“You’re really not enjoying yourself, are you?”

“I’ve had better days.” He smacked the back of his head against the stone as Ardee leaned down to retrieve his cane. “To be betrayed by both,” he found himself muttering. “That hurts. Even me. One I expected. One I could have taken. But both? Why?”

“Because you’re a ruthless, plotting, bitter, twisted, self-pitying villain?” Glokta stared at her, and she shrugged. “You asked.” They set off once again through the nauseating darkness.

“The question was meant to be rhetorical.”

“Rhetoric? In a sewer?”

“Wait up, there!” Cosca held up his hand and the grumbling procession shuffled to a halt again. A sound filtered down from above, softly at first, then louder—the rhythmic boom of tramping feet, seeming to come, disconcertingly, from everywhere at once. Cosca pressed himself to the sticky wall, stripes of daylight falling across his face from a grate above, the long feather on his cap drooping with slime. Voices settled through the murk. Kantic voices. Cosca grinned, and jabbed one finger up towards the roof. “Our old friends the Gurkish. Those bastards don’t give up, eh?”

“They’ve moved quickly,” grunted Glokta as he tried to catch his breath.

“No one much fighting in the streets any more, I imagine. All pulled back to the Agriont, or surrendered.”

Surrendering to the Gurkish. Glokta winced as he stretched out his leg. Rarely a good idea, and not one a man I would ever consider twice. “We must hurry, then. Move along there, Brother Longfoot!”

The Navigator hobbled on. “Not much further, now! I have not led you wrong, oh no, not I! That would not have been my way. We are close now, to the moat, very close. If there is a way inside the walls, I will find it, on that you may depend. I will have you inside the walls in a—”

“Shut your mouth and get on with it,” growled Glokta.

One of the workmen shook the last of the wood shavings from his barrel, another raked the heap of pale powder smooth, and they were done. The whole Square of Marshals, from the towering white walls of the Halls Martial on Ferro’s right to the gilded gates of the Lords’ Round on her left, was entirely covered in sawdust. It was as if snow had come suddenly, only here, and left a thin blanket across the smooth flags. Across the dark stone, and across the bright metal.

“Good.” Bayaz nodded with rare satisfaction. “Very good!”

“Is that all, my Lord?” called their foreman from the midst of their cringing group.

“Unless any of you wish to stay, and witness the destruction of the indestructible Hundred Words?”

The foreman squinted sideways at one of his fellows with some confusion. “No. No, I think we’ll just… you know…” He and the rest of the workmen began to back off, taking their empty barrels with them. Soon they were away between the white palaces. Ferro and Bayaz were left alone in all that flat expanse of dust.

Just the two of them, and the Maker’s box, and the thing that it contained.

“So. The trap is set. We need merely wait for our quarry.” Bayaz tried his knowing grin, but Ferro was not fooled. She saw his gnarled hands fussing with each other, the muscles clenching and unclenching on the side of his bald head. He was not sure if his plans would work. However wise he was, however subtle, however cunning, he could not be sure. The thing in the box, the cold and heavy thing that Ferro longed to touch, was an unknown. The only precedent for its use was far away, in the empty wastes of the Old Empire. The vast ruin of blighted Aulcus.

Ferro frowned, and loosened her sword in its scabbard.

“If they come, that will not save you.”

“You can never have too many knives,” she growled back. “How do you know they will even come this way?”

“What else can they do? They must come to wherever I am. That is their purpose.” Bayaz pulled in a ragged breath through his nose, and blew it out. “And I am here.”

Sacrifices

Dogman squeezed through the gate along with a rush of others, some Northmen and an awful lot of Union boys, all pouring into the city after that excuse for a battle outside. There were a few folk scattered on the walls over the archway, cheering and whooping like they were at a wedding. A fat man in a leather apron was standing on the other side of the tunnel, clapping folk on the back as they came past. “Thank you, friend! Thank you!” He shoved something into Dogman’s hand, grinning like a madman all the way. A loaf of bread.

“Bread.” Dogman sniffed at it, but it smelled alright. “What the hell’s all that about?” The man had a whole heap of loaves on a cart. He was handing them out to any soldier that came past, Union or Northman. “Who’s he, anyway?”

Grim shrugged. “A baker?”

There weren’t much time to think on it. They were all getting shoved together into a big space full of men pushing, and grumbling, and making mess. All kind of soldiers and some old men and women round the edge, starting to get tired of cheering. A well-clipped lad in a black uniform was standing on top of a cart in the midst of this madness and screeching like a lost goat.

“Eighth regiment, towards the Four Corners! Ninth towards the Agriont! If you’re with the tenth you came through the wrong damn gate!”

“Thought we were to the docks, Major!”

“Poulder’s division are dealing with the docks! We’re for the north part of the city! Eighth regiment towards the Four Corners!”

“I’m with the Fourth!”

“Fourth? Where’s your horse?”

“Dead!”

“What about us?” roared Logen. “Northmen!”

The lad stared at them, wide-eyed, then he threw up his hands. “Just get in there! If you see any Gurkish, kill them!” He turned back towards the gate, jerking his thumb over his shoulder into the city. “Ninth regiment towards the Agriont!”

Logen scowled. “We’ll get no sense here.” He pointed down a wide street, full of walking soldiers. Some great tall tower poked up above the buildings. Huge thing, must’ve been built on a hill. “We get split up we’ll just aim at that.” He struck off down that street and Dogman came after, Grim behind with Shivers and his boys, Red Hat and his crew further back. Wasn’t long before the crowds thinned out and they were marching down empty streets, quiet except for some birds calling, happy as ever, not caring a thing for there having been a battle just now, and caring even less that there was another one coming.

Dogman wasn’t giving it a lot of thought either, for all he had his bow loose in one hand. He was too busy staring at the houses down either side of the road. Houses the like of which he’d never seen in his life. Made of little square, red stones, and black wood filled in with white render. Each one of ’em was big enough for a chieftain to be happy with, most with glass windows in as well.

“Bloody palaces, eh?”

Logen snorted. “You think this is something? You should see this Agriont we’re aiming at. The buildings they got there. You never dreamed o’ the like. Carleon’s a pigsty beside this place.”

Dogman had always found Carleon a good bit too built-up. This was downright ridiculous. He dropped back a way, found he was walking next to Shivers. He lore the loaf and held one half out.

“Thanks.” Shivers took a bite out of the end, then another. “Not bad.”

“Ain’t nothing quite like it, is there? That taste o’ new bread? Tastes like… peace, I guess.”

“If you say so.” They chewed together for a while, saying nothing.

Dogman looked sideways. “I think you need to put this feud o’ yours behind you.”

“What feud’s that?”

“How many you got? The one with our new king up there. Ninefingers.”

“Can’t say I haven’t tried.” Shivers frowned up the road at Logen’s back. “But whenever I turn around, there it is beside me.”