“Everything alright?” she asked.

“Actually, we’re just finishing up. Take out the rubbish would you, Frost?”

The albino’s fingers closed around Vurms’ ankle and hauled him bodily across the floor and out of the audience chamber. Eider watched his slack face slide across the tiles, then looked up at Glokta. “What now?”

“Now the cells.”

“Then?”

“Then we’ll see.” He snapped his fingers at the Practicals, jerked his thumb towards the door. Two of them tramped round the table, seized the Queen of merchants by her elbows and bundled her impassively out of the room.

“So,” asked Glokta, looking over at Vissbruck. “Does anyone else wish to accept the ambassador’s offer of surrender?”

The General, who had been standing silently the whole time, snapped his mouth shut, took a deep breath and stood to stiff attention. “I am a simple soldier. Of course I will obey any order from his Majesty, or his Majesty’s chosen representative. If the order is to hold Dagoska to the last man, I will give the last drop of my blood to do it. I assure you that I knew nothing of any plot. I acted rashly, perhaps, but at all times honestly, in what I felt were the best interests of—”

Glokta waved his hand. “I am convinced. Bored, but convinced.” I have already lost half the ruling council today. To lose any more might make me look greedy. “The Gurkish will no doubt make their assault at first light. You should look to our defences, General.”

Vissbruck closed his eyes, swallowed, wiped some sweat from his forehead. “You will not regret your faith in me, Superior.”

“I trust that I will not. Go.”

The General hurried from the room, as though worried that Glokta might change his mind, and the rest of the Practicals followed him. Vitari bent and lifted Vurms’ fallen chair and slid it carefully back under the table.

“A neat job.” She nodded slowly to herself. “Very neat. I’m happy to say I was right about you all along.”

Glokta snorted. “Your approval is worth less to me than you can ever know.”

Her eyes smiled at him above her mask. “I didn’t say that I approved. I just said that it was neat,” and she turned and sauntered out into the hallway.

That only left him and Cosca. The mercenary leaned against the wall, arms folded carelessly across his breastplate, regarding Glokta with a faint smile. He had not moved the whole time.

“You’d do well in Styria, I think. Very… ruthless? Is that the word? Anyway,” and he gave a flamboyant shrug, “I look forward very much to serving with you.” Until such time as someone offers you more, eh, Cosca? The mercenary waved a hand at the severed head on the table. “Would you like me to do something with that?”

“Stick it on the battlements of the land walls, somewhere it can be easily seen. Let the Gurkish understand the strength of our resolve.”

Cosca clicked his tongue. “Heads on spikes, eh?” He dragged the head off the table by its long beard. “Never goes out of fashion.”

The doors clicked shut behind him, and Glokta was left alone in the audience chamber. He rubbed at his stiff neck, stretched his stiff leg out beneath the bloody table. A good day’s work, all in all. But the day is over now. Outside the tall windows, the sun had finally set over Dagoska.

The sky was dark.

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.”

“Right,” muttered Jezal numbly.

“Listen to me, now. Stay here, and watch the cart. There’s plenty of ’em, and more than likely some will get round the back of us. That’s why you’re here. You understand?”

Jezal swallowed. His throat was tight with the tension. All he could think about was how unfair it was. How unfair, that he should die so young.

“Alright. Me and her will be round the front of the hill there, in around the stones. Most of ’em will come up that way, I reckon. You get in trouble, you shout for us, but if we don’t come, well… do what you can. Might be we’re busy. Might be we’re dead.”

“I’m scared,” said Jezal. He hadn’t meant to say it, but it hardly seemed to matter, now.

Ninefingers only nodded, though. “And me. We’re all scared.”

Ferro had a fierce smile on her face as she tightened the straps of her quiver around her chest, pulled the buckle on her sword-belt one notch further, dragged on her archery guard and worked her fingers, twanged at her bow-string, everything neat, and quick, and ready for violence. While she prepared for a fight that would most likely be the death of them all, she looked as Jezal might have done dressing for a night round the taverns of Adua. Yellow eyes shining, excited in the half light, as if she couldn’t wait to get started. He had never seen her look happy before. “She doesn’t look scared.” he said.

Ninefingers frowned over at her. “Well, maybe not her, but she’s not an example I’d want to follow.” He watched her for a moment. “Sometimes, when someone lives in danger for too long, the only time they feel alive is when death’s breathing on their shoulder.”

“Right,” muttered Jezal. The sight of the buckle on his own sword-belt, of the grips of his own steels, so proudly polished, made him feel sick now. He swallowed again. Damn it, but his mouth had never been so full of spit.

“Try to think about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Whatever gets you through it. You got family?”

“A father, two brothers. I don’t know how much they like me.”

“Shit on them, then. You got children?”

“No.”

“Wife?”

“No.” Jezal grimaced. He had done nothing with his life but play cards and make enemies. No one would miss him.

“A lover then? Don’t tell me there ain’t a girl waiting.”

“Well, maybe…” But he did not doubt that Ardee would already have found someone else. She had never seemed overly sentimental. Perhaps he should have offered to marry her when he had the chance. At least then someone might have wept for him. “What about you?” he mumbled.

“What? A family?” Ninefingers frowned, rubbing grimly at the stump of his middle finger. “I did have one. And now I’ve got another. You don’t pick your family, you take what you’re given and you make the best of it.” He pointed at Ferro, then at Quai. “You see her, and him, and you?” He slapped his hand down on Jezal’s shoulder. “That’s my family now, and I don’t plan on losing a brother today, you understand?”

Jezal nodded slowly. You don’t pick your family. You make the best of it. Ugly, stupid, stinking, strange, it hardly seemed to matter now. Ninefingers held out his hand, and Jezal gripped it in his own, as hard as he could.

The Northman grinned. “Luck then, Jezal.”

“And to you.”

Ferro knelt beside one of the pitted stones, her bow in one hand, an arrow nocked and ready. The wind made patterns in the tall grass on the plain below, whipped at the shorter grass on the slope of the hill, plucked at the flights of the seven arrows stuck into the earth in front of her in a row. Seven arrows was all she had left.

Nothing like enough.

She watched them ride up to the base of the hill. She watched them climb from their horses, staring upwards. She watched them tighten the buckles on their scuffed leather armour, ready their weapons. Spears, swords, shields, a bow or two. She counted them. Thirteen. She had been right.