The Blade Itself

her.
    She had decided
he was dangerous.
    Not just big,
but strong. Brutal strong. Twice her weight maybe, and his thick neck
was all sinew. She could feel the strength coming off him. She
wouldn’t have been surprised if he could lift her with one
hand, but that didn’t worry her too much. He’d have to
get a hold on her first. Big and strong can make a man slow.
    Slow and
dangerous don’t mix.
    Scars didn’t
worry her either. They just meant he’d been in a lot of fights,
they didn’t say whether he’d won. It was other things.
The way he sat—still but not quite relaxed. Ready. Patient. The
way his eyes moved—cunning, careful, from her to the rest of
the room, then back to her. Dark eyes, watching, thoughtful. Weighing
her up. Thick veins on the backs of his hands, but long fingers,
clever fingers, lines of dirt under the nails. One finger missing. A
white stump. She didn’t like any of it. Smelled like danger.
    She wouldn’t
want to fight this one unarmed.
    But she’d
given her knife over to that pink on the bridge. She’d been on
the very point of stabbing him, but at the last moment she’d
changed her mind. Something in his eyes had reminded her of Aruf,
before the Gurkish stuck his head on a spear. Sad and level, as if he
understood her. As if she was a person, and not a thing. At the last
moment, despite herself, she’d given the blade away. Allowed
herself to be led in here.
    Stupid!
    She regretted it
now, bitterly, but she’d fight any way she could, if she had
to. Most people never realise how full the world is of weapons.
Things to throw, or throw enemies on to. Things to break, or use as
clubs. Wound-up cloths to strangle with. Dirt to fling in faces.
Failing that, she’d bite his throat out. She curled her lips
back and showed him her teeth to prove it, but he seemed not to
notice. Just sat there, watching. Silent, still, ugly, and dangerous.
    â€œFucking
pinks,â€

Old Friends
    There was a
thumping knock at the door, and Glokta jerked his head up, left eye
suddenly twitching. Who the hell comes knocking at this hour?
Frost? Severard? Or someone else? Superior Goyle, maybe, come to pay
me a visit with his circus freaks? Might the Arch Lector have grown
tired of his toy cripple already? One could hardly say the feast went
according to plan, and his Eminence is hardly the forgiving type.
Body found floating by the docks…
    The knocking
came again. Loud, confident knocking. The kind that demands the
door be opened, before it’s broken down. “I’m
coming!â€

Back to the Mud
    Carleon weren’t
at all how the Dogman remembered it, but then he tended to remember
it burning. A memory like that stays with you. Roofs falling in,
windows cracking, crowds of fighters everywhere, all drunk on pain
and winning and, well, drink—looting, killing, setting fires,
all the unpleasant rest of it. Women screaming, men shouting,
stinking with smoke and fear. In short, a sack, with him and Logen at
the heart of it.
    Bethod had put
the fires out and made it his. Moved in, then started building. He
hadn’t got far when he kicked Logen and the Dogman and the rest
of them into exile, but they must have been building every day since.
It was twice as big now as it used to be, even before it got burned,
covering the whole hill and all the slope down to the river. Bigger
than Uffrith. Bigger than any city the Dogman had seen. From where he
was, up in the trees on the other side of the valley, you couldn’t
see the people, but there had to be an awful lot of them in there.
Three new roads leading out from the gates. Two big new bridges. New
buildings everywhere, and big ones where the small ones used to be.
Lots of them. Built from stone, mostly, slate roofs, glass in some of
the windows even.
    â€œThey been
busy,â€

Misery
    Jezal frowned.
Ardee was taking her time. She never took her time. She was always
there when he arrived, at whatever spot had been arranged. He didn’t
like having to wait for her one bit. He always had to wait for her
letters, and that rankled as it was. Standing here like an idiot, it
made him feel even more of a slave than he did already.
    He frowned up at
the grey skies. There were a few spots of rain falling, just to match
his mood. He felt one from time to time, a tiny pinprick on his face.
He could see the drops making circles in the