Joe Abercrombie - Sharp Ends

‘And it does look rather well on me, I think you’d have to agree.’

‘You certainly are a shadowy and seductive corruptor of innocent maidenhood!’ Javre playfully jogged Shev in the ribs with an elbow and nearly sent her careering into the nearest wall, then caught her by the hand and dragged her into a crushing embrace, her cheek squashed into Javre’s armpit. ‘We shall do it your way, then, Shevedieh, my friend! Straight and true and morally upright, just as a thief should be! We shall pay your debts, then get drunk and find some men.’

Shev was still struggling to get a breath in after that elbow. ‘What is it exactly that you think I’d do with them?’

Javre grinned. ‘The men would be for me. I am a woman of Thond and have grand appetites. You can keep watch.’

‘My towering thanks for the immensity of that honour,’ said Shev, slipping from under the weight of Javre’s mightily muscled arm.

‘It is the least I could do. You have been a fine sidekick so far.’

‘I thought this was an equal partnership.’

‘All the best sidekicks think that,’ said Javre, striding towards the front door of the Weeping Slaver, its sign hanging precariously from a rusting pole by one loop.

Shev caught Javre’s arm and, by hanging off it with all her weight and digging her heels into the mud, managed to stop her taking the next step. ‘I have a feeling Tumnor will be expecting us.’

‘That was the arrangement.’ Javre looked down at her, puzzled.

‘Given that he was less than entirely forthcoming about the job, it may be that he’ll try to double-cross us.’

Javre frowned. ‘You think he might break the agreement?’

‘He didn’t mention the traps, did he?’ asked Shev, still heaving at Javre’s arm. ‘Or the long drop? Or the wall? Or the dogs? And he said two guards, not twelve.’

Muscles worked as Javre clenched her jaw. ‘He said nothing about that sorcerer, either.’

‘Exactly,’ Shev managed to gasp, every sinew trembling with effort.

‘Breath of the Mother, you’re right.’

Shev breathed a sigh of relief and slowly stood, patting Javre’s arm as she released it. ‘I’ll sneak in around the back and make sure that-’

Javre gave her a huge smile. ‘The Lioness of Hoskopp never uses the back door!’ And she sprang up the steps, raised one boot, kicked the front door splintering from its hinges and strode inside, the filthy tails of her once-white coat flapping after.

Shevedieh gave brief but serious consideration to sprinting off down the street, then sighed and crept up the steps after her.

The Weeping Slaver wasn’t the most auspicious of settings, though Shev had to admit she’d been in worse. Indeed, she’d spent most of the last few years in worse.

Size it had, big as a barn with a balcony at first-floor level, ill-lit by a vast circular chandelier with smoking candles in stained glass cups. The floor was covered in dirty straw and a mismatched jumble of chairs and tables, a warped counter down one side with the cheapest spirits of a dozen dozen cultures stacked on shelves behind.

The place smelled of smoke and sweat, of spilled drinks and sprayed vomit, of desperation and wasted chances, and was very much as it had been three nights ago when they took the job, just before Javre lost half their promised earnings at dice. There was one clear difference, however. That night it had overflowed with scum of every kind. Tonight there appeared to be just the one patron.

Tumnor sat at a table in the middle of the room, a fixed grin on his plump face and a sheen of sweat across his forehead. He looked extremely nervous, even for a man perpetrating a double-cross on a pair of notorious thieves. He looked in imminent fear of his life.

‘It’s a trap,’ he grunted through his clenched teeth, without moving his hands from the tabletop.

‘That we had gathered, fiend!’ said Javre.

‘No,’ he grunted, eyes swivelling wildly sideways, then back to them, then sideways again. ‘A trap .’

That was when Shev noticed his hands were nailed to the table. She followed his glance, past a large brown stain on the floor that looked suspiciously like blood and into the shadows. She saw a figure there. The glint of eyes. The glimmer of steel. A man poised and ready. Now she took in other telltale gleams in the dark corners of the inn – an axeman wedged behind a drinks cabinet, the nose of a flatbowman peeking into the light on the balcony above, a pair of boots sticking out from the door to the cellar which she deduced must still be attached to the dead legs of one of Tumnor’s hired men. Her heart sank. She hated fighting, and she had the strong feeling she was going to be fighting very soon.

‘It would appear,’ murmured Shev, leaning towards Javre, ‘that the scum who double-crossed us have been double-crossed by some other scum.’

‘Yes,’ whispered Javre. Her whispers were louder than the usual speaking voice of most people. ‘I find myself conflicted. Who to kill first?’

‘Perhaps we could talk our way out?’ Shev ventured hopefully. It was important to stay hopeful.

‘Shevedieh, we must face the possibility that there will be violence.’

‘Your prescience is uncanny.’

‘When things get underway, I would be ever so grateful if you could attend to the flatbowman on the balcony just there?’

‘Understood,’ muttered Shev.

‘Most of the rest you can probably leave to me.’

‘Too kind.’

And now the unmistakable tread of heavy boots and jingling metal echoed from the back of the inn, and Tumnor’s face grew even more drawn, beads of sweat rolling down his cheeks.

Javre narrowed her eyes. ‘And the villain is revealed.’

‘Villains tend to love a bit of theatre, though, don’t they?’ muttered Shev.

When she emerged into the shifting candlelight, she was lean and very tall. Almost as tall as Javre, perhaps, her black hair chopped short, one sinewy arm bare and covered in blue tattoos and the other with plates of battered steel, a gauntlet like a claw at the end, curving nails of sharpened metal clicking as she walked. Her green, green eyes glinted as she smiled towards them.

‘It has been a while, Javre.’

Javre pushed her lips out. ‘Oh, arse of the Goddess,’ she said. ‘Well met, Weylen. Or badly met, at least.’

‘You know her?’ muttered Shev.

Javre winced. ‘I must admit she is not an entire stranger to me. She was Thirteenth of the Fifteen.’

‘I am Tenth now,’ said Weylen. ‘Since you killed Hanama and Birke.’

‘I offered them the same choice I will soon offer you.’ Javre shrugged. ‘They chose death.’

‘Er …’ Shev held up one gloved finger. ‘If I may ask … What the hell are we talking about?’

The woman’s emerald-green eyes moved across to her. ‘She did not tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

Javre winced even more. ‘Those friends of mine I mentioned, from the temple.’

‘The temple in Thond?’

‘Yes. They’re not so much friends.’

‘So … neutral towards you, then?’ Shev ventured hopefully. It was important to stay hopeful.

‘More enemies,’ said Javre.

‘I see.’

‘The fifteen Knights Templar of the Golden Order are forbidden to leave the temple except on the orders of the High Priestess. On pain of death.’

‘And I’m guessing you had no such permission to go?’ asked Shevedieh, looking around at all the sharpened steel on display.

‘Not in so many words.’

‘Not in so many?’

‘Not in any.’

‘Her life is forfeit,’ said Weylen. ‘As is the life of anyone who offers her succour.’ And she extended her steel-taloned forefinger and drove it into the top of Tumnor’s head. He made a sound like a fart, then dropped forward, blood bubbling from the neat wound in his pate.