Before They Are Hanged

filthy
earthworm.
    As soon as they
reached the bridge they had lost all semblance of order. The ragged
companies squeezed into that narrow space, shoving and grunting,
tired and bad-tempered. Those waiting behind pressed in tighter and
tighter, impatient to be across so they could rest, slowing
everything down still further with the weight of their bodies. Then a
cart, which had no business being there in any case, had lost a wheel
halfway across, and the sluggish flow of men over the bridge had
become a trickle. No one seemed to know how to move it, or who to get
to fix it, and contented themselves with clambering over it, or
slithering around it, and holding up the thousands behind.
    Quite a press
had built up in the mud on this side of the fast-flowing water. Men
barged and grumbled shoulder to shoulder, spears sticking up into the
air at all angles, surrounded by shouting officers and an ever
increasing detritus of rubbish and discarded gear. Behind them the
great snake of shambling men continued its spastic forward movement,
feeding ever more soldiers into the confusion before the bridge.
There was not the slightest evidence that anyone had even thought
about trying to make them stop, let alone succeeded.
    All this in
column, under no pressure from the enemy, and with a half decent road
to march on. West dreaded to imagine trying to manoeuvre them in a
battle line, through trees or over broken ground. He jammed his tired
eyes shut, rubbed at them with his fingers, but when he opened them
the horrifying, hilarious spectacle was still there before him. He
hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.
    He heard the
sound of hooves on the rise behind him. Lieutenant Jalenhorm, big and
solid in his saddle. Short on imagination, perhaps, but a fine rider,
and a trustworthy man. A good choice for the task that West had in
mind.
    â€œLieutenant
Jalenhorm reporting, sir.â€

Necessary Evils
    The sun was half
a shimmering golden disc beyond the land walls, throwing orange light
into the hallway down which Glokta shuffled, Practical Frost looming
at his shoulder. Through the windows as he passed painfully by he
could see the buildings of the city casting long shadows up towards
the rock. He could almost tell, at each window that he came to, that
the shadows were longer and less distinct, the sun was dimmer and
colder. Soon it would be gone. Soon it will be night.
    He paused for a
moment before the doors to the audience chamber, catching his breath,
letting the ache in his leg subside, licking at his empty gums. “Give
me the bag, then.â€

Among the Stones
    The first traces
of dawn were creeping over the plain. A glimmer of light on the
undersides of the towering clouds and along the edges of the ancient
stones, a muddy flare on the eastern horizon. A sight a man rarely
saw, that first grey glow, or one that Jezal had rarely seen anyway.
At home he would have been safely in his quarters now, sleeping
soundly in a warm bed. None of them had slept last night. They had
spent the long, cold hours in silence, sitting in the wind, peering
into the dark for shapes out on the plain, and waiting. Waiting for
the dawn.
    Ninefingers
frowned at the rising sun. “Almost time. Soon they’ll be
coming.â€

The Fruits of Boldness
    The Northmen
stood on the hill, a thin row of dark figures with the white sky
behind them. It was still early, and the sun was nothing more than a
bright smear among thick clouds. Patches of half-melted snow were
scattered cold and dirty in the hollows of the valley sides, a thin
layer of mist was still clinging to the valley floor.
    West watched
that row of black shapes, and frowned. He did not like the flavour of
this. Too many for a scouting, or a foraging party, far too few to
mount any challenge, and yet they stayed there on the high ground,
watching calmly as Ladisla’s army continued its interminable,
clumsy deployment in the valley beneath them.
    The Prince’s
staff, and a small detachment of his guards, had made their
headquarters on a grassy knoll opposite the Northmen’s hill. It
had seemed a fine, dry spot when the scouts found it early that
morning, well below the enemy perhaps, but still high enough to get a
good view of the valley. Since then the passage of thousands of
sliding boots, squashing hooves, and churning cartwheels, had ground
the wet earth to sticky black muck. West’s own boots and those
of the other men around were caked with it, their uniforms