The First Law Trilogy Boxed Set: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

  Hold on.

  There was something stirring down below again, now. Sore, but definitely stiffening. The one advantage of having a long time without – the bucket fills up again quick. Logen licked his lips. It would be a shame to let the chance pass, just for a lack of nerve. He slid down beside her, shuffled up close, and cleared his throat.

  ‘What?’ Her voice was sharp, but not quite sharp enough to warn him off.

  ‘Well, you know, give me a minute, and maybe . . .’ He lifted the coat up and ran his hand up her side, skin hissing quietly against skin, nice and slow, so she had plenty of time to shove him off. It wouldn’t have surprised him any if she’d turned over and kneed him in the fruits. But she didn’t.

  She shifted back against him, her bare arse pressing into his stomach, lifting one knee up. ‘Why should I be giving you another chance?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ he muttered, starting to grin. He slid his hand gently over her chest, across her belly, down between her legs. ‘Same reason you gave me the first one?’

  Ferro woke with a sudden jolt, not knowing where she was, only that she was trapped. She snarled and thrashed and flailed out with her elbow, fought her way free and scrambled away, teeth gritted, fists clenched to fight. But there were no enemies. Only bare dirt and bleak rock in the pale grey morning.

  That and the big pink.

  Ninefingers stumbled up, grunting and spitting, staring wildly around. When he saw no Flatheads poised to kill him he turned slowly to look at Ferro, eyes blinking bleary with sleep. ‘Ah . . .’ He winced and touched his fingertips to his bloody mouth. They glared at each other for a moment, both stark naked and silent in the cold shell of the ruined mill, the coat they had been lying under crumpled on the damp earth between them.

  And that was when Ferro realised that she had made three serious mistakes.

  She had let herself fall asleep, and nothing good ever happened when she did that. Then she had elbowed Ninefingers in the face. And what was much, much worse, so stupid she almost grimaced to think of it: she had fucked him the night before. Staring at him now in the harsh light of day, hair plastered against one side of his scarred and bloody face, a great smear of dirt down his pale side where he had been lying in the mud, she was not sure why. For some reason, cold and tired in the dark, she had wanted to touch someone, and be warm for just a moment, and she had let herself think – who would be worse off for it?

  Madness.

  They both were worse off, that was clear enough. Where things had been simple, now they were sure to be complicated. Where they had been getting an understanding, now there would be only confusion. She was confused already, and he was starting to look hurt, and angry, and what was the surprise? No one enjoys an elbow in the face while they sleep. She opened her mouth to say sorry, and it was then she realised. She did not even know the word. All she could do was say it in Kantic, but she was so angry with herself she growled it at him like an insult.

  He certainly took it as one. His eyes narrowed and he snapped something at her in his own tongue, snatched his trousers up and shoved one leg in, muttering angrily under his breath.

  ‘Fucking pink,’ she hissed back, fists bunched with a surge of fury. She snatched up her torn shirt and turned her back on him. She must have left it in a wet patch. The ragged cloth stuck tight to her crawling skin like a layer of cold mud as she yanked it on.

  Damn shirt. Damn pink.

  She ground her teeth with frustration as she dragged her belt closed. Damn belt. If only she could have kept it closed. It was always the same. Nothing was easy with people, but she could always count on herself to make things more difficult than they had to be. She paused for a moment, with her head down, then she half turned towards him.

  She was about to try and explain that she had not meant to smash his mouth, but that nothing good ever happened when she slept. She was about to try and tell him that she had made a mistake, that she had only wanted to be warm. She was about to ask him to wait.

  But he was already stomping out of the broken doorway with the rest of his clothes clutched in one hand.

  ‘Fuck him then,’ she hissed as she sat down to pull her boots on.

  But then that was the whole problem.

  Jezal sat on the broken steps of the temple, picking sadly at the frayed stitches on the torn-off shoulder of his coat, and staring out across the limitless expanse of mud towards the ruins of Aulcus. Looking for nothing.

  Bayaz lay propped up in the back of the cart, face bony and corpse-pale with veins bulging round his sunken eyes, a hard frown chiselled into his colourless lips. ‘How long do we wait?’ asked Jezal, once again.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ snapped the Magus, without even looking at him. ‘We need them.’

  Jezal saw Brother Longfoot, standing higher up on the steps with his arms folded, give him a worried glance. ‘You are, of course, my employer, and it is scarcely my place to disagree—’

  ‘Don’t then,’ growled Bayaz.

  ‘But Ninefingers and the woman Maljinn,’ persisted the Navigator, ‘are most decidedly dead. Master Luthar quite specifically saw them slide into a chasm. A chasm of very great depth. My grief is immeasurable, and I am a patient man, few more, it is one among my many admirable qualities but . . . well . . . were we to wait until the end of time, I fear that it would make no—’

  ‘As long . . .’ snarled the First of the Magi, ‘as it takes.’

  Jezal took a deep breath and frowned into the wind, looking down from the hill towards the city, eyes scanning over the expanse of flat nothing, pocked with tiny creases where streams ran, the grey stripe of a ruined road creeping out towards them from the far-off walls, between the streaky outlines of ruined buildings: inns, farms, villages, all long fallen.

  ‘They’re down there,’ came Quai’s emotionless voice.

  Jezal stood up, weight on his good leg, shading his hand and staring at where the apprentice was pointing. He saw them suddenly, two tiny brown figures in a brown wasteland, down near the base of the rock.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ croaked Bayaz.

  Longfoot shook his head in amazement. ‘How in God’s name could they have survived?’

  ‘They’re a resourceful pair, alright.’ Jezal was already starting to grin. A month before he could not have dreamed that he would ever be glad to see Logen again, let alone Ferro, but here he was, smiling from ear to ear almost to see them still alive. Somehow, a bond was formed out here in the wilderness, facing death and adversity together. A bond that strengthened quickly, regardless of all the great differences between them. A bond that left his old friendships weak, and pale, and passionless by comparison.

  Jezal watched the figures come closer, trudging along the crumbling track that led up through the steep rocks to the temple, a great deal of space between the two of them, almost as if they were walking separately. Closer still, and they began to look like two prisoners that had escaped from hell. Their clothes were ripped, and torn, and utterly filthy, their dirty faces were hard as a pair of stones. Ferro had a scabbed-over gash across her forehead. Logen’s jaw was a mass of grazes, the skin round his eyes stained with dark bruising.

  Jezal took a hopping step towards them. ‘What happened? How did—’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ barked Ferro.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ growled Ninefingers, and the two of them scowled angrily at each other. Plainly, they had both gone through some awful ordeal that neither one wished to discuss. Ferro stalked straight to the cart without the slightest greeting and started rooting through the back. Logen stood, hands on his hips, frowning grimly after her.

  ‘So . . .’ mumbled Jezal, not quite sure what to say, ‘are you alright?’

  Logen’s eyes swivelled to his. ‘Oh, I’m grand,’ he said, with heavy irony. ‘Never better. How the hell did you get that cart out of there?’

  The apprentice shrugged. ‘The horses pulled it out.’

  ‘Master Quai has a gift for understat
ement,’ chuckled Longfoot nervously. ‘It was a most exhilarating ride to the city’s South Gate—’

  ‘Fight your way out, did you?’

  ‘Well, not I, of course, fighting is not my—’

  ‘Didn’t think so.’ Logen leaned over and spat sourly onto the mud.

  ‘We should at least consider being grateful,’ croaked Bayaz, the air sighing and crackling in his throat as he breathed in. ‘There is much to be grateful for, after all. We are all still alive.’

  ‘You sure?’ snapped Ferro. ‘You don’t look it.’ Jezal found himself in silent agreement there. The Magus could not have looked worse if he had actually died in Aulcus. Died, and already begun to decompose.

  She ripped off her rag of a shirt and flung it savagely on the ground, sinews shifting across her scrawny back. ‘Fuck are you looking at?’ she snarled at Jezal.

  ‘Nothing,’ he muttered, staring down at the dirt. When he dared to look up she was buttoning a fresh one up the front. Well, not entirely fresh. He had been wearing it himself a few days ago.

  ‘That’s one of mine . . .’ Ferro looked up at him with a glare so murderous that Jezal found himself taking a hesitant step back. ‘But you’re welcome to it . . . of course . . .’

  ‘Ssss,’ she hissed, jamming the hem violently down behind her belt, frowning all the while as if she was stabbing a man to death. Probably him. All in all, it was hardly the tearful reunion that Jezal might have hoped for, even if he did now feel somewhat like crying.

  ‘I hope I never see this place again,’ he muttered wistfully.

  ‘I’m with you there,’ said Logen. ‘Not quite so empty as we thought, eh? Do you think you could dream up a different way back?’

  Bayaz frowned. ‘That would seem prudent. We will return to Calcis down the river. There are woods on this side of the water, further downstream. A few sturdy tree trunks lashed together, and the Aos will carry us straight to the sea.’

  ‘Or to a watery grave.’ Jezal remembered with some clarity the surging water in the canyon of the great river.

  ‘My hope is better. In any case, there are still long miles to cover westward before we think about the return journey.’

  Longfoot nodded. ‘Indeed there are, including a pass through a most forbidding range of mountains.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Logen. ‘I can hardly wait.’

  ‘Nor I. Unfortunately, not all the horses survived.’ The Navigator raised his eyebrows. ‘We have two to pull the cart, two to ride . . . that leaves us two short.’

  ‘I hate those fucking things anyway.’ Logen strode to the cart and clambered up opposite Bayaz in the back.

  There was a long pause as they all considered the situation. Two horses, three riders. Never a happy position. Longfoot was the first to speak. ‘I will need, of course, to scout forward as we come close to the mountains. Scouting, alas, is an essential part of any successful journey. One for which, unfortunately, I will require one of the horses . . .’

  ‘I should probably ride,’ murmured Jezal, shifting painfully, ‘what with my leg . . .’

  Ferro looked at the cart, and Jezal saw her eyes meet Logen’s for a brief and intensely hostile moment.

  ‘I’ll walk,’ she barked.

  The Hero’s Welcome

  It was raining as Superior Glokta hobbled back into Adua. A mean, thin, ugly sort of rain on a hard wind off the sea, that rendered the treacherous wood of the gangplank, the squealing timbers of the wharf, the slick stones of the quay, all slippery as liars. He licked at his sore gums, rubbed at his sore thigh, swept his grimace up and down the grey shoreline. A pair of surly-looking guardsmen were leaning against a rotten warehouse ten paces away. Further on a party of dockers were involved in a bitter dispute over a heap of crates. A shivering beggar nearby took a couple of paces towards Glokta, thought better of it, and slunk away.

  No crowds of cheering commoners? No carpet of flower petals? No archway of drawn swords? No bevy of swooning maidens? It was hardly too great a surprise. There had been none the last time he returned from the South. Crowds rarely cheer too loudly for the defeated, no matter how hard they fought, how great their sacrifices, how long the odds. Maidens might wet themselves over cheap and worthless victories, but they don’t so much as blush for ‘I did my best’. Nor will the Arch Lector, I fear.

  A particularly vicious wave slapped at the sea wall and threw a cloud of sullen spray all over Glokta’s back. He stumbled forward, cold water dripping from his cold hands, slipped and almost fell, tottered gasping across the quay and clung to the slimy wall of a crumbling shed at the far side. He looked up and saw the two guards staring at him.

  ‘Is there something?’ he snarled, and they turned their backs, muttering and pulling up their collars against the weather. Glokta fumbled his coat tight around him, felt the tails snatching at his wet legs. A few months in the sun and you feel as though you’ll never be cold again. How soon we forget. He frowned up and down the empty wharves. How soon we all forget.

  ‘Ome ageh.’ Frost looked pleased as he stepped off the gangplank with Glokta’s box under his arm.

  ‘You don’t much like hot weather, do you?’

  The Practical shook his heavy head, half-grinning into the winter drizzle, white hair spiky with wet. Severard followed behind him, squinting up at the grey clouds. He paused for a moment at the end of the plank, then he stepped off onto the stones of the quay.

  ‘Good to be back,’ he said.

  I only wish I could share your enthusiasm, but I cannot relax quite yet. ‘His Eminence has sent for me, and judging by the way we left things in Dagoska, I think it more than likely that the meeting will . . . not go well.’ A spectacular understatement. ‘You had better stay out of sight for a couple of days.’

  ‘Out of sight? I don’t plan to see outside of a whorehouse for a week.’

  ‘Very wise. And Severard. In case we don’t see each other again. Good luck.’

  The Practical’s eyes glinted. ‘Always.’ Glokta watched him stroll off through the rain towards the seedier parts of town. Just another day for Practical Severard. Never thinking more than an hour ahead. What a gift.

  ‘Damn your miserable country and damn its bloody weather,’ Vitari grumbled in her sing-song accent. ‘I have to go and speak to Sult.’

  ‘Why so do I!’ cried Glokta with exaggerated glee. ‘What a charming coincidence!’ He offered her his bent elbow. ‘We can make a couple, and visit his Eminence together!’

  She stared back at him. ‘Alright.’

  But the pair of you will have to wait another hour for my head. ‘There’s just one call I need to make first.’

  The tip of his stick cracked against the door. No answer. Damn it. Glokta’s back was hurting like hell and he needed to sit down. He rapped again with his cane, harder this time. The hinges creaked, the door swung open a crack. Unlocked. He frowned, pushed it all the way. The door frame was split inside, the lock shattered. Broken open. He limped across the threshold, into the hall. Empty and frosty cold. Not a stick of furniture anywhere. Almost as if she moved out. But why? Glokta’s eyelid gave a twitch. He had scarcely once thought about Ardee his whole time in the South. Other matters seemed so much more pressing. My one friend gave me this one task. If anything has happened to her . . .

  Glokta pointed to the stairs, and Vitari nodded and crept up them silently, bending and sliding a glinting knife out from her boot. He pointed down the hall and Frost padded off deeper into the house, pressed up into the shadows by the wall. The living room door stood ajar, and Glokta shuffled to it and pushed it open.

  Ardee was sitting in the window with her back to him: white dress, dark hair, just as he remembered her. He saw her head move slightly as the door’s hinges creaked. Alive, then. But the room was strangely altered. Aside from the one chair she sat in, it was entirely empty. Bare whitewashed walls, bare wooden boards, windows without curtains.

  ‘There’s nothing fucking left!’ she barked, voice cracked and t
hroaty.

  Clearly. Glokta frowned, and stepped through the door into the room.

  ‘Nothing left, I said!’ She stood up, still with her back to him. ‘Or did you decide you’d take the chair after all?’ She spun round, grabbing hold of the back, lifted it over her head and flung it at him with a shriek. It crashed into the wall beside the door, sending fragments of wood and plaster flying. One leg whizzed past Glokta’s face and clattered into the corner, the rest tumbled to the floor in a mass of dust and splintered sticks.

  ‘Most kind,’ murmured Glokta, ‘but I prefer to stand.’

  ‘You!’ He could see her eyes wide with surprise through her tangled hair. There was a gauntness and a paleness to her face that he did not remember. Her dress was rumpled, and far too thin for the chilly room. She tried to smooth it with shivering hands, plucked ineffectually at her greasy hair. She gave a snort of laughter. ‘I’m afraid I’m not really prepared for visitors.’

  Glokta heard Frost thumping down the hall, saw him looming up at the doorway, fists clenched. He held up a finger. ‘It’s alright. Wait outside.’ The albino faded back into the shadows, and Glokta hobbled across the creaking boards into the empty sitting room. ‘What happened?’

  Ardee’s mouth twisted. ‘It seems my father was not nearly so well off as everyone imagined. He had debts. Soon after my brother left for Angland, they came to collect.’

  ‘Who came?’

  ‘A man called Fallow. He took all the money I had, but it wasn’t enough. They took the plate, my mother’s jewels, such as they were. They gave me six weeks to find the rest. I let my maid go. I sold everything I could, but they wanted more. Then they came again. Three days ago. They took everything. Fallow said I was lucky he was leaving me the dress I was wearing.’

  ‘I see.’

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Since then, I have been sitting here, and thinking on how a friendless young woman can come by some money.’ She fixed him with her eye. ‘I have thought of only one way. I daresay, if I had the courage, I would have done it already.’