, good idea.” Dogman lifted up the knife, seeming to weigh a ton. “Er… anywhere you’d like him stabbed, in particular?”

“In the heart will do nicely.”

“Right you are. Right. The heart it is.” Grim turned front on to give him a better go at it. Dogman blinked, wiped some sweat from his forehead. “Here we go, then.” Damn it but he was dizzy. He squinted at Grim’s chest, wanting to make sure he got it right first time, and didn’t embarrass himself again. “Here we go…”

“Now!” she hissed at him. “Just get it—”

The axe blade made a clicking sound as it split her head neatly down the middle, all the way to her chin. Blood sprayed out and spattered in Dogman’s gawping face, and the witch’s thin body slumped down on the stones like it was made of nothing but rags.

Dow frowned as he twisted the haft of his axe this way and that, until the blade came free of Caurib’s ruined skull with a faint sucking sound. “That bitch talks too much,” he grunted.

The Bloody-Nine felt the change. Like the first green shoot of spring. Like the first warmth on the wind as the summer comes. There was a message in the way the Feared held him. His bones were no longer groaning, threatening to burst apart. The giant’s strength was less, and his was more.

The Bloody-Nine sucked in the air and his rage burned hot as ever. Slowly, slowly, he dragged his face away from the giant’s shoulder, felt the metal slide out from his mouth. He twisted, twisted until his neck was free. Until he was staring into the giant’s writhing face. The Bloody-Nine smiled, then he darted forward, fast as a shower of sparks, and sank his teeth deep into that big lower lip.

The giant grunted, shifted his arms, tried to drag the Bloody-Nine’s head away, tear the biting teeth out of his mouth. But he could more easily have shaken off the plague. His arms loosened and the Bloody-Nine twisted the hand that held the Maker’s sword. He twisted it, as the snake twists in its nest, and slowly he began to work it free.

The giant’s blue left arm uncoiled from the Bloody-Nine’s body, his blue hand seized hold of the Bloody-Nine’s wrist, but there could be no stopping it. When the sapling seed finds a crack in the mountain, over long years its deep roots will burst the very rock apart. So the Bloody-Nine strained with every muscle and let the slow time pass, hissing out his hatred into the Feared’s twitching mouth. The blade crept onwards, slowly, slowly, and its very point bit into painted flesh, just below the giant’s bottom rib.

The Bloody-Nine felt the hot blood trickling down the grip and over his bunched fist, trickling out of the Feared’s mouth and into his, running down his neck, leaking from the wounds across his back, dripping to the ground, just as it should be. Softly, gently, the blade slid into the Feared’s tattooed body, sideways, upwards, onwards.

The great hands clawed at the Bloody-Nine’s arm, at his back, seeking desperately for some hold that might stop the terrible easing forward of that blade. But with every moment the giant’s strength melted away, like ice before a furnace. Easier to stop the Whiteflow than to stop the Bloody-Nine. The movement of his hands was the growing of a mighty tree, one hair’s breadth at a time, but no flesh, no stone, no metal could stop it.

The giant’s painted side could not be harmed. Great Glustrod had made it so, long years ago, in the Old Time, when the words were written upon the Feared’s skin. But Glustrod wrote on one half only. Slowly, now, softly, gently, the point of the Maker’s sword crossed the divide and into the unmarked half of him, dug into his innards, spitted him like meat made ready for the fire.

The giant made a great, high shriek, and the last strength melted from his hands. The Bloody-Nine opened his jaws and let him free, one arm holding tight to his back while the other drove the sword on into him. The Bloody-Nine hissed laughter through his clenched teeth, dribbled laughter through the ragged hole in his face. He rammed the blade as far as it would go, and its point slid out between the plates of armour just beneath the giant’s armpit and glinted red in the sun.

Fenris the Feared tottered backwards, still making his long squeal, his mouth hanging open and a string of red spit dangling from his lip, the painted half already healed over, the pale half tattered as mince-meat. The circle of men watched him, frozen, gaping over the tops of their shields. His feet shuffled in the dirt, one hand fumbling for the red hilt of the Maker’s sword, buried to the cross-piece in his side, blood dripping from the pommel and leaving red spots scattered across the ground. His squeal became a rattling groan, one foot tripped the other and he toppled like a felled tree and crashed over on his back, in the centre of the circle, great arms and legs spread wide. The twitching of his face was finally still, and there was a long silence.

“By the dead.” It was spoken softly, thoughtfully. Logen squinted into the morning sun, saw the black shape of a man looking down at him from the high gatehouse. “By the dead, I never thought you’d do it.” The world tipped from side to side as Logen began to walk, the breath hissing cold through the wound in his face, scraping in his raw throat.