“Enough riddles,” sneered Glokta. “Why not just tell me what you’re after?”
The First of the Magi, if such he was, grinned still wider. “I like you, Inquisitor, I really do. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the only honest man left in this whole damn country. We should have a talk at some point, you and I. A talk about what I want, and about what you want.” His smile vanished. “But not today.”
And he stepped through the open door, leaving Glokta behind in the shadows.
Nobody’s Dog
“Why me?” West murmured to himself through gritted teeth, staring across the bridge towards the South Gate. That nonsense at the docks had taken him longer than expected, much longer, but then didn’t everything these days? It sometimes felt as if he was the only man in the Union seriously preparing for a war, and had to organise the entire business on his own, right down to counting the nails that would hold the horses’ shoes on. He was already late for his daily meeting with Marshal Burr, and knew there would be a hundred impossible things for him to get done today. There always were. To become involved in some pointless hold-up here at the very gate of the Agriont was all he needed.
“Why the hell must it be me?” His head was starting to hurt again. That all too familiar pulsing behind the eyes. Each day it seemed to come on earlier, and end up worse.
Because of the heat over the last few days, the guards had been permitted to come to duty without full armour. West reckoned that at least two of them were now regretting it. One was folded up on the ground near the gate, hands clasped between his legs, whimpering noisily. His sergeant stood stooped over next to him, blood running from his nose and pattering dark red drops on the stones of the bridge. The two other soldiers in the detail had their spears lowered, blades pointing towards a scrawny dark-skinned youth. Another southerner stood nearby, an old man with long grey hair, leaning against the handrail and watching the scene with an expression of profound resignation.
The youth glanced quickly over his shoulder and West felt a sting of surprise. A woman: black hair hacked off short and sticking off her head in a mess of greasy spikes. One sleeve was torn off round her shoulder and a long, sinewy brown arm stuck out, ending in a fist bunched tight around the grip of a curved knife. The blade shone, mirror bright and evilly sharp, the one and only thing about her that looked clean. There was a thin, grey scar all the way down the right side of her face, through her black eyebrow and across her scowling lips. It was her eyes, though, which truly caught West off guard: slightly slanted, narrowed with the deepest hostility and suspicion, and yellow. He had seen all kinds of Kantics in his time, while he was fighting in Gurkhul, in the war, but he never saw eyes like that before. Deep, rich, golden yellow, like…
Piss. That was the smell, as he came closer. Piss, and dirt, and a lot of old, sour sweat. He remembered that from the war alright, the stink of men who had not washed in a very long time. West fought the compulsion to wrinkle up his nose and breathe through his mouth as he approached, and the urge to circle out wide and keep his distance from that glittering blade. You have to show no fear if you’re to calm a dangerous situation, however much you might be feeling. In his experience, if you could seem to be in control, you were more than halfway to being there.
“What the hell is going on here?” he growled at the bloody-faced sergeant. He had no need at all to feign annoyance, he was getting later and angrier by the second.
“These stinking beggars wanted to come into the Agriont, sir! I tried to turn them away, of course, but they have letters!”
“Letters?”
The strange old man tapped West on the shoulder, handed over a folded sheet of paper, slightly grubby round the edges. He read it, his frown growing steadily deeper. “This is a letter of transit signed by Lord Hoff himself. They must be admitted.”
“But not armed, sir! I said they couldn’t go in armed!” The sergeant held up an odd looking bow of dark wood in one hand, and a curved sword of the Gurkish design in the other. “It was enough of a struggle getting her to give these up, but when I tried to search her… this Gurkish bitch…” The woman hissed and took a quick step forward, and the sergeant and his two guards shuffled nervously back in a tight group.
“Peace, Ferro,” sighed the old man in the Kantic tongue. “For God’s sake, peace.” The woman spat on the stones of the bridge and hissed some curse that West could not understand, weaving the blade back and forth in a way that suggested she knew how to use it, and was more than willing.
“Why me?” West mumbled under his breath. It was plain he was going nowhere until this difficulty was resolved. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. He took a deep breath and did his best to put himself in the position of the stinking woman: a stranger, surrounded by strange-looking people speaking words she didn’t understand, brandishing spears and trying to search her. Probably she was even now thinking about how horrible West smelled. Disorientated and afraid, most likely, rather than dangerous. She did look very dangerous though, and not in the least afraid.
The old man certainly seemed the more reasonable of the two, so West turned to him first. “Are you two from Gurkhul?” he asked him in broken Kantic.
The old man turned his tired eyes on West. “No. There is more to the South than the Gurkish.”
“Kadir then? Taurish?”
“You know the South?”
“A little. I fought there, in the war.”
The old man jerked his head at the woman, watching them suspiciously with her slanted yellow eyes. “She is from a place called Muntaz.”
“I never heard of it.”
“Why would you have?” The old man shrugged his bony shoulders. “A small country, by the sea, far to the east of Shaffa, beyond the mountains. The Gurkish conquered it years ago, and its people were scattered or made slaves. Apparently she has been in a foul mood ever since.” The woman scowled over at them, keeping one eye on the soldiers.
“And you?”
“Oh, I come from much further south, beyond Kanta, beyond the desert, even beyond the Circle of the World. The land of my birth will not be on your maps, friend. Yulwei is my name.” He held out a long, black hand.
“Collem West.” The woman watched them warily as they shook hands.
“This one is called West, Ferro! He fought against the Gurkish! Will that make you trust him?” Yulwei didn’t sound very hopeful, and indeed the woman’s shoulders were still as hunched and bristling as ever, her grip on the knife no less tight. One of the soldiers chose that unfortunate moment to take a step forward, jabbing at the air with his spear, and the woman snarled and spat again, shouting more unintelligible curses.
“That’s enough!” West heard himself roaring at the guard. “Put your fucking spears up!” They blinked at him, shocked, and he fought to bring his voice back under control. “I don’t think this is a full-scale invasion, do you? Put them up!”
Reluctantly the spearpoints drifted away from the woman. West stepped firmly towards her, keeping his eyes fixed on hers with all the authority he could muster. Show no fear, he thought to himself, but his heart was thumping. He held out his open palm, almost close enough to touch her.
“The knife,” said West sharply in his bad Kantic. “Please. You will not be harmed, you have my word.”
The woman stared at him with those slanted, beady yellow eyes, then at the guards with the spears, then back to him. She took plenty of time over it. West stood there, mouth dry, head still thumping, getting later and later, sweating under his uniform in the hot sun, trying to ignore the woman’s smell. Time passed.
“God’s teeth, Ferro!” snapped the old man suddenly. “I am old! Take pity on me! I may only have a few years left! Give the man the knife, before I die!”
“Ssssss,” she hissed, curling her lip. For a dizzy, stretched-out moment the knife went up, then the hilt slapped down into West’s palm. He allowed himself a dry swallow of relief. Right up until the last moment he had been almost sure she would give him the sharp end.
“Thank you,” he said, a deal more calmly than he felt. He handed the knife to the sergeant. “Stow the weapons away and escort our guests into the Agriont, and if any harm comes to anyone, especially her, I’ll be
