The Blade Itself

and
confused.
    â€œLogen.â€

Questions
    Glokta heaped
porridge into his mouth as fast as he could, hoping to get half a
meal’s worth down before his gorge began to rise. He swallowed,
coughed, shuddered. He shoved the bowl away, as though its very
presence offended him. Which, in fact, it does. “This
had better be important, Severard,â€

Nobility
    Jezal scraped
the last fair hairs from the side of his jaw and washed the razor off
in the bowl. Then he wiped it on the cloth, closed it and placed it
carefully on the table, admiring the way the sunlight glinted on the
mother-of-pearl handle.
    He wiped his
face, and then—his favourite part of the day—gazed at
himself in the looking glass. It was a good one, newly imported from
Visserine, a present from his father: an oval of bright, smooth glass
in a frame of lavishly-carved dark wood. A fitting surround for such
a handsome man as the one gazing happily back at him. Honestly,
handsome hardly did him justice.
    â€œYou’re
quite the beauty aren’t you?â€

Dark Work
    A burning thing
can make all kind of smells. A live tree, fresh and sappy, smells
different ablaze to a dead one, dry and withered. A pig alight and a
man smell much the same, but there’s another story. This
burning that the Dogman smelled now, that was a house. He knew it,
sure as sure. A smell he knew better than he’d have liked.
Houses don’t burn on their own too often. Usually there’s
some violence in it. That meant men around, most likely, and ready
for a fight, so he crept right careful down between the trees, slid
on his belly to the edge, and peered out through the brush.
    He saw it now,
right enough. Black smoke in a tall pillar, rising up from a spot
down near the river. A small house, still smoking, but burned down to
the low stone walls. There’d been a barn too, but nothing more
now than a pile of black sticks and black dirt. A couple of trees and
a patch of tilled earth. It was a poor enough living at the best of
times, farming this far north. Too cold to grow much—a few
roots maybe, and some sheep to herd. A pig or two, if you were lucky.
    Dogman shook his
head. Who’d want to burn out folks as poor as this? Who’d
want to steal this stubborn patch of land? Some men just like to
burn, he reckoned. He eased out a touch further, looking right and
left down the valley for some sign of the ones as did this, but a few
stringy sheep spread out across the valley sides was all he could see
moving. He wriggled back into the brush.
    His heart sank
as he sneaked back towards the camp. Voices raised, and arguing, as
ever. He wondered for a minute whether to just go past and keep on
going, he was that sick of the endless bickering. He decided against
it in the end, though. It ain’t much of a scout who leaves his
people behind.
    â€œWhy don’t
you shut your hole, Dow?â€

Words and Dust
    Kurster pranced
around the outside of the circle, his long golden hair bouncing on
his shoulders, waving to the crowd, blowing kisses to the girls. The
audience cheered and howled and whooped as the lithe young man made
his flashy rounds. He was an Aduan, an officer of the King’s
Own. A local boy, and so very popular.
    Bremer dan Gorst
was leaning against the barrier, watching his opponent dance through
barely open eyes. His steels were unusually heavy-looking, weighty
and worn and well-used, too heavy to be quick perhaps. Gorst himself
looked too heavy to be quick, come to that, a great thick-necked bull
of a man, more like a wrestler than a swordsman. He looked the
underdog in this bout. The majority of the crowd seemed to think so. But I know better.
    Nearby a
bet-maker was shouting odds, taking money from the babbling people
around him. Nearly all of the bets were for Kurster. Glokta leaned
across from his bench. “What odds are you giving on Gorst now?â€

The Remarkable Talents of Brother Longfoot
    The cheering had
woken Logen every morning for a week. It started early, ripping him
from his sleep, loud as a battle close at hand. He’d thought it
was a battle when he first heard it, but now he knew it was just
their damn stupid sport. Closing the window brought some relief from
the noise, but the heat soon became unbearable. It was sleep a
little, or sleep not at all. So he left the window open.
    Logen rubbed his
eyes, cursing, and hauled himself from his bed. Another hot,