Before They Are Hanged (29 page)

“Where will I find the Gurkish agent?” Glokta’s voice was sharp as a cleaver.

“I don’t know. I never knew. Whoever it is will come for you now, as they did for Davoust. Perhaps tonight…”

“Why have they waited so long?”

“I told them you were no threat. I told them that Sult would only send someone else… I told them I could handle you.”
And so you would have, I do not doubt, were it not for the unexpected generosity of Masters Valint and Balk.

Glokta leaned forward. “Who is the Gurkish agent?”

Eider’s bottom lip was quivering so badly that her teeth were nearly rattling in her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

Vitari smashed her hand down on the table. “Who? Who? Who is it, bitch? Who?”

“I don’t know!”

“Liar!” The Practical’s chain rattled over Eider’s head and snapped taut around her throat. The one-time Queen of merchants was hauled over the back of her chair, legs kicking at the air, hands fumbling at the chain round her neck, and flung face down onto the floor.

“Liar!” The bridge of Vitari’s nose was screwed up with rage, red brows drawn in with effort, eyes narrowed to furious slits. Her boot ground into the back of Eider’s head, her back arched, the chain cut white into her clenched fists. Severard looked down on this brutal scene with a slight smile around his eyes, tuneless whistling vaguely audible over the choking, hissing, gurgling of Eider’s last breaths.

Glokta licked at his empty gums as he watched her thrashing on the cell floor.
She has to die. There are no options. His Eminence demands harsh punishment. His Eminence demands examples made. His Eminence demands scant mercy.
Glokta’s eyelid flickered, his face twitched. The room was airless, hot as a forge. He was damp with sweat, thirsty as hell. He could scarcely draw a breath. He felt almost as if he was the one being strangled.

And the irony is that she is right. My victory is a loss for everyone in Dagoska, one way or another. Already the first fruits of my labours are groaning their last in the waste ground before the city gates. There will be no end to the carnage now. Gurkish, Dagoskan, Union, the bodies will pile up until we’re all buried under them, and all my doing. It would be better by far if her scheme had succeeded. It would be better by far if I had died in the Emperor’s prisons. Better for the Guild of Spicers, better for the people of Dagoska, better for the Gurkish, for Korsten dan Vurms, for Carlot dan Eider. Better even for me.

Eider’s kicking had almost stopped.
One more thing to scrape into the dark corners. One more thing to nag at me when I’m alone. She has to die, whatever the rights and wrongs of it. She has to die.
Her next breath was a muffled rattle. The next was a gentle wheeze.
Almost done now. Almost done.

“Stop!” barked Glokta.
What?

Severard looked up sharply. “What?”

Vitari seemed not to have noticed, the chain was as tight as ever.

“Stop, I said!”

“Why?” she hissed.

Why indeed?
“I give you orders,” he barked, “not fucking reasons!”

Vitari let go the chain, sneering her disgust, and took her boot off the back of Eider’s head. She did not move. Her breathing was shallow, a rustling scarcely audible.
But she is breathing. The Arch Lector will expect an explanation, and a good one. What will my explanation be, I wonder?
“Take her back to the cells,” he said, leaning on his cane and getting wearily out of his chair. “We might still find a use for her.”

Glokta stood by the window, frowned out into the night, and watched the wrath of God rain down upon Dagoska. The three huge catapults, ranged far out of bowshot beyond the city walls, had been in action now since the afternoon. It took perhaps an hour for each one to be loaded and made ready. He had watched the procedure through his eye-glass.

First the machine would be aligned, the range would be judged. A group of white robed, bearded engineers would argue with one another, peering through eye-glasses of their own, holding up swinging plumb-lines, fiddling with compasses, and papers, and abacuses, making minute adjustments to the huge bolts that held the catapult in place.

Once they were satisfied, the great arm was bent back into position. A team of twenty horses, well-whipped and well-lathered, was required to lift the enormous counterweight, a block of black iron carved in the shape of a frowning Gurkish face.

Next the huge shot, a barrel not much less than a stride across, was painstakingly manoeuvred into the waiting scoop by a system of pulleys and a team of frowning, bellowing, arm-waving labourers. Then men stepped away, hurried back fearfully. A lone slave was sent slowly forward with a long pole, a burning wad at its end. He placed it to the barrel. Flames leaped up, and somewhere a lever was hauled down, the mighty weight fell, the great arm, long as a pine trunk, cut through the air, and the burning ammunition was flung up towards the clouds. They had been flying up, and roaring down, for hours now, while the sun slowly sank in the west, the sky darkened around them, the hills of the mainland became a black outline in the distance.

Glokta watched as one of the barrels soared, searing bright against the black heavens, the path of it a fizzing line burned into his eye. It seemed to hang over the city for an age, as high almost as the Citadel itself, and then tumbled, crackling from the sky like a meteor, a trail of orange fire blazing behind. It fell to earth in the midst of the Lower City. Liquid flames shot upwards, spurted outwards, pounced hungrily upon the tiny silhouettes of the slum-huts. A few moments later, the thunder-clap of the detonation reached Glokta at his window and made him wince.
Explosive powder. Who could have supposed, when I saw it fizzing on the bench of the Adeptus Chemical, that it might make such an awesome weapon?

He half-saw, half-imagined, tiny figures rushing here or there, trying to pull the injured from the burning wreckage, trying to save what they could from their ruined dwellings, chains of ash-blackened natives grimly passing buckets from hand to hand, struggling vainly to contain the spreading inferno.
Those with the least always lose the most in war.
There were fires all across the Lower City now. Glowing, shimmering, flickering in the wind off the sea, reflecting orange, yellow, angry red in the black water. Even up here, the air smelled heavy, oily and choking from the smoke.
Down there it must be hell itself. My congratulations once more, Superior Glokta.

He turned, aware of someone in the doorway. Shickel, her slight shape black in the lamplight.

“I’m alright,” he murmured, looking back to the majestic, the lurid, the awful spectacle outside the window.
After all, you don’t get to see a city burn every day.
But his servant did not leave. She took a step forward into the room.

“You should go, Shickel. I’m expecting a visitor, of a sort, and it could be trouble.”

“A visitor, eh?”

Glokta looked up. Her voice sounded different. Deeper, harder. Her face looked different too, one side in shadow, one side lit in flickering orange from the fires outside the window. A strange expression, teeth half-bared, eyes fixed on Glokta and glittering with a hungry intensity as she padded slowly forward. A fearsome expression, almost.
If I was prone to fear…
And the wheels clicked into place.

“You?” he breathed.

“Me.”

You?
Glokta could not help himself. He let out a burst of involuntary chuckling. “Harker had you! That idiot stumbled on you by mistake, and I let you go! And I thought I was the hero!” He could not stop laughing. “There’s a lesson for you, eh? Never do a good turn!”

“I don’t need lessons from you, cripple.” She took one more step. Not three strides away from him now.

“Wait!” He held up his hand. “Just tell me one thing!” She paused, one brow raised, questioning.
Just stay there.
“What happened to Davoust?”

Shickel smiled. Sharp, clean teeth. “He never left the room.” She stroked her stomach gently. “He is here.” Glokta forced himself not to look up as the loop of chain descended slowly from the ceiling. “And now you can join him.” She got half a step forward before the chain hooked her under the chin and jerked up, dragging her off her feet into the air, hissing and spitting, kicking and thrashing.

Severard sprang up from his hiding-place beneath a table, tried to grab hold of Shickel’s flailing legs. He yelped as her bare foot cracked into his face, sent him sprawling across the carpet.

“Shit,” gasped Vitari as Shickel wedged her hand under the chain and began to drag her down from the rafters. “Shit!” They crashed onto the floor together, struggled for a moment, then Vitari flew through the air, a flailing black shadow in the darkness. She wailed as she crashed into a table in the far corner of the room, flopped senseless on the floor. Severard was still groaning, rolling slowly onto his back in a daze, hands clasped to his mask. Glokta and Shickel were left staring at one another.
Me and my Eater. This is unfortunate.

He backed against the wall as the girl sprang at him, but she only got a step before Frost barrelled into her at full tilt, crashed on top of her onto the carpet. They lay there for a moment, then she slowly rolled on to her knees, slowly fought her way up to standing, all of the hulking Practical’s great weight bearing down on her, slowly took a shuffling step towards Glokta.

The albino’s arms were wrapped tight round her, straining with every sinew to drag her away, but she kept moving slowly forward, teeth gritted, one thin arm pinned to her thin body while her free hand clawed out furiously towards Glokta’s neck.

“Thhhhh!” hissed Frost, the muscles in his heavy forearms bulging, his white face screwed up with effort, his pink eyes starting from his head. Still it was not enough. Glokta was pressed back against the wall, watching fascinated as the hand came closer, and closer still, just inches from his throat.
This is very unfortunate.

“Fuck you!” screamed Severard. His stick whistled down and cracked into the grasping arm, breaking it clean in half. Glokta could see the bones poking through the ripped and bloody skin, and yet the fingers still twitched, reaching for him. The stick cracked into her face and her head snapped back. Blood sprayed out of her nose, her cheek was cut right open. Still she came on. Frost was gasping with the effort of keeping her other arm pinned as she strained forwards, mouth snarling, teeth bared, ready to bite Glokta’s throat out.

Severard threw down his stick and grabbed her round the neck, dragging her head backwards, grunting with the effort, veins pulsing on his forehead. It was a bizarre sight, two men, one of them big and strong as a bull, trying desperately to wrestle a slip of a girl to the ground. Slowly, the two Practicals began to drag her back. Severard had one of her feet off the floor. Frost gave a great bellow, lifted her and with one last effort flung her against the wall.

She scrabbled at the floor, clawing her way up, broken arm flopping. Vitari growled from the shadows, one of Superior Davoust’s heavy chairs raised high in the air. It burst apart over Shickel’s head with an almighty crash, and then the three Practicals were on her like hounds on a fox, kicking, punching, grunting with rage.

“Enough!” snapped Glokta. “We still have questions!” He shuffled up beside the panting Practicals and looked down. Shickel was a broken mess, motionless. A pile of rags, and not even a big one.
Much as when I first found her. How could this girl almost have overcome these three?
Her broken arm was stretched out across the carpet, fingers limp and bloody.
Safe to say no threat to anyone, now.

Then the arm began to move. The bone slid back into the flesh, made a sickening crunching sound as it straightened out. The fingers twitched, jerked, scratched at the floor, began to slide toward Glokta, reaching for his ankle.

“What is she?” gasped Severard, staring down.

“Get the chains,” said Glokta, cautiously stepping back out of the way. “Quickly!”

Frost dragged two pairs of great irons clanking from a sack, grunting with the effort of lifting them. They were made for the most powerful and dangerous of prisoners, bands of black iron, thick as a sapling trunk, heavy as anvils. He squeezed one pair tight shut around her ankles, the other round her wrists, ratchets scraping into place with a reassuring finality.

Meanwhile Vitari had hauled a great length of rattling chain from the sack and was winding it round and round Shickel’s limp body while Severard held her up, dragging it tight, winding it round and round again. Two great padlocks completed the job.

They were snapped shut just in time. Shickel suddenly came alive, began thrashing on the floor. She snarled up at Glokta, straining at the chains. Her nose had already snapped back into place, the cut across her face had already closed.
As though she was never hurt at all. So Yulwei spoke the truth.
The chains rattled as she lunged forward with her teeth, and Glokta had to stumble back out of the way.