Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

  'The docks are back in our hands, but General Poulder… is dead.'

  There was a pause. 'Dead?' Kroy's face had turned deathly pale. 'But how did he—'

  There was a rumble, like thunder in the distance, and the horses shied, pawed at the ground. West's face, and Kroy's, and the faces of their officers, all turned as one to the north. There, over the tops of the blackened ruins at the edge of the square, a great mass of dust was rising high above the Agriont.

  The bright world spun and throbbed, full of the beautiful song of battle, the wonderful taste of blood, the fine and fruitful stink of death. In the midst of it, no further than arms length away, a small man stood, watching him.

  To come so close to the Bloody-Nine? To ask for death as surely as to step into the searing fire. To beg for death. To demand it.

  Something about his pointed teeth seemed familiar. A faint memory, from long ago. But the Bloody-Nine pushed it away, shook it off, sunk it in the bottomless sea. It meant nothing to him who men were, or what they had done. He was the Great Leveller, and all men were equal before him. His only care was to turn the living into the dead, and it was past time for the good work to begin. He raised the sword.

  The earth shook.

  He stumbled, and a great noise washed over him, tore between the dead men and the living, split the world in half. He felt it knock something loose inside his skull. He snarled as he righted himself, lifted the blade high…

  Except the arm would not move.

  'Bastard…' snarled the Bloody-Nine, but the flames were all burned out. It was Logen who turned towards the noise.

  A vast cloud of grey smoke was rising up from the wall of the Agriont a few hundred strides away. Spinning specks flew up high, high above it leaving arching trails of brown dust in the sky, like the tentacles of some vast sea-monster. One seemed to reach its peak just above them. Logen watched it fall. It had looked like a pebble at first. As it tumbled slowly down he realised it was a chunk of masonry the size of a cart.

  'Shit,' said Grim. There was nothing else to say. It crashed through the side of a building right in the midst of the fight. The whole house burst apart, flinging broken bodies in every direction. A broken timber whirred past the Dogman and splashed into the moat. Specks of grit nipped at the back of Logen's head as he flung himself to the ground.

  Choking dirt billowed out across the road. He retched, one hand over his face. He wobbled up to standing, the dusty world lurching around him, using his sword as a crutch, ears still ringing from the noise, not sure who he was, let alone where.

  The bones had gone right out of the battle by the moat. Men coughed, stared, wandered in the gloom. There were a lot of bodies, Northmen, Gurkish, Union, all mixed up together. Logen saw a dark-skinned man staring at him, blood running down his dusty face from a cut above one eye.

  Logen lifted his sword, gave a throaty roar, tried to charge and ended up staggering sideways and nearly falling over. The Gurkish soldier dropped his spear and ran off into the murk.

  There was a second deafening detonation, this one even closer, off to the west. A sudden blast of wind ripped at Jezal's hair, nipped at his eyes. Swords rang from sheaths. Men stared up, faces slack with shock.

  'We must go,' piped Gorst, taking a firm grip on Jezal's elbow.

  Glokta and his henchmen were already making off down a cobbled lane, as quickly as the Superior could limp. Ardee gave one brief look over her shoulder, eyes wide.

  'Wait…' Seeing her like that had given Jezal a sudden and painful rush of longing. The idea of her in the thrall of that disgusting cripple was almost too much to bear. But Gorst was having none of it.

  'The palace, your Majesty.' He ushered Jezal away towards the park without a backward glance, the rest of the royal bodyguard clattering after. Fragments of stone began to click off the roofs around them, to bounce from the road, to ping from the armour of the Knights of the Body.

  'They are coming,' muttered Marovia, staring grimly off towards the Square of Marshals.

  Ferro squatted, hands held over her head, the monstrous echoes still booming from the high white walls. A stone the size of a man's head fell out of the sky and burst apart on the ground a few strides away, black gravel scattering across the pale sawdust. A boulder ten times as big crashed through the roof of a building, sent glass tinkling from shattered windows. Dust billowed out from the streets and into the square in grey clouds. Gradually the noise faded. The man-made hailstorm rattled to a stop, and there was a pregnant silence.

  'What now?' she growled at Bayaz.

  'Now they will come.' There was a crash somewhere in the streets, the sound of men shouting, then a long scream suddenly cut off. He turned towards her, his jaw working nervously. 'Once we begin, do not move from the spot. Not a hair. The circles have been carefully—'

  'Keep your mind on your own part, Magus.'

  'Then I will. Open the box, Ferro.'

  She stood, frowning, her fingertips rubbing at her thumbs. Once it was opened, there would be no going back, she felt it.

  'Now!' snapped Bayaz. 'Now, if you want your vengeance!'

  'Sssss.' But the time for going back was far behind her. She squatted down, laying her hand on the cool metal of the lid. A dark path was the only choice, and always had been. She found the hidden catch and pressed it in. The box swung silently open, and that strange thrill seeped, then flowed, then poured out over her and made the air catch in her throat.

  The Seed lay inside, nestling on its metal coils, a dull, grey, unremarkable lump. She closed her fingers round it. Lead-heavy and ice-cold, she lifted it from the box.

  'Good.' But Bayaz was wincing as he watched her, face twisted with fear and disgust. She held it out towards him and he flinched back. There were beads of sweat across his forehead. 'Come no closer!'

  Ferro slammed the box shut. Two Union guards, clad in full armour, were backing into the square, heavy swords in their fists. There was a fear in the way they moved, as if they were retreating from an army. But only one man rounded the corner. A man in white armour, worked with designs of shining metal. His dark face was young, and smooth, and beautiful, but his eyes seemed old. Ferro had seen such a face before, in the wastelands near Dagoska.

  An Eater.

  The two guards came at him together, one shouting a shrill battle-cry. The Eater shrugged effortlessly around their swords, came forward in a sudden blur, caught one of the Union men with a careless flick of his open hand. There was a hollow clang as it caved in his shield and breastplate both, lifted him flailing into the air. He crunched down some twenty strides from where he had been standing, rolled over and over leaving dark marks in the pale sawdust. He flopped to rest not far from Ferro, coughed out a long spatter of blood and was still.

  The other guard backed away. The Eater looked at him, a sadness on his perfect face. The air around him shimmered, briefly, the man's sword clattered down, he gave a long squeal and clutched at his head. It burst apart, showering fragments of skull and flesh across the walls of the white building beside him. The headless corpse slumped to the ground. There was a pause.

  'Welcome to the Agriont!' shouted Bayaz.

  Ferro's eyes were drawn up by a flash of movement. High above, a figure in white armour dashed across a roof. They made an impossible leap across the wide gap to the next building and vanished from sight. In the street below a woman flowed out of the shadows and into the square, dressed in glittering chain-mail. Her hips swayed as she sauntered forwards, a happy smile on her flawless face, a long spear carried loose in one hand. Ferro swallowed, shifted her fist around the Seed, gripping it tight.

  Part of a wall collapsed behind her, blocks of stone tumbling out across the square. A huge man stepped through the ragged gap, a great length of wood in his hands, studded with black iron, his armour and his long beard coated in dust. Two others followed, a man and a woman, all with the same smooth skin, the same young faces and the same old, black eyes. Ferro scowled round at them as she slid he
r sword out, the cold metal glinting. Useless, maybe, but holding it was some kind of comfort.

  'Welcome to you all!' called Bayaz. 'I have been waiting for you, Mamun!'

  The first of the Eaters frowned as he stepped carefully over the headless corpse. 'And we for you.' White shapes flitted from the roofs of the buildings, thumped down into the square in crouches, and stood tall. Four of them, one to each corner. 'Where is that creeping shadow, Yulwei?'

  'He could not be with us.'

  'Zacharus?'

  'Mired in the ruined west, trying to heal a corpse with a bandage.'

  'Cawneil?'

  'Too much in love with what she used to be to spare a thought for what comes.'

  'You are left all alone, then, in the end, apart from this.' Mamun turned his empty gaze on Ferro. 'She is a strange one.'

  'She is, and exceptionally difficult, but not without resources.' Ferro scowled, and said nothing. If anything needed saying, she could talk with her sword. 'Ah, well.' Bayaz shrugged. 'I have always found myself my own best council.'

  'What choice have you? You destroyed your own order with your pride, and your arrogance, and your hunger for power.' More figures stepped from doorways round the square, strolled unhurried from the streets. Some strutted like lords. Some held hands like lovers. 'Power is all you ever cared for, and you are left without even that. The First of the Magi, and the last.'

  'So it would seem. Does that not please you?'

  'I take no pleasure in this, Bayaz. This is what must be done.'

  'Ah. A righteous battle? A holy duty? A crusade, perhaps? Will God smile on your methods, do you think?'

  Mamun shrugged. 'God smiles on results.' More figures in white armour spilled into the square and spread out around its edge. They moved with careless grace, with effortless strength, with bottomless arrogance. Ferro frowned around at them, the Seed clutched tight at one hip, her sword at the other.

  'If you have a plan,' she hissed. 'Now might be the time.'

  But the First of the Magi only watched as they were surrounded, the muscles twitching on the side of his face, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. 'A shame that Khalul himself could not pay a visit, but you have brought some friends with you, I see.'

  'One hundred, as I promised. Some few have other tasks about the city. They send their regrets. But most of us are here for you. More than enough.' The Eaters were still. They stood facing inwards, spread out in a great ring with the First of the Magi at their centre. Ferro Maljinn felt no fear, of course.

  But these were poor odds.

  'Answer me one thing,' called Mamun, 'since we are come to the end. Why did you kill Juvens?'

  'Juvens? Ha! He thought to make the world a better place with smiles and good intentions. Good intentions get you nothing, and the world does not improve without a fight. I say I killed no one.' Bayaz looked sideways at Ferro. His eyes were feverish bright, now, his scalp glistened with sweat. 'But what does it matter who killed who a thousand years ago? What matters is who dies today.'

  'True. Now, at last, you will be judged.' Slowly, very slowly, the circle of Eaters began to contract, stepping gently forward as one, drawing softly inwards.

  The First of the Magi gave a grim smile. 'Oh, there will be a judgement here, Mamun, on that you can depend. The magic has drained from the world. My Art is a shadow of what it was. But you forgot, while you were gorging yourselves on human meat, that knowledge is the root of power. High Art I learned from Juvens. Making I took from Kanedias.'

  'You will need more than that to defeat us.'

  'Of course. For that I need some darker medicine.'

  The air around Bayaz' shoulders shimmered. The Eaters paused, some of them raised their arms in front of their faces. Ferro narrowed her eyes, but there was only the gentlest breath of wind. A subtle breeze, that washed out from the First of the Magi in a wave, that lifted the sawdust from the stones and carried it out in a white cloud to the very edge of the Square of Marshals.

  Mamun looked down, and frowned. Set into the stone beneath his feet, metal shone dully in the thin sunlight. Circles, and lines, and symbols, and circles within circles, covering the entire wide space in a single vast design.

  'Eleven wards, and eleven wards reversed,' said Bayaz. 'Iron. Quenched in salt water. An improvement suggested by Kanedias' researches. Glustrod used raw salt. That was his mistake.'

  Mamun looked up, the icy calmness vanished from his face. 'You cannot mean…' His black eyes flickered to Ferro, then down to her hand, clenched tight around the Seed. 'No! The First Law—'

  'The First Law?' The Magus showed his teeth. 'Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose. The word of Euz?' Bayaz' lip curled. 'Hah! Let him come forth and stop me!'

  'Enough!' One of the Eaters leaped forward, flashing across the metal circles towards their centre. Ferro gasped as the stone in her hand turned suddenly, terribly cold. The air about Bayaz twisted, danced, as though he was reflected in a rippling pool.

  The Eater sprang up, mouth open, the bright blade of his sword shining. Then he was gone. So were two others behind him. A long spray of blood was smeared across the ground where one of them had been standing. Ferro's eyes followed it, growing wider and wider. Her mouth fell open.

  The building that had stood behind them had a giant, gaping hole torn out of it from ground to dizzy roof. A great canyon lined with broken stone and hanging plaster, with splintered spars and dangling glass. Dust showered from the shattered edges and into the yawning hole below. A flock of torn papers fluttered down through the empty air. From out of the carnage a thin and agonised screaming came. A sobbing. A screech of pain. Many voices. The voices of those who had been using that building as a refuge.

  Poor luck for them.

  Bayaz' mouth slowly curled up into a smile. 'It works,' he breathed.

  * * *

  Dark Paths

  « ^ »

  Jezal hurried through the tall archway and into the gardens of the palace, his Knights around him. It was remarkable that High Justice Marovia had been able to keep pace with them on their dash through the Agriont, but the old man scarcely seemed out of breath. 'Seal the gates!' he bellowed. 'The gates!'

  The huge doors were heaved shut, two beams the thickness of ships' masts swung into position behind them. Jezal allowed himself to breathe a little easier. There was a reassuring feeling to the weight of those gates, to the height and thickness of the walls of the palace compound, to the sizeable host of well trained and armoured men defending it.

  Marovia laid his hand gently on Jezal's shoulder, began to steer him down the cobbled path towards the nearest door into the palace. 'We should find the safest place possible, your Majesty—'

  Jezal shook him off. 'Would you lock me in my bedroom? Or should I hide in the cellar? I will remain here, and co-ordinate the defence of—'

  A long, blood-chilling scream came from the other side of the wall and echoed around the bare gardens. It was as if that shriek made a hole in him through which all confidence quickly leaked away. The gates rattled slightly against the mighty beams, and the notion of hiding in the cellar gained appeal with astonishing speed.

  'A line!' barked Gorst's shrill voice. 'To the King!' A wall of heavily-armoured men clustered instantly around Jezal, swords drawn, shields raised. Others kneeled in front, pulling bolts from quivers, turning the cranks of their heavy flatbows. All eyes were fixed on the mighty double doors. They rattled gently again, wobbled slightly.

  'Down there!' someone called from the walls above. 'Down—' There was a screech and an armoured man plummeted from the battlements and crunched into the turf. His body trembled, then fell limp.

  'How…' someone muttered.

  A white figure dived from the walls, gracefully turned over in the air and thudded onto the pathway in front of them. It stood up. A dark-skinned man, arrayed in armour of white and gold, his face smooth as a boy's. He held a spear of dark wood with a long, curved b
lade in one hand. Jezal stared at him, and he looked back, expressionless. There was something in those black eyes, or rather there was something missing from them. Jezal knew that this was not a man. It was an Eater. A breaker of the Second Law. One of Khalul's Hundred Words, come to settle ancient scores with the First of the Magi. It seemed, rather unfairly, that their score had somehow come to include Jezal. The Eater raised one hand, as if in blessing.

  'May God admit us all to heaven.'

  'Loose!' squealed Gorst. Flatbows rattled and popped. A couple of bolts glanced off the Eater's armour, a couple more thudded into flesh, one under the breastplate, another in the shoulder. One bolt caught it right through the face, the flights sticking out just below the eye. Any man should have dropped dead before them. The Eater sprang forwards with shocking speed.

  One of the Knights raised his flatbow in a feeble attempt to defend himself. The spear split it in two and sliced him cleanly in half at the belly, chopped into another man with an echoing clang and sent him tumbling through the air into a tree ten strides away. Fragments of dented armour and splintered wood flew. The first Knight made a strange whistling sound as his top half tumbled to the path, showering his dumbstruck comrades with gore.

  Jezal was jostled back, could see nothing more than flashes of movement between his bodyguards. He heard screams and groans, clashing metal, saw swords glinting, gouts of blood flying. An armoured body flew into the air, flopping like a rag-doll, crunched into a wall on the other side of the gardens.

  The bodies swayed apart. The Eater was surrounded, swinging its spear in blinding circles. One ripped into a man's shoulder and knocked him shrieking to the ground, the shaft splintering with the force of the blow and the blade spinning away edge-first into the turf. A Knight charged in from behind and spitted the Eater through the back, the glittering point of his halberd sliding bloodless through the white armour on its chest. Another Knight struck its arm off with an axe and dust showered from the stump. The Eater screeched, hit him across the chest with a backhanded blow that crushed his breastplate and drove him sighing into the dirt.