Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

  Another had him by the belt and he was hauled bodily along, his knees and the toes of his boots scraping limp over the boards. He struggled weakly on a reflex, but only managed to send a stab of pain through his own back.

  The bathroom door cracked against his head and banged open on the wall, he was dragged powerless across the darkened room towards the bath, still full of dirty water from that morning. 'Wait!' he croaked as he was wrestled over the edge. 'Who are—blurghhhh!'

  The cold water closed around his head, the bubbles rushed around his face. He was held there, struggling, eyes bulging open with shock and panic, until it seemed his lungs would burst. Then he was yanked up by the hair, water pouring from his face and splattering into the bath. A simple technique, but undeniably effective. I am greatly discomfited. He took in a gasping breath. 'What do you—blarghhh!'

  Back into the darkness, such air as he had managed to drag in gurgling out into the dirty water. But whoever it is let me breathe. I am not being murdered. I am being softened up. Softened up for questions. I would laugh at the irony… were there any breath… left in my body… He shoved at the bath and thrashed at the water. His legs kicked pointlessly, but the hand on the back of his neck was made of steel. His stomach clenched and his ribs heaved, desperate to drag in air. Do not breathe… do not breathe… do not breathe! He was just sucking in a great lungful of dirty water as he was snatched up from the bath and flung onto the boards, coughing, gasping, vomiting all at once.

  'You are Glokta?' A woman's voice, short and hard, with a rough Kantic accent.

  She squatted down in front of him, balanced on the balls of her feet, her wrists resting on her knees, her long brown hands hanging limp. She wore a man's shirt, loose around her scrawny shoulders, wet sleeves rolled up around her bony wrists. Her black hair was hacked off short and stuck from her head in greasy clumps. She had a thin, pale scar down her hard face, a scowl on her thin lips, but it was her eyes that were most off-putting, gleaming yellow in the half light from the corridor. Small wonder that Severard was reluctant to follow her. I should have listened to him.

  'You are Glokta?'

  There was no point denying it. He wiped the bitter drool from his chin with a shaking hand. 'I am Glokta.'

  'Why are you watching me?'

  He pushed himself painfully up to sitting. 'What makes you think I will have anything to say to—'

  Her fist struck him on the point of his chin and snapped his head back, tore a gasp out of him. His jaws banged together and one tooth punched a hole in the bottom of his tongue. He sagged back against the wall, the dark room lurching, his eyes filling up with tears. When things came back into focus she was staring at him, yellow eyes narrowed. 'I will keep hitting you until you give me answers, or you die.'

  'My thanks.'

  'Thanks?'

  'I think you might have loosened my neck up just a fraction.' Glokta smiled, showing her his few bloody teeth. 'For two years I was a captive of the Gurkish. Two years in the darkness of the Emperor's prisons. Two years of cutting, and chiselling, and burning. Do you think the thought of a slap or two scares me?' He chuckled bloody laughter in her face. 'It hurts more when I piss! Do you think I'm scared to die?' He grimaced at the stabbing through his spine as he leaned towards her. 'Every morning… that I wake up alive… is a disappointment! If you want answers you'll have to give me answers. Like for like.'

  She stared at him for a long moment, not blinking. 'You were a prisoner of the Gurkish?'

  Glokta swept a hand over his twisted body. 'They gave me all this.'

  'Huh. We have both lost something to the Gurkish, then.' She slid down onto crossed legs. 'Questions. Like for like. But if you try to lie to me—'

  'Questions, then. I would be failing in my duties as a host if I did not allow you to go first.'

  She did not smile. But then she does not seem the joking type. 'Why are you watching me?'

  I could lie, but for what? I might as well die telling the truth. 'I am watching Bayaz. The two of you seem friendly, and Bayaz is hard to watch these days. So I am watching you.'

  She scowled. 'He is no friend of mine. He promised me vengeance, that is all. He has yet to deliver.'

  'Life is full of disappointments.'

  'Life is made of disappointments. Ask your question, cripple.'

  Once she has her answers, will it be bath-time again, and this time my last? Her flat yellow eyes gave nothing away. Empty, like the eyes of an animal. But what are my choices? He licked the blood from his lips, and leaned back against the wall. I might as well die a little wiser. 'What is the Seed?'

  Her frown deepened by the smallest fraction. 'Bayaz said it is a weapon. A weapon of very great power. Great enough to turn Shaffa to dust. He thought it was hidden, at the edge of the World, but he was wrong. He was not happy to be wrong.' She frowned at him for a silent moment. 'Why are you watching Bayaz?'

  'Because he stole the crown and put it on a spineless worm.'

  She snorted. 'There at least we can agree.'

  'There are those in my government who worry about the direction in which he might take us. Who worry profoundly.' Glokta licked at one bloody tooth. 'Where is he taking us?'

  'He tells me nothing. I do not trust him, and he does not trust me.'

  'There too we can agree.'

  'He planned to use the Seed as a weapon. He did not find it, so he must find other weapons. My guess is he is taking you to war. A war against Khalul, and his Eaters.'

  Glokta felt a flurry of twitches run up the side of his face and set his eyelid fluttering. Damn treacherous jelly! Her head jerked to the side. 'You know of them?'

  'A passing acquaintance.' Well, where's the harm? 'I caught one, in Dagoska. I asked it questions.'

  'What did it tell you?'

  'It talked of righteousness and justice.' Two things that I have never seen. 'It talked of war and sacrifice.' Two things that I have seen too much of. 'It said that your friend Bayaz killed his own master.' The woman did not move so much as an eyelash. 'It said that its father, the Prophet Khalul, still seeks vengeance.'

  'Vengeance,' she hissed, her hands bunching into fists. 'I will show them vengeance!'

  'What did they do to you?'

  'They killed my people.' She uncrossed her legs. 'They made me a slave.' She rose smoothly to her feet, looming over him. 'They stole my life from me.'

  Glokta felt the corner of his mouth twitch up. 'One more thing we have in common.' And I sense my borrowed time is up.

  She reached down and grabbed two fistfuls of his wet coat. She dragged him from the floor with fearsome strength, his back sliding up the wall. Body found floating in the bath . . . ? He felt his nostrils opening wide, the air hissing fast in his bloody nose, his heart thumping in anticipation. No doubt my ruined body will struggle, as best it can. An irresistible reaction to the lack of air. The unconquerable instinct to breathe. No doubt I will thrash and wriggle, just as Tulkis, the Gurkish ambassador, thrashed and wriggled when they hanged him, and dragged his guts out for nothing.

  He did his twisted best to stay up under his own power, to stand as close to straight as he could manage. After all, I was a proud man once, even if that is all far behind me. Hardly the end that Colonel Glokta would have hoped for. Drowned in the bath by a woman in a dirty shirt. Will they find me slumped over the rim, my arse in the air? But what does it matter? It is not how you die, but how you lived, that counts.

  She let go of his coat, flattened the front with a slap of her hand. And what has my life been, these past years? What do I have that I might truly miss? Stairs? Soup? Pain? Lying in the darkness with the memories of the things I have done digging at me? Waking in the morning to the stink of my own shit? Will I miss tea with Ardee West? A little perhaps. But will I miss tea with the Arch Lector? It almost makes you wonder why I didn't do it myself, years ago. He stared into his killer's eyes, as hard and bright as yellow glass, and he smiled. A smile of the purest relief. 'I am ready.'

 
'For what?' She pressed something into his limp hand. The handle of his cane. 'If you have more business with Bayaz, leave me out of it. I will not be so gentle next time.' She backed slowly towards the doorway, a bright rectangle against the shadowy wall. She turned, and the sound of her boots receded down the corridor. Aside from the soft tip-tap of water dripping from his wet coat, all fell silent.

  And so, it seems, I survive. Again. Glokta raised his eyebrows. Perhaps the trick is not wanting to.

  * * *

  The Fourth Day

  « ^ »

  He was an ugly bastard, this Easterner. A huge big one, dressed all in stinking, half-tanned furs and a bit of rusted chain-mail, more ornament than protection. Greasy black hair, bound up here and there with rough-forged silver rings, dripped with the thin rain. He had a great scar down one cheek and another across his forehead, and the countless nicks and pittings of lesser wounds and boils as a lad, nose flattened and bent sideways like a dented spoon. His eyes were screwed up tight with effort, his yellow teeth were bared, the front two missing, his grey tongue pressed into the gap. A face that had seen war all its days. A face that had lived by sword, and axe, and spear, and counted every day alive a bonus.

  For Logen, it was almost like looking in a mirror.

  They held each other as tight as a pair of bad lovers, blind to everything around them. They lumbered back and forward, lurching like feuding drunkards. They plucked and tugged, bit and gouged, gripped and tore, strained in frozen fury, blasting sour breath in each other's faces. An ugly, and a wearying, and a fatal dance, and all the while the rain came down.

  Logen took a painful dig in the gut and had to twist and wriggle to smother a second. He gave a half-hearted head-butt and did nothing more then scuff Ugly's face with his forehead. He nearly got tripped, stumbled, felt the Easterner shift his weight, trying to find a set to throw him. Logen managed to dig him in the fruits with his thigh before he could do it, enough to make his arms go weak for a moment, enough so he could slide his hand up onto Ugly's neck.

  Logen forced that hand up, inch by painful inch, his stretched-out forefinger creeping over the Easterner's pitted face while he peered down at it, cross-eyed, trying to tip his head out of the way. His hand gripped painful tight round Logen's wrist, trying to haul it back, but Logen had his shoulder dipped, his weight set right. The finger edged past his grimacing mouth, over his top lip, into Ugly's bent nose, and Logen felt his broken nail digging at the flesh inside. He crooked his finger, and bared his teeth, and twisted it about as best he could.

  The Easterner hissed and thrashed around, but he was hooked. He'd no choice but to grab at Logen's wrist with his other hand and try to drag that tearing finger out of his face. But that left Logen one hand free.

  He snatched a knife out and grunted as he stabbed, his arm jerking in and out. Quick punches, but with steel on the end of them. The blade squelched in the Easterner's gut, and his thigh, and his arm, and his chest, blood coming out in long streaks, splattering them both and trickling into the puddles under their boots. Once he was stabbed enough Logen caught him by his coat, hauled him into the air with a jaw-clenched effort, and roared as he flung him over the battlements. He plummeted away, limp as a carcass and soon to be one, crashed to the ground in among his fellows.

  Logen bent over the parapet, gasping at the wet air, the rain drops flitting down away from him. There were hundreds of them, it seemed like, milling around in the sea of mud at the base of the wall. Wild men, from out past the Crinna, where they hardly spoke right and cared nothing for the dead. They all were rain-soaked and filth-spattered, hiding under rough-made shields and waving rough-forged weapons, barbed and brutal. Their standards stood flapping in the rain behind them, bones and ragged hides, ghostly shadows in the downpour.

  Some were carrying rickety ladders forwards, or lifting those that had been thrown down, trying to foot them near the wall and haul them up while rocks and spears and sodden arrows flapped and splattered into the mud. Others were climbing, shields held over their heads, two ladders up at Dow's side, one on Red Hat's side, one just to Logen's left. A pair of big savages were swinging great axes against the scarred gates, chopping wet splinters out with every blow. Logen pointed at them, screamed uselessly into the wet. No one heard him, or could have over the great noise of drumming rain, of crashing, thudding, scraping, blades on shields, shafts in flesh, battle cries and shrieks of pain.

  He fumbled his sword up from the puddles on the walkway, dull metal glistening with beads of water. Just near him one of Shivers' Carls was facing off against an Easterner who'd scrambled from the top of a ladder. They traded a couple of blows, axe against shield then sword swishing at the empty air. The Easterner's axe-arm went up again and Logen hacked it off at the elbow, stumbled into his back and knocked him screaming on his face. The Carl finished him with a chop to the back of the skull, pointed his bloody sword over Logen's shoulder.

  'There!'

  Another Easterner with a big hook nose just getting to the top of the ladder, leaning forward over the battlements, right arm going back with a spear ready. Logen bellowed as he came for him.

  His eyes went wide and the spear wobbled, too late to throw. He tried to swing out of the way, clinging to the wet wood with his free hand, but only managed to drag the ladder grating across the battlements. Logen's sword stabbed him under the arm and he flailed back with a grunt, dropping his spear behind him. Logen stabbed at him again, slipped and lunged too far, near falling into his arms. Big-Nose clawed at him, trying to bundle him over the parapet. Logen smashed him in the face with the pommel of his sword and knocked his head back, took some teeth out with a second blow. The third one knocked him senseless and he fell back off the ladder, plummeting down and taking one of his friends into the mud with him.

  'Bring that pole!' Logen roared at the Carl with the sword.

  'What?'

  'Pole, you fucker!'

  The Carl snatched the wet length of wood up and threw it through the rain. Logen dropped his sword and wedged the branched end against one upright of the ladder, started pushing for all he was worth. The Carl came and added his weight to it, and the ladder creaked, wobbled, and started tipping back. An Easterner's face came up over the battlements, surprised-looking. He saw the pole. He saw Logen and the Carl growling at it. He tumbled off as the ladder dropped away, down on the heads of the bastards below.

  Further along the wall another ladder had just been pushed back up and the Easterners were starting to climb it, shields up over their heads while Red Hat and his boys chucked rocks at them. Some had got to the top over on Dow's bit of the wall, and he could hear the shouting from there, the sounds of murder. Logen gnawed at his bloody lip, wondering whether to push on down there and give them some help, but he decided against. He'd be needed here before long.

  So he took up the Maker's sword, and he nodded to the Carl who'd helped him, and he stood and caught his breath. He waited for the Easterners to come again, and all around him men fought, and killed, and died.

  Devils, in a cold, wet, bloody hell. Four days of it, now, and it felt as if he'd been there forever. As if he'd never left. Perhaps he never had.

  Like the Dogman's life weren't difficult enough already, there had to be rain.

  Wet was an archer's worst fear, alright. Apart from being ridden down by horsemen, maybe, but that weren't so likely up a tower. The bows were slippery, the strings were stretchy, the feathers were sodden, which all made for some ineffective shooting. Rain was costing them their advantage, and that was a worry, but it could cost them more than that before the day was out. There were three big wild bastards working at the gates, two swinging heavy axes at the softened wood, the third trying to get a pry-bar in the gaps they'd made and tear the timbers apart.

  'If we don't deal with them, they'll have those gates in!' Dogman shouted hoarse into the wet air.

  'Uh,' said Grim, nodding his head, water flicking off his shaggy thatch of hair.

 
Took a good bit of bellowing and pointing from him and Tul, but Dogman got a crowd of his lads lined up by the slick parapet. Three score wet bows, all lowered at once, all drawn back creaking, all pointing down towards that gate. Three score men, frowning and taking aim, all dripping with water and getting wetter every minute.

  'Alright then, loose!'

  The bows went more or less together, the sounds muffled. The shafts spun down, bouncing off the wet wall, sticking in the rough wood of the gate, prickling the ground all round where the ditch used to be, before it became just another load of mud. Not what you'd call accurate, but there were a lot of shafts, and if you can't get quality, then numbers will have to do the job for you. The Easterner on the right dropped his axe, three arrows sticking out his chest, one through his leg. The one on the left slipped and fell on his side, went floundering for cover, an arrow in his shoulder. The one with the bar went down on his knees, thrashing around and grabbing behind him, trying to get at a shaft in the small of his back.

  'Alright! Good!' the Dogman shouted. None of the rest of 'em seemed keen to try the gate for the moment, which was something to be grateful for. There were still plenty trying the ladders, but that was a harder task to deal with from up here. They might just as easily shoot their own boys on the walls as the enemy in this weather. Dogman gritted his teeth, and loosed a harmless, looping wet arrow down into the milling crowd. Nothing they could do. The walls was Shivers job, and Dow's, and Red Hat's. The walls was Logen's job.

  There was a crack, loud as the sky falling. The world went reeling bright, and soupy slow, sounds all echoing. Logen stumbled through this dream-place, the sword clattering out of his stupid fingers, lurched against the wall and grappled with it as it swayed around, trying to understand what had happened and not getting there.

  Two men were struggling with each other over a spear, wrestling and jerking round and round, and Logen couldn't remember why. A man with long hair took a great slow blow with a club on his shield, a couple of splinters spinning, then he swept an axe round, teeth bared and shining, caught a wild-looking man in the legs and tore him off his feet. There were men everywhere, wet and furious, dirt and blood stained. A battle, maybe? Which side was he on?