Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

The men who’d made the circle moved out of his way, now, their voices fallen silent, their shields hanging from their hands.

“Never thought you could do it, but when it comes to killing, there’s no man better! No man worse! I’ve always said so!”

Logen tottered through the open gates, found an archway and began to climb the lurching steps, round and round, his boots hissing against the stone and leaving dark smears behind. The blood dripped, tap, tap, tap from the dangling fingers of his left hand. Every muscle ached. Bethod’s voice dug at him.

“But I get the last laugh, eh, Bloody-Nine? You’re nothing but leaves on the water! Any way the rain washes you!”

Logen stumbled on, ribs burning, jaws locked tight together, shoulder scraping against the curved wall. Up, and up, and round, and round, his crackling breath echoing after.

“You’ll never have anything! You’ll never be anything! You’ll never make anything but corpses!”

Out onto the roof, blinking in the morning brightness, spitting a mouthful of blood over his shoulder. Bethod stood at the battlements. The Named Men stumbled out of Logen’s way as he strode towards him.

“You’re made of death, Bloody-Nine! You’re made of—”

Logen’s fist crunched into his jaw and he took a flopping step back. Logen’s other hand smashed into his cheek and he reeled against the parapet, a long string of bloody drool running from his split mouth. Logen caught the back of his head and jerked his knee up into Bethod’s face, felt his nose crunch flat against it. Logen tangled his fingers in Bethod’s hair, gripped it tight, pulled his head up high, and rammed it down into the stones.

“Die!” he hissed.

Bethod jerked, gurgled, Logen lifted his head and drove it down again, and again. The golden ring flew off his broken skull, bounced across the rooftop with a merry jingling.

“Die!”

Bone crunched, and blood shot out over the stone in fat drops and thin spatters. Pale-as-Snow and his Named Men stared, white-faced, helpless and fearful, horrified and delighted.

“Die, you fucker!”

And Logen hauled Bethod’s ruined corpse into the air with one last effort and flung it tumbling over the battlements. He watched it fall. He watched it crunch to the ground and lie, on its side, arms and legs stuck out awkwardly, fingers curled as if they were grasping at something, the head no more than a dark smear on the hard earth. All the faces of the crowds of men standing below were turned towards that corpse, then slowly, eyes and mouths wide open, they lifted up to stare at Logen.

Crummock-i-Phail, standing in their midst, in the centre of the shaved circle beside the great body of the Feared, slowly raised his long arm, the fat forefinger on the end of it pointing upwards. “The Bloody-Nine!” he screamed. “King o’ the Northmen!”

Logen gaped down at him, panting for breath, legs wobbling, trying to understand. The fury was gone and left nothing but terrible tiredness behind it. Tiredness and pain.

“King o’ the Northmen!” someone shrieked, way back in the crowd.

“No,” croaked Logen, but no one heard him. They were all too drunk with blood and fury, or busy thinking what was easiest, or too scared to say any different. The chants broke out all over, first a trickle of them, then a flow, and then a flood, and all Logen could do was watch, clinging to the bloody stone and trying not to fall.

“The Bloody-Nine! King o’ the Northmen!”

Pale-as-Snow was down on one knee beside him, spots of Bethod’s blood sprayed across the white fur on his coat. He always had been one to lick whatever arse was nearest, but he wasn’t alone. They were all kneeling, up on the walls and down on the grass. The Dogman’s Carls and Bethod’s. The men who’d held the shields for Logen and the ones who’d held the shields for the Feared. Maybe Bethod had taught them a lesson. Maybe they’d forgotten how to be their own men, and now they needed someone else to tell them what to do.

“No,” whispered Logen, but all that came out was a dull slurp. He had no more power to stop it than he had to make the sky fall in. Seemed to him then that men do pay for the things they’ve done, alright. But sometimes the payment isn’t what they expected.

“The Bloody-Nine!” roared Crummock again, as he sank down on his knees and lifted up his arms towards the sky, “King o’ the Northmen!”

The room was another over-bright box. It had the same off-white walls, spotted with brown stains. Mould, or blood, or both. The same battered table and chairs. Virtually instruments of torture in themselves. The same burning pains in Glokta’s foot, and leg, and back. Some things never change. The same prisoner, as far as anyone could have told, with the same canvas bag over their head. Just like the dozens who have been through this room over the past few days, and just like the dozens more crammed into the cells beyond the door, waiting on our pleasure.

“Very well.” Glokta waved a tired hand, “let us begin.”

Frost dragged the bag from the prisoner’s head. A long, lean Kantic face with deep creases around the mouth and a neatly trimmed black beard, streaked with grey. A wise, dignified face, deep-set eyes even now adjusting to the glare.

Glokta burst out laughing. Each chuckle stabbed at the base of his stiff spine and rattled his stiff neck, but he could not help himself. Even after all these years, fate can still play jokes on me.

“Wath futhy?” grunted Frost.

Glokta wiped his runny eye. “Practical Frost, we are truly honoured. Our latest prisoner is none other than Master Farrad, formerly of Yashtavit in Kanta, and more recently of a magnificent address at the top of the Kingsway. We are in the presence of the finest dentist in the Circle of the World.” And one must appreciate the irony.

Farrad blinked into the glaring lamplight. “I know you.”

“Yes.”

“You are the one who was a prisoner of the Gurkish.”

“Yes.”

“The one they tortured. I remember… you were brought to me.”

“Yes.”

Farrad swallowed. As though the memory alone is enough to make him vomit. He glanced up at Frost and the pink eyes glowered back, unblinking. He glanced round the grubby, bloodstained room, at the cracked tiles, at the scarred table-top. His eyes lingered on the paper of confession lying upon it. “After what they did to you—how can you do this, now?”

Glokta showed Farrad his toothless grin. “After what they did to me, how could I do anything else?”

“Why am I here?”

“For the same reason as everyone else who comes here.” Glokta watched Frost plant the heavy tips of his fingers on the paper of confession and slide it deliberately across the table towards the prisoner. “To confess.”

“Confess to what?”

“Why, to spying for the Gurkish.”

Farrad’s face creased up with disbelief. “I am no spy! The Gurkish took everything from me! I fled my home when they came! I am innocent, you must know this!”

Of course. As have been all the spies who confessed in this room over the last few days. But they all confessed, without exception. “Will you sign the paper?”

“I have nothing to confess to!”

“Why is it that no one can answer the questions I ask?” Glokta stretched out his aching back, worked his creaking neck from side to side, rubbed at the bridge of his nose with finger and thumb. Nothing helped. But then nothing ever does. Why must they always make it so very difficult, for me and for themselves? “Practical Frost, would you show the good master our work so far?”

The albino slid a dented tin bucket out from under the table and dumped the contents without ceremony in front of the prisoner. Teeth clattered, and slid, and spun across the wood. Hundreds of them. Teeth of all shapes and sizes, from white, through all the shades of yellow, to brown. Teeth with bloody roots and with shreds of flesh attached. A couple tumbled from the far end of the table and bounced from the grimy tiles, clicked away into the corners of the narrow room.