The Collected Joe Abercrombie (348 page)

Friendly rammed into him full-tilt and took him off his feet. Shivers snarled, caught him round the back with his shield arm, but the best he could do was drag the convict with him. They plunged through the railing with a snapping of wood and went tumbling out into empty air.

Nicomo Cosca came into view, whipping off his hat and flinging it theatrically across the room, where it presumably missed its intended peg since Morveer saw it tumble to the floor not far from the latrine door behind which he had concealed himself. His mouth twisted into a triumphant sneer in the pungent darkness. The old mercenary held in his hand a metal flask. The very one Morveer himself had tossed at Cosca as an offhand insult in Sipani. The wretched old drunk must have gone back and collected it afterwards, no doubt hoping to lick out the barest trickle of grog. How hollow now did his promise seem never to drink again? So much for man’s ability to change. Morveer had expected little better, of course, from the world’s leading expert on empty bravado, but Cosca’s almost pitiable level of debasement surprised even him.

The sound of the cabinet being opened reached his ear. ‘Just must fill this up.’ Cosca’s voice, though he was out of sight. Metal clinked.

Morveer could just observe the weasel-like visage of his companion. ‘How can you drink that piss?’

‘I have to drink something, don’t I? It was recommended to me by an old friend, now, alas, dead.’

‘Do you have any old friends who aren’t dead?’

‘Only you, Victus. Only you.’

A rattling of glass and Cosca swaggered through the narrow strip to which Morveer’s vision was reduced, his flask in one hand, a glass and bottle in the other. It was a distinctive purple vessel, which Morveer clearly remembered poisoning but a few moments ago. It seemed he had engineered another fatal irony. Cosca would be responsible for his own destruction, as he had been so often before. But this time with a fitting finality. He heard the rustling, snapping sound of cards being shuffled.

‘Five scales a hand?’ came Cosca’s voice. ‘Or shall we play for honour?’

Both men burst out laughing. ‘Let’s make it ten.’

‘Ten it is.’ Further shuffling. ‘Well, this is civilised. Nothing like cards while other men fight, eh? Just like old times.’

‘Except no Andiche, no Sesaria and no Sazine.’

‘Aside from that,’ conceded Cosca. ‘Now then. Will you deal, or shall I?’

Friendly growled as he dragged himself clear of the wreckage. Shivers was a few strides away, on the other side of the heap of broken wood and ivory, twisted brass and tangled wire that was all that remained of Duke Orso’s harpsichord. The Northman rolled onto his knees, shield still on his arm, axe still gripped in his other fist, blood running down the side of his face from a cut just above his gleaming metal eye.

‘You counting fuck! I was going to say my quarrel ain’t with you. But now it is.’

They slowly stood, together, watching each other. Friendly slid his knife from its sheath, his cleaver out from his jacket, the worn grips smooth and familiar in his palms. He could forget about all the chaos in the gardens, now, all the madness in the palace. One man against one man, the way it used to be, in Safety. One and one. The plainest arithmetic he could ask for.

‘Right, then,’ said Friendly, and he grinned.

‘Right, then,’ hissed Shivers through gritted teeth.

One of the mercenaries who had been breaking the room apart took a half-step towards them. ‘What the hell is—’

Shivers leaped the wreckage in one bound, axe a shining arc. Friendly dropped away to the right, ducking underneath it, the wind of it snatching at his hair. His cleaver caught the edge of Shivers’ shield, the corner of the blade squealed off and dug into the Northman’s shoulder. Not hard enough to do more than cut him, though. Shivers twisted round fast, axe flashing down. Friendly slid around it, heard it crash into the wreckage beside him. He stabbed with his knife but the Northman already had his shield in the way, twisted it, jerking the blade out of Friendly’s fist, sending it clattering across the polished floor. He hacked with his cleaver but Shivers pressed close and caught Friendly’s elbow against his shoulder, the blade flapping at the blind side of his face and leaving him a bloody nick under his ear.

Friendly took a half-step back, cleaver going out for a sideways sweep, not giving Shivers room to use his axe. He charged forwards behind his shield instead, caught Friendly’s flailing cleaver against it and lifted him, growling like a mad dog. Friendly punched at his side, struggling to get a good fist around that big circle of wood, but Shivers had more weight and all the momentum. Friendly was bundled through the door, frame thudding against his shoulder, shield digging into his chest, gaining pace all the time. His boots kicked at the floor, then the floor was gone and he was falling. The back of his head hit stone, he jolted, bounced, tumbling over and over, grunting and wheezing, light and darkness spinning round him. Stairs. Falling down stairs, and the worst of it was he couldn’t even count them.

He growled again as he slowly picked himself up at the bottom. He was in a long kitchen, a vaulted cellar lit by small windows, high up. Left leg, right shoulder, back of his head all throbbing, blood on his cheek, one sleeve torn back and a long raw scrape down his forearm, blood on his trouser leg where he must have cut himself on his own cleaver as he fell. But everything still moved.

Shivers stood at the top of a flight of fourteen steps, two times seven, a big black shape with light twinkling from one eye. Friendly beckoned to him.

‘Down you come.’

She kept crawling. That was all she could do. Drag herself one stride at a time. Keep both eyes ahead, on the hilt of the Calvez in the corner. Crawl, and spit blood, and will the room to stay still. All the slow way her back was itching, tingling, waiting for Shivers’ axe to hack into it and give her the ugly ending she deserved.

At least the one-eyed bastard had stopped talking now.

Monza’s hand closed around the hilt and she rolled over, snarling, waving the blade out in front of her like a coward might wave a torch into the night. There was no one there. Only a ragged gap in the railing at the edge of the gallery.

She wiped her bloody nose on her gloved hand, came up slowly to her knees. The dizziness was fading now, the roar in her ears had quieted to a steady thump, her face a throbbing mass, everything feeling twice the size it should have. She shuffled to the shattered balustrade and peered down. The three mercenaries who’d been busy destroying the room were still at it, stood staring down at a shattered harpsichord under the gallery. Still no sign of Shivers, still no clue what had happened. But there were other things on Monza’s mind.

Orso.

She clenched her aching jaw, crossed to the far door and heaved it open. Down a gloomy corridor, the noise of fighting steadily growing louder. She edged out onto a wide balcony. Above her the great dome was painted with a sky touched by a rising sun, seven winged women brandishing swords. Aropella’s grand fresco of the Fates bearing destinies to earth. Below her the two great staircases swept upwards, carved from three different colours of marble. At their top were the double doors, inlaid with rare woods in the pattern of lions’ faces. There, in front of those doors, she’d stood beside Benna for the last time, and told him she loved him.

Safe to say things had changed.

On the round mosaic floor of the hall below, and on the wide marble steps, and on the balcony above, a furious battle was being fought. Men from the Thousand Swords struggled to the death with Orso’s guards, three score or more of them, a boiling, flailing mass. Swords crashed on shields, maces staved in armour, axes rose and fell, spears jabbed and thrust. Men roared with fury, blubbered with pain, fought and died, hacked down where they stood. The mercenaries were mad on the promise of plunder and the defenders had nowhere to run to. Mercy looked in short supply on both sides. A couple of men in Talinese uniform were kneeling on the balcony not far from her, cranking flatbows. As one of them stood to shoot he caught an arrow in his chest, fell back, coughing, eyes wide with surprise, spattering blood over a fine statue behind him.

Never fight your own battles, Verturio wrote, if someone else is willing to fight them for you. Monza eased carefully back into the shadows.

The cork came out with that sucking pop that was Cosca’s favourite noise in all the world. He leaned across the table with the bottle and sloshed some of the syrupy contents into Victus’ glass.

‘Thanks,’ he grunted. ‘I think.’

To put it politely, Gurkish grape spirit was not to everyone’s taste. Cosca had developed if not a love for it then certainly a tolerance, when employed to defend Dagoska. In fact he had developed a powerful tolerance for anything containing alcohol, and Gurkish grape spirit contained a very great deal at a most reasonable cost. The very thought of that gloriously repulsive burned-vomit taste was making his mouth flood with saliva. A drink, a drink, a drink.

He unscrewed the cap of his own flask, shifted in the captain general’s chair, fondly stroking the battered wood of one of its arms. ‘Well?’

Victus’ thin face radiated suspicion, causing Cosca to reflect that no man he had ever met had a shiftier look to his eyes. They slid to his cards, to Cosca’s cards, to the money between them, then slithered back to Cosca. ‘Alright. Doubles it is.’ He tossed some coins into the centre of the table with that delightful jingle that somehow only hard currency can make. ‘What are you carrying, old man?’

‘Earth!’ Cosca smugly spread his cards out.

Victus flung his own hand down. ‘Bloody earth! You always did have the luck of a demon.’

‘And you the loyalty of one.’ Cosca showed his teeth as he swept the coins towards him. ‘I shouldn’t worry, the boys will be bringing us plenty more silver in due course. Rule of Quarters, and all that.’

‘At this rate I’ll have lost all my share to you before they get here.’

‘We can hope.’ Cosca took a sip from his flask and grimaced. For some reason it tasted even more sour than usual. He wrinkled his lips, sucked his gums, then forced another acrid mouthful down and half-screwed the cap back on. ‘Now! I am deeply in need of a shit.’ He slapped the table with one hand and stood. ‘No tampering with the deck while I’m away, you hear?’

‘Me?’ Victus was all injured innocence. ‘You can trust me, General.’

‘Of course I can.’ Cosca began to walk, his eyes fixed on the dark crack down the edge of the doorway to the latrine, judging the distances, back prickling as he pictured where Victus was sitting. He twisted his wrist, felt his throwing-knife drop into his waiting palm. ‘Just like I could trust you at Afieri—’ He spun about, and froze. ‘Ah.’

Victus had somehow produced a small flatbow, loaded, and now aimed with impressive steadiness at Cosca’s heart. ‘Andiche took a sword-thrust for you?’ he sneered. ‘Sesaria sacrificed himself? I knew those two bastards, remember! What kind of a fucking idiot do you take me for?’

Shenkt sprang through the shattered window and dropped silently down into the hall beyond. An hour ago it must have been a grand dining room indeed, but the Thousand Swords had already stripped it of anything that might raise a penny. Only fragments of glass and plate, slashed canvases in shattered frames and the shells of some furniture too big to move remained. Three little flies chased each other in geometric patterns through the air above the stripped table. Near them two men were arguing while a boy perhaps fourteen years old watched nervously.

‘I told you I had the fucking spoons!’ a pock-faced man screamed at one with a tarnished breastplate. ‘But that bitch knocked me down and I lost ’em! Why didn’t you get nothing?’

‘’Cause I was watching the door while you got something, you fucking—’

The boy raised a silent finger to point at Shenkt. The other two abandoned their argument to stare at him. ‘Who the hell are you?’ demanded the spoon-thief.

‘The woman who made you lose your cutlery,’ asked Shenkt. ‘Murcatto?’

‘Who the hell are you, I asked?’

‘No one. Only passing through.’

‘That so?’ He grinned at his fellows as he drew his sword. ‘Well, this room’s ours, and there’s a toll.’

‘There’s a toll,’ hissed the one with the breastplate, in a tone no doubt meant to be intimidating.

The two of them spread out, the boy reluctantly following their lead. ‘What have you got for us?’ asked the first.

Shenkt looked him in the eye as he came close, and gave him a chance. ‘Nothing you want.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’ His gaze settled on the ruby ring on Shenkt’s forefinger. ‘What about that?’

‘It isn’t mine to give.’

‘Then it’s ours to take.’ They closed in, the one with the pocked face prodding at Shenkt with his sword. ‘Hands behind your head, bastard, and get on your knees.’

Shenkt frowned. ‘I do not kneel.’

The three zipping flies slowed, drifting lazily, then hanging almost still.

Slowly, slowly, the spoon-thief’s hungry leer turned into a snarl.

Slowly, slowly, his arm drifted back for a thrust.

Shenkt stepped around his sword, the edge of his hand sank deep into the thief’s chest then tore back out. A great chunk of rib and breastbone was ripped out with it, flew spinning through the air to embed itself deep in the ceiling.