Joe Abercrombie - Sharp Ends

He snorted as he plucked it out and tossed it away, a few specks of blood along with it. ‘If you think that’ll stop me you’re even sillier’n Horald said.’

‘The knife? No.’

Lom roared as he charged, shield up ahead of him like the end of a battering ram. Shev merely planted her hands on her hips and raised her brows. Halfway down the walkway, his great steps went a little unsteady. Above his shield, his hard eyes went a little crossed, then a little wide, and his furious roar turned to a hurt bellow and finally a brainless gurgle.

He was tottering towards her like a drunkard now, carried forward only by his considerable momentum, shield wobbling sideways, the great hammer dropping from his nerveless hand and bouncing into the yard below.

Shev nudged the door to the guardroom open and politely stood aside, pausing only to stick one delicately upturned foot into Lom’s path.

He blundered past, eyes already rolling back in his huge head. She hooked one of his great boots with hers and he tripped, slobbered, drool dangling from his clumsy lips. He bounced from the doorframe, spun wildly, knees drunkenly knocking, arms flung wide, then one foot caught the other and he crashed straight through the midst of a set of chairs and tables sending plates, pots and half-eaten dinner flying. He lay in the wreckage, face in a puddle of spilled stew, breath slurping, about as unconscious as it was possible to be.

‘But the poison’s another matter,’ said Shev, feeling intensely pleased with herself. Hannakar had told her that toxin could knock out an elephant, and for once he hadn’t exaggerated, apparently.

‘Ha!’ came a shout from behind and Shev spun about, rolled neatly, grabbing the sword-eater as she came up in a ready crouch.

It was Javre, dragging herself over the still-slumbering guard on the parapet, catching her foot on his head, tripping, stumbling up bleary-eyed and breathing hard, rag-wrapped sword clutched in one hand.

‘Huh.’ She stared at the crumpled bodies and slowly straightened. ‘What did you need me for?’

‘Someone had to row me out here.’ Shev slid her sword-eater back into the sheath, stepping over Big Lom’s slumbering form and towards the steps. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Here!’ hissed Shev, leaning close to the door and beckoning Javre up behind her.

Voices burbled on the far side, suddenly clear as she pressed her ear to the lock.

‘She won’t come for me. You’re wasting your time!’

‘Oh, I’ve got time.’

The voice might’ve been soft, cheerful, even, but it sent the chills prickling down Shev’s sweaty back regardless. The voice of a man who’d order a family murdered as easily as wiping his arse. A man ruthless as the plague and with a conscience no bigger than a speck of salt. The voice of Horald the Finger.

‘Don’t underestimate your charms, Carcolf. Shev will be along, I’m sure of it, and her friend, too. In the meantime, here, have some more!’

‘No!’

Harsh, ugly laughter, and a clinking that sounded like chains. ‘You’ll take some more if I say you’ll take some more!’

‘No!’ Carcolf’s voice, gone shrill now, agonised. ‘No more, you evil bastard! No more, please!’

Shev raised her boot and kicked the door open with a scream. It flew back, almost as if it wasn’t locked at all, bounced from the wall beyond and gave her a jarring blow in the shoulder as she dived through, spinning her around and almost knocking the sword-eater from her hand. She struggled to keep her balance while giving a war cry that ended up more than half a howl of pain and-

She tottered to an uncertain stop in the middle of a ruined courtyard, its crumbling walls coated with dead creeper.

Carcolf sat in a chair. Horald the Finger leaned over her.

But the terrifying scourge of Styria’s underworld held no hideous instrument of torture. Only a bottle of wine, tipped as if to pour. His smile, far from being a twisted murderer’s leer, was good-natured and fatherly. Carcolf, meanwhile, sat apparently unmolested and unrestrained, her usual sleek and beautiful self, legs calmly crossed with one pointed boot swinging comfortably back and forth, holding her hand over a glass.

As if to say no more .

‘See?’ Horald positively beamed as he threw up his free hand in delight. ‘She did come!’

Carcolf sprang up. She walked to Shev, their eyes never leaving each other. That walk she had, that Shev couldn’t look away from, even now. Shock, anger, fear, all swept aside by a heady wave of relief so strong her knees almost buckled from it.

‘You’re hurt.’ Carcolf winced as she pressed Shev’s cut eyebrow with her thumb. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Ow! About as good as you could hope for, considering I just fought five thugs!’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Horald shrugged as he sat, charging his own glass. He was a good deal older than when Shev last saw him, of course, but a good deal more prosperous-looking, too. You could have taken him for a well-heeled merchant if it wasn’t for the tattoos on his neck, the scars on his knuckles and a certain flinty hardness about the eyes. ‘If I’ve discovered one thing during my career, it’s that there are always more thugs.’

‘You came for me.’ If Shev hadn’t known better she might’ve fancied there was a little torchlit shimmer at the corners of Carcolf’s eyes.

Shev snapped out the letter and flung it at Horald, and it fluttered to the worn flagstones between them. ‘I was rather under the impression you were about to be murdered if I didn’t .’

‘I must admit,’ and Javre nudged the door open and stepped through, ‘that was my understanding, too.’

Carcolf nervously cleared her throat, edging slightly closer to Shev. ‘Javre.’

Javre narrowed her eyes. ‘Carcolf. Horald.’

‘Javre!’ He grinned as he raised his glass. ‘The Lioness of Hoskopp, who walks where she pleases! Now we’ve got a party.’

‘Party?’ snapped Shev, shaking her sword-eater at him. ‘I should bloody kill you!’ It was hard to maintain her fury with Carcolf standing uninjured beside her, still smelling as wonderfully sharp and sweet as ever, but she took her best stab at it. ‘You gave your word, Horald!’

‘Imagine that,’ said Javre as she took a cautious circuit of the yard, kicking loose stones out of her way. ‘Styria’s most infamous criminal mastermind being untrustworthy.’

‘Now hold on just a moment,’ said Horald, all offended innocence. ‘I haven’t broken my word in thirty years and I’m not about to start. I said neither you nor your associates would be harmed and neither you nor your associates have been. As you can see, Carcolf is in fine, if not to say superb, fettle. I’d never hurt her. Not after she saved my life that time in Affoia.’

‘Saved your …’ Shev stared at Carcolf. ‘You never told me about that.’

‘What kind of a mysterious beauty would I be without any mysteries?’ Carcolf tipped Shev’s head back and started dabbing the blood from her cut head with a handkerchief. ‘It was nothing heroic. Just the right word in the right ear.’

‘Right words in right ears change the world! They’re the only things that can.’ Horald held up the bottle. ‘You’re sure you won’t have some more?’

Carcolf sighed. ‘Oh, go on then, you evil bastard!’

‘You killed my place!’ snapped Shev.

‘Your place?’ Horald shook his head as he poured. ‘Come now, Shevedieh, it’s just things. You can always get new ones. Had to make it look good, didn’t I? I mean, you’d hardly have come if I just asked. And there was nothing in that paper about tea sets.’ He twisted the bottle to let the drips fall just the way an Osprian cellar-master might’ve. ‘I made sure of it. Checked the wording.’