Before They Are Hanged

slowly
at the skill of it. He’d seen it done often, but never so well.
Luthar barely even looked in pain, and he always looked in pain
lately.
    â€œDo we
need another bandage on it?â€

Furious
    The snow drifted
down, white specks swirling in the empty air beyond the cliffs edge,
turning the green pines, the black rocks, the brown river below into
grey ghosts.
    West could
hardly believe that as a child he had looked forward to the coming of
snow every year. That he had been delighted to wake up and see the
world coated in white. That it could have held a mystery, and a
wonder, and a joy. Now the sight of the flakes settling on Cathil’s
hair, on Ladisla’s coat, on West’s own filthy trouser
leg, filled him with horror. More gripping cold, more chafing wet,
more crushing effort to move. He rubbed his pale hands together,
sniffed and frowned up at the sky, willing himself not to slide into
misery.
    â€œHave to
make the best of things,â€

To the Last Man
    To
Sand dan Glokta,
    Superior
of Dagoska, and for his eyes alone.
    It is
clear that, in spite of your efforts, Dagoska cannot remain in Union
hands for much longer. I therefore order you to leave immediately and
present yourself to me. The docks may have been lost, but you should
have no trouble slipping away by night in a small boat. A ship will
be waiting for you down the coast.
    You
will confer overall command on General Vissbruck, as the only Union
member of Dagoska’s ruling council left alive in the city. It
need hardly be said that the orders of the Closed Council to the
defenders of Dagoska remain the same.
    To
fight to the last man.
    Sult
    Arch
Lector of his Majesty’s Inquisition.
    General
Vissbruck slowly lowered the letter, his jaws locked tight together.
“Are we to understand then, Superior, that you are leaving us?â€

Jewel of Cities
    A least he could
ride now. The splints had come off that morning, and Jezal’s
sore leg knocked painfully against his horse’s flank as it
moved. His hand was numb and clumsy on the reins, his arm weak and
aching without the dressing. His teeth still throbbed dully with
every thump of the hooves on the ruined road. But at least he was out
of the cart, and that was something. Small things seemed to make him
very happy these days.
    The others rode
in a sombre, silent group, grim as mourners at a funeral, and Jezal
hardly blamed them. It was a sombre sort of place. A plain of dirt.
Of fissures of bare rock. Of sand and stone, empty of life. The sky
was a still white nothing, heavy as pale lead, promising rain but
never quite delivering. They rode clustered round the cart as though
huddling for warmth, the only warm things in a hundred miles of cold
desert, the only moving things in a place frozen in time, the only
living things in a dead country.
    The road was
wide, but the stones were cracked and buckled. In places whole
stretches of it had crumbled away, in others flows of mud had covered
it entirely. The dead stumps of trees jutted from the bare earth to
either side. Bayaz must have seen him looking at them.
    â€œAn avenue
of proud oaks lined this road for twenty miles from the city gates.
In summer their leaves shimmered and shook in the wind over the
plain. Juvens planted them with his own hands, in the Old Time, when
the Empire was young, long before even I was born.â€

Luck
    â€œUp you
get, Luthar.â€

Beneath the Ruins
    â€œYou
alive, pink?â€

No Good for Each Other
    Ferro waded on
against the current, up to her waist in fast-flowing water, teeth
gritted against the gripping cold, Ninefingers sloshing and gasping
behind her. She could just see an archway up ahead, faint light from
beyond glinting on the water. It was blocked with iron bars, but as
she forced her way close she could see they were rusted through, thin
and flaking. She pressed herself up against them. Beyond she could
see the stream flowing down towards her between banks of rock and
bare mud. Above was the evening sky, stars just starting to show
themselves.
    Freedom.
    Ferro fumbled at
the old iron, air hissing between her teeth, fingers slow and weak
from the cold. Ninefingers came up beside her and planted his hands
next to hers—four hands in a row, two dark and two pale,
clamped tight and straining. They were pressed against each other in
the narrow space and she heard him grunting with effort, heard the
rushing of her own breath, felt the ancient metal