The Dogman puffed out his cheeks. “Well, we’re glad you’re back, anyway. Guess you’ll be taking your place again now, eh?”

“My place?”

“You’ll be taking over, no? I mean to say, you were chief.”

“Used to be, maybe, but I’ve no plans to go back to it. Seems as if these lads are happy enough with things the way they are.”

“But you know a sight more than me about leading men—”

“I don’t know that’s a fact. Me being in charge never worked out too well for anyone, now did it? Not for us, not for those who fought with us, not for them we fought against.” Logen hunched his shoulders at the memories. “I’ll put my word in, if you want it, but I’d sooner follow you. I did my time, and it wasn’t a good one.”

Dogman looked like he’d been hoping for a different outcome. “Well… if you’re sure…”

“I’m sure.” And Logen slapped him on the shoulder. “Not easy, is it, being chief?”

“No,” grumbled Dogman. “It bloody ain’t.”

“Besides, I reckon a lot of these lads have been on the other side of an argument with me before, and they’re not altogether pleased to see me.” Logen looked down the fire at the hard faces, heard the mutterings with his name in them, too quiet to tell the matter for sure, but he could guess that it wasn’t complimentary.

“They’ll be glad enough to have you alongside ’em when the fighting starts, don’t worry about that.”

“Maybe.” Seemed an awful shame that he’d have to set to killing before folk would give him so much as a nod. Sharp looks came at him from out the dark, flicking away when he looked back. There was only one man, more or less, who met his eye. A big lad with long hair, halfway down the fire.

“Who’s that?” asked Logen.

“Who’s what?”

“That lad down there staring at me.”

“That there is Shivers.” Dogman sucked at his pointed teeth. “He’s got a lot of bones, Shivers. Fought with us a few times now, and he does it damn well. First of all I’ll tell you he’s a good man and we owe him. Then I ought to mention that he’s Rattleneck’s son.”

Logen felt a wave of sickness. “He’s what?”

“His other son.”

“The boy?”

“Long time ago now, all that. Boys grow up.”

A long time ago, maybe, but nothing was forgotten. Logen could see that straight away. Nothing was ever forgotten, up here in the North, and he should’ve known better than to think it might be. “I should say something to him. If we have to fight together… I should say something.”

Dogman winced. “Might be better that you don’t. Some wounds are best not picked at. Eat, and talk to him in the morning. Everything sounds fairer in the daylight. That or you can decide against it.”

“Uh,” grunted Grim.

Logen stood up. “You’re right, most likely, but it’s better to do it—”

“Than to live with the fear of it.” Dogman nodded into the fire. “You been missed, Logen, and that’s a fact.”

“You too, Dogman. You too.”

He walked down through the darkness, smelly with smoke and meat and men, along behind the Carls sitting at the fire. He felt them hunching their shoulders, muttering as he passed. He knew what they were thinking. The Bloody-Nine, right behind me, and there’s no worse man in the world to have your back to. He could see Shivers watching him all the way, one eye cold through his long hair, lips pressed together in a hard line. He had a knife out for eating, but just as good for stabbing a man. Logen watched the firelight gleaming on its edge as he squatted down beside him.

“So you’re the Bloody-Nine.”

Logen grimaced. “Aye. I reckon.”

Shivers nodded, still staring at him. “This is what the Bloody-Nine looks like.”

“Hope you’re not disappointed.”

“Oh no. Not me. Good to have a face on you, after all this time.”

Logen looked down at the ground, trying to think of some way to come at it. Some way to move his hands, or set his face, some words that might start to make the tiniest part of it right. “Those were hard times, back then,” he ended up saying.

“Harder’n now?”

Logen chewed at his lip. “Well, maybe not.”

“Times are always hard, I reckon,” said Shivers between gritted teeth. “That ain’t an excuse for doing a runny shit.”

“You’re right. There ain’t any excuses for what I did. I’m not proud of it. Don’t know what else I can say, except I hope you can put it out of the way, and we can fight side by side.”

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Shivers, and his voice was strangled-sounding, like he was trying not to shout, or trying not to cry, or both at once, maybe. “It’s a hard thing to just put behind me. You killed my brother, when you’d promised him mercy, and you cut his arms and legs off, and you nailed his head on Bethod’s standard.” His knuckles were trembling white round the grip of his knife, and Logen saw that it was taking all he had not to stab him in the face, and he didn’t blame him. He didn’t blame him one bit. “My father never was the same after that. He’d nothing in him any more. I spent a lot of years dreaming of killing you, Bloody-Nine.”

Logen nodded, slowly. “Well. You’ll never be alone with that dream.”

He caught other cold looks from across the flames, now. Frowns in the shadows, grim faces in the flickering light. Men he didn’t even know, afraid to their bones, or nursing scores against him. A whole lot of fear and a whole lot of scores. He could count on the fingers of one hand the folk who were pleased to see him alive. Even missing a finger. And this was supposed to be his side of the fight.

Dogman had been right. Some wounds are best not picked at. Logen got up, his shoulders prickling, and walked back to the head of the fire, where the talk came easier. He’d no doubt Shivers wanted to kill him just as much as he ever had, but that was no surprise.

You have to be realistic. No words could ever make right the things he’d done.

Bad Debts

Being kind, the place stank. It would seem that a few hundred live pigs do not smell so sweet as one would expect. The floor of the shadowy warehouse was slick with their stinking slurry, the thick air full of their desperate noise. They honked and squealed, grunted and jostled each other in their writhing pens, sensing, perhaps, that the slaughterman’s knife was not so very far away. But, as Morrow had observed, Glokta was not one to be put off by the noise, or the knives, or, for that matter, an unpleasant odour. I spend my days wading through the metaphorical filth, after all. Why not the real thing? The slippery footing was more of a problem. He hobbled with tiny steps, his leg burning. Imagine arriving at my meeting caked in pig dung. That would hardly project the right image of fearsome ruthlessness, would it?

He saw Morrow now, leaning on one of the pens. Just like a farmer admiring his prize-winning herd. Glokta limped up beside him, boots squelching, wincing and breathing hard, sweat trickling down his back. “Well, Morrow, you know just how to make a girl feel special, I’ll give you that.”