Sharp Ends

by Joe Abercrombie

  He squealed, reeling about, swatting blindly with sword and knife, trampling through the still-burning oil and setting his trousers on fire again. She ducked under his whistling blades, slipped silently behind him, grabbed the back of his coat as he spun around and gently but firmly assisted him over the parapet. A moment later, Shev heard the sweet sound of him hitting water.

  Not much time to celebrate, though, as Shev was already wrestling with the last of the four. A little fellow, he was, but slippery as a fish and she was tired now, slow. An elbow in the gut brought vomit to the back of her throat, then a fist above the eye only half-blocked snapped her head back and made her ears ring. He forced her against the parapet. She fumbled for a gas bomb but her straining fingers couldn’t quite get there. Tried to reach her poisoned needle but he caught her wrist first. She growled through gritted teeth as he bent her back, crumbling stones grinding into her shoulders.

  ‘Quiet, now,’ he hissed, forcing her wrist around. His thumb must have caught the mechanism by accident. The spring twanged, the knife shot out of her sleeve and jabbed him in the throat. He retched, she butted him in the face, then as his head snapped back twisted her hips and kneed him full in the fruits.

  He gave a breathy gasp, tried to clutch at her, but she slid around him, caught his hair and mashed his face into the battlements, loosing a shower of crumbled mortar and leaving him floppy as new washing. She jerked out the first thing her free hand closed around.

  The garrotte.

  God, but no one had ever been in a better position for a garrotting. Easiest thing in the world to jerk the wire across his throat, screw her knee into his back and garrotte the merry hell out of him. Probably he deserved it. Wasn’t as if he’d been taking much pity on her until the knife went off in his face.

  But you do right for your own sake. Shev just wasn’t a garrotting sort of girl.

  ‘God damn it,’ she grunted, clubbing him across the back of the head with the handles and knocking him senseless, then tossing the garrotte over the wall into the sea.

  ‘What the—’

  A great, slow, grinding voice, and Shev turned. A man had ducked out onto the walkway from a door at the other end. He had been obliged to duck because he stood considerably taller than the lintel. The Big Lom mentioned earlier, she guessed, and the name had evidently been bestowed without irony. They hadn’t struck her as a particularly ironic crowd, in truth. His head was immense, with a tiny prim little mouth, hard little eyes, a pimple of a nose all lost in the trackless, doughy expanse of his face. A shield the size of a tabletop was strapped to one trunk of an arm, and as his diminutive features crept together first in puzzlement, then anger, he jerked an enormous hammer from his belt as if it were a child’s toy.

  ‘Ha!’ Shev whipped her coat open, throwing knives jingling in a gleaming line. Fast as a woodpecker strikes she sent them spinning down the walkway, her hand a blur.

  Her accuracy, it had to be admitted, was less impressive than her speed. Several missed entirely, clattering from the walls or twittering off into the night. Three others thudded into Big Lom’s shield and a fourth hit his shoulder handle-first and dropped off.

  ‘Huh,’ he grunted, peering over the rim with angry little eyes. ‘That your best?’

  ‘No,’ said Shev. ‘That is.’ And she pointed towards the one knife that had found its mark, lodged in his thigh just below the hem of his studded jacket.

  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.’

  ‘You and your bloody wording,’ muttered Shev.

  ‘It pains me to say it,’ said Horald, ‘but my son Crandall was a nasty fucking idiot. Had my doubts over his parentage, if I’m honest. Want a glass of wine, Shev? It’s the good stuff. Osprian. Older than you are.’

  Shev felt like she was drunk already. Waved it away.

  ‘I will take one,’ said Javre, plucking the bottle from Horald’s hand and peering down at him as she upended it in her bandaged fist, thick throat shifting as she swallowed, a little running down her neck and into her filthy collar.

  ‘By all means,’ he said, holding up his palms in a peaceable gesture. ‘Look, I’ve no doubt it all happened the way Carcolf always said. You defending yourself against some undeserved meanness on Crandall’s part.’

  ‘The way you always said?’ muttered Shev, peering sideways at Carcolf.

  ‘I’ve been pleading your case for years.’ And, evidently satisfied with her doctoring, she tucked the handkerchief into Shev’s pocket and gave it a pat.

  ‘I’m no fool,’ said Horald. ‘I always knew Crandall would make things difficult for me, sooner or later. More than likely you spared me the trouble of killing him myself.’

  Shev stared. ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’ve got eleven other children, after all. You ever meet my eldest daughter, Leanda?’

  ‘Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.’

  ‘Oh, you’d like her. Got her running things in Westport now and she’s ten times the man Crandall ever was. When you’re in my position, you have to maintain an implacable image.’ His stare went so hard for a moment that Shev took a little shuffling step back. Then he broke out in a smile again. ‘But between you and me, I forgave you for killing him years ago.’

  ‘You might have fucking said so!’

  ‘Had to get something out of it, didn’t I? And, more importantly, had to be seen to get something out of it. Reputation’s everything in our game, Shev. Who’d know that better than the best bloody thief in Styria?’

  ‘Then …’ She stared from Horald, to Carcolf, and back, sluggish mind only now starting to grope past the present moment. ‘What the hell is this about?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Sorry. This isn’t about you at all, Shev. Nor Carcolf, neither, much though it’s been a pleasure to see you again, my dear.’ And he and Carcolf gave each other a respectful little nod, as of two champion squares players just fought a testing game to a draw. ‘The two of you are incidental in all this. As am I, really.’ Horald grinned up at Javre, who was looking back at him with a sad little smile on her bruised face.

  She tossed the empty wine bottle away and it clattered across the courtyard and into a corner. ‘It is about me.’

  Horald spread his palms. ‘A man simply can’t prosper in business without owing debts to someone.’

  Shev felt her relief being overcome by an uneasy queasiness. ‘Who do you owe?’

  ‘Among other people …’ Horald licked his teeth as though he was far from happy about it. ‘The High Priestess of the Great Temple of Thond.’

  Shev’s eyes went wide. ‘Javre, get—’ She spun towards the door they had come through, but there was a woman standing there. A tall, lean woman with a hard face and a shaved head and a long sword in her tattooed fist. Another woman, huge as a house, was already ducking under the lintel to join her. Shev caught Carcolf’s sleeve and took a step towards a door at the far side of the yard. It swung gently open and a heavy-muscled woman stepped through, her thumbs tucked in a great belt from which two curved swords hung. Another with her white hair gathered into a hundred tiny braids followed grinning after, arms folded across her chest.

  A shrill whistle came from above and a figure flashed down from the top of the wall, turning over, landing with hardly a sound in a ready crouch and standing tall, taller even than Javre, fine blonde hair shifting in the breeze across her face, so all Shev could see was the gleam of one eye and the glisten of her perfect teeth as she smiled. She plucked a spear from the air as it was tossed down to her without even looking, its long blade shining, blinding, mirror-bright.

  Shev swallowed as she glanced about, trying to make it the thief’s glance that hardly seems to look at all but probably failing. She usually did fail, when it came down to it, for all her boasting. Some best bloody thief in Styria, while she was playing at the hero she’d blundered straight into a trap and dragged the one real friend she had into it with her.

  There were two more women on the walls above, a pair of twins with great bows draped across their shoulders like milkmaids’ yokes, wrists hooked over them as they smiled blandly down. Seven in all, and each, Shev had no doubt, a Templar o
f the Golden Order, and far beyond her fighting skills even if she hadn’t used half her tricks on those fools upstairs.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said, simply. Sometimes no other word will cover it.

  Horald shifted somewhat nervously as he glanced at the scarred, sinewy, tattooed, heavily armed women now surrounding him on every side. They looked deadly, and Shev knew they were a lot deadlier than they looked. ‘Have to say I feel a little outnumbered,’ he muttered.

  Javre gave a weary nod, ran her tongue around her mouth and spat. ‘I, too.’

  ‘Javre,’ came a deep voice.

  As if it was a spoken command, the Templars all bowed their heads as one. Another woman stepped through the door. A big, broad-shouldered woman in a sleeveless white robe, moving with such wonderful poise she appeared to glide more than walk. ‘It has been too long.’

  A great string of beads was looped around and around her thick neck until it covered half her chest. Grey showed in the orange stubble on her shaved scalp, her sharp-boned face with deep lines in the cheeks and about the eyes. And what eyes they were. Calm and blue as deep water. Bright as stars. Hard as hammered iron. And ruthless as a backstreet knifing.

  Javre watched her sit at the table opposite Horald. ‘Never would have been too soon for me, Mother.’

  Shev cleared her throat. ‘I’m guessing “mother” in this case is a term of respect due to the High Priestess of—’

  ‘Javre is my daughter.’ The woman raised one brow. ‘And she has never been all that interested in terms of respect.’