Joe Abercrombie - Sharp Ends

‘The consequence that’s preying on my mind is the love of my life with her fucking throat cut!’

Javre blinked as she dropped heavily between the oars. ‘Love of your life?’

‘Well, I mean …’ Shev hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t meant to admit it, even to herself. ‘You know what I mean! Exaggerating, for effect.’

‘I have heard you exaggerate a hundred million times, Shevedieh. I know how it sounds. That was the much rarer sound of you letting slip the truth.’

‘Shut up and row,’ grumbled Shev as she shoved the boat away from the slimy wharf.

Javre leaned to the oars, great muscles in her bare arms twitching and bulging with each stroke, the boat sliding smoothly out onto the calm, dark waters of the harbour. Shev undid the buckles on her bag and unrolled it, metal rattling.

Javre whistled softly as she peered down at all those gleaming tools. ‘Going to war?’

‘If need be.’ Shev buckled the sword-eater onto her thigh. ‘A wise man once told me you can never have too many knives.’

‘Sure you’ll be able to climb with all that weight of steel?’

‘We’re not all built like bulls.’ Shev slid the throwing blades one by one into the strapping inside her coat. ‘Some of us need an edge.’

‘Be careful the edge does not cut your head off, Shevedieh.’ She watched as, ever so gently, Shev slid a little vial of green liquid from her bag and into the fleece-lined loop on her belt. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

‘Depends what you think it is.’

‘I think it is as likely to blow she who throws it to hell as to blow those it’s thrown at to heaven.’

‘Fancy that, you’re not the only one who can go down in a fireball.’

‘You are more or less the only friend I have not been obliged to kill. I am concerned for your welfare.’

‘If you’re such a good friend you could try being happy for me.’

‘Happy to see you strung along by that golden-haired siren?’

‘Happy that I’ve found some little respite from the endless tide of shit my life has been!’ Shev winced, trying to find some position where her blowpipe wasn’t jabbing her in the armpit. ‘Did I complain when you were noisily enjoying your frequent dalliances?’

‘Did you complain?’ Javre snorted. ‘You, the baroness of bitching? The countess of carping? The princess of prating? The … er … the grand duchess of … of …’

‘I get the idea,’ snapped Shev, checking the trigger of her crossbow before she slid it into the holster under her coat.

‘Good, because apparently your memory is almost as short as you are. Complain, Shevedieh? You made my life a misery day in and day out for the past …’ Javre frowned up at the starry sky, moonlit lips moving as she counted. ‘Thirteen … no fourteen!’ She gave a long pause before her bleary eyes settled on Shev, then added in a weary drawl, ‘ Fourteen fucking years. ’

‘Fourteen years,’ muttered Shev. ‘Half my life, near as damn it.’ And she felt the back of her nose aching with the need to cry. For all those years wasted. For the ruin of their friendship, which for so long had been all she had. For the fact that it had still been there when she needed it. For the fact that it was still all she had.

Javre puffed out her scarred cheeks. ‘Small wonder we are … somewhat wearied.’

The blades of the oars feathered the water, trails of sparkling drops falling from their ends, then cut silently into the surface. The rowlocks creaked. The wind picked up and stirred Javre’s dirty hair.

‘I am happy for you,’ she said, softly. ‘I try to be, anyway.’

‘Well, I’m happy you’re happy.’

‘Good.’

‘Good.’

Another slow silence. ‘I am just sad for myself.’

Shev looked up, caught Javre’s eye. A wet gleam in the darkness. ‘I’m sorry you’re sad,’ she said.

‘Good.’

‘Good.’

‘Shit,’ mouthed Shev as she scrabbled about in the dark for a reliable toehold on that crumbling wall. Burroia’s damn fort was falling apart. But then it was a ruin. Bit like Shev’s hopes in that regard. ‘Bloody, bloody shit .’

Javre might’ve had a point about all the hardware. It was a hell of a weight for someone who’d built their reputation on a light tread. There were a couple of buckles she’d dragged too tight now threatening to cut off the blood to her legs, and a couple she hadn’t dragged tight enough, loose metal clinking and the garrotte knocking distractingly against her arse crack every time she pulled herself up.

What was she doing with a damn garrotte anyway? She’d never used a garrotte in her life, except once to cut a cheese and that was for a joke and hadn’t even ended up that funny. You can make an argument for a knife. Sometimes people just need a knifing. Like Crandall had. She shed no tears for him. But once you start garrotting people you can’t claim to stand with the righteous.

Garrottes simply are not part of God’s chosen path and although, through a combination of personal weakness, evil acquaintance and plain bad luck, Shev had to admit her feet had often left the chosen path behind, she liked to imagine she could at least still see it, in the distance, if she squinted.

She froze at a noise above, the latest of a volley of curses stopped cold on her lips.

Footsteps scraping. The tuneless humming of a person deeply bored and with no musical aptitude. Shev’s eyes went wide. A guard, on patrol. She wondered what the chances were of his not noticing the grapple wedged against the parapet. Not good, was her guess. She clung tight to the rope with one hand, jerked a dart out with the other and shoved it between her teeth.

It would’ve been the perfect end to her career of misadventures if she’d pricked herself in the cheek, lost consciousness and dropped off the rope into the sea. But Shev was blessed with a nimble tongue. Probably that was what Carcolf saw in her. God knows, there had to be something.

The humming stopped. Footsteps scuffed closer. She snatched out her blowpipe, raising it to her lips. Sadly, at that moment, her fingers were less nimble than her mouth. The blowpipe caught on a jutting stone, she fumbled it, juggled it desperately, almost let go of the rope in her confusion, then gave a despairing gasp of, ‘Thuck!’ around the dart in her teeth as she watched it tumble away.

Javre caught it, then peered up, puzzled. ‘What is this?’ she hissed.

Shev looked back to the parapet, helpless panic settling on her like snow on a sleeping tramp. A face suddenly appeared. The face of a big man with curly hair. His thick brows went sharply up when he saw her clinging to the rope with her feet against the wall, close enough to reach out and touch.

Her first bizarre instinct was to give him a hopeful smile, but with the dart between her teeth it was impossible.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said, and leaned out, lifting a spear.

Lucky that Shev had always been a quick thinker in a tight spot. Years of practice, maybe. She jerked herself up as if overpowered by a desire to kiss him and stuck him in the neck with the dart.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said again, but less angry this time, and more surprised. He tried to stab her but she was too close, his elbow caught on the battlements and the spear slid from his slack grip, dropping over Shev’s shoulder.

Fast-acting, that toxin. He flopped limp over the parapet with a sigh and Shev grabbed his belt and dragged herself up by it, rolling silently across his back and onto the walkway.

With rare good fortune, she found it empty. A stretch of stone maybe two strides wide, crumbling battlements to either side, a door leading into an ivy-throttled turret at the far end, faint torchlight showing around its edge. More lights twinkled further off in the windows of the old fortress. The place might be a ruin, but it was evidently far from abandoned.