The Blade Itself

She burst out laughing. Snorting, gurgling peals of it. Her whole body was shaking. Wine sloshed out of her glass and splattered across the floor. “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

“It’s just,” she wiped a tear from her eye, “I had a bet with Collem. He was sure you’d stick at it. And now I’m ten marks richer.”

“I’m not sure that I like being the subject of your bet,” said Jezal sharply.

“I’m not sure I give a damn.”

“This is serious.”

“No it isn’t!” she snapped. “For my brother it was serious, he had to do it! No one even notices you if you don’t have a ‘dan’ in your name, and who’d know better than me? You’re the only person who’s given me the time of day since I got here, and then only because Collem made you. I’ve precious little money and no blood at all, and that makes me less than nothing to the likes of you. The men ignore me and the women cut me dead. I’ve got nothing here, nothing and no one, and you think you’ve got the hard life? Please! I might take up fencing,” she said bitterly. “Ask the Lord Marshal if he has space for a pupil, would you? At least then I’d have someone to talk to!”

Jezal blinked. That wasn’t interesting. That was rude. “Hold on, you’ve no idea what it’s like to—”

“Oh stop whinging! How old are you? Five? Why don’t you go back to sucking on your mother’s tit, infant?”

He could hardly believe what he was hearing. How dare she? “My mother’s dead,” he said. Hah. That should make her feel guilty, squeeze an apology out of her. It didn’t.

“Dead? Lucky her, at least she doesn’t have to listen to your damn whining! You spoiled little rich boys are all the same. You get everything you could possibly want, then throw a tantrum because you have to pick it up yourself! You’re pathetic! You make me fucking sick!”

Jezal goggled. His face was burning, stinging, as if he’d been slapped. He’d rather have been slapped. He had never been spoken to like that in his life. Never! It was worse than Glokta. Much worse, and far more unexpected. He realised his mouth was hanging half open. He snapped it shut, grinding his teeth together, slapped his glass down on the table, and got up to leave. He was turning to the door when it suddenly opened, leaving him and Major West staring at each other.

“Jezal,” said West, looking at first simply surprised and then, as he glanced over at his sister, sprawling on the settle, slightly suspicious. “What are you doing here?”

“Er… I came to see you actually.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes. But it can wait. I’ve things to do.” And Jezal pushed past his friend and out into the corridor.

“What was all that about?” He heard West saying as he strode away from the room. “Are you drunk?”

With every step Jezal’s fury mounted until he was halfway to being strangled by it. He had been the victim of an assault! A savage and undeserved attack! He stopped in the corridor, trembling with rage, his breath snorting in his nose like he’d run ten miles, his fists clenched painfully tight. And from a woman too! A woman! And a bloody commoner! How dare she? He had wasted time on her, and laughed at her jokes, and found her attractive! She should have been honoured to be noticed!

“That fucking bitch!” he snarled to himself. He had half a mind to go back and say it to her face, but it was too late. He stared around for something to hit. How to pay her back? How? Then it came to him.

Prove her wrong.

That would do it. Prove her wrong, and that crippled bastard Glokta too. He’d show them how hard he could work. He’d show them he was no fool, no liar, no spoiled child. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He’d win this damn Contest, is what he’d do! That’d wipe the smiles off their faces! He set off briskly down the corridor, with a strange new feeling building in his chest.

A sense of purpose. That was what it was. Perhaps it wasn’t too late for a run.

How Dogs are Trained

Practical Frost stood by the wall, utterly motionless, utterly silent, barely visible in the deep shadows, a part of the building. The albino hadn’t moved an inch in an hour or more, hadn’t shifted his feet, hadn’t blinked, hadn’t breathed that Glokta had noticed, his eyes fixed on the street before them.

Glokta himself cursed, shifted uncomfortably, winced, scratched his face, sucked at his empty gums. What’s keeping them? A few minutes more and I might fall asleep, drop into that stinking canal and drown. How very apt that would be. He watched the oily, smelly water below him flap and ripple. Body found floating by the docks, bloated by seawater and far, far beyond recognition…

Frost touched his arm in the darkness, pointed down the street with a big white finger. Three men were moving slowly toward them, walking with the slightly bow-legged stance of men who spend a lot of time aboard ship, keeping their balance on a swaying deck. So that’s one half of our little party. Better late than never. The three sailors came halfway across the bridge over the canal then stopped and waited, no more than twenty strides away. Glokta could hear the tone of their conversation: brash, confident, common accents. He shuffled slightly further into the shadows clinging to the building.

Now footsteps came from the opposite direction, hurried footsteps. Two more men appeared, walking quickly down the street. One, a very tall, thin fellow in an expensive-looking fur coat was glancing suspiciously around him. That must be Gofred Hornlach, senior Mercer. Our man. His companion had a sword at his hip, and was struggling with a big wooden trunk over one shoulder. Servant, or bodyguard, or both. He is of no interest. Glokta felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickling as they neared the bridge. Hornlach exchanged a few quick words with one of the sailors, a man with a big brown beard.

“Ready?” he whispered to Frost. The Practical nodded.

“Hold!” shouted Glokta at the top of his voice, “in the name of his Majesty!” Hornlach’s servant spun round, dropping the trunk onto the bridge with a bang, hand moving toward his sword. There was a soft twang from the shadows on the other side of the road. The servant looked surprised, gave a snort, then toppled onto his face. Practical Frost strode swiftly out of the shadows, feet padding on the road.

Hornlach stared down, wide-eyed, at the corpse of his bodyguard, then across at the hulking albino. He turned to the sailors. “Help me!” he cried. “Stop him!”

Their leader smiled back. “I don’t think so.” His two companions moved without hurry to block the bridge. The Mercer stumbled away, took a faltering step toward the shadows by the canal on the other side. Severard appeared from a doorway before him, flatbow rested across his shoulder. Replace the bow with a bunch of flowers and he’d look as if he was on his way to a wedding. You’d never think that he just killed a man.

Surrounded, Hornlach could only look around dumbly, eyes wide with fear and surprise, as the two Practicals approached, Glokta limping up behind them. “But I paid you!” Hornlach shouted desperately at the sailors.

“You paid me for a berth,” said their Captain. “Loyalty is extra.”

Practical Frost’s big white hand slapped down on the merchant’s shoulder, forced him onto his knees. Severard strolled over to the bodyguard, wedged the dirty toe of his boot under the body and rolled it over. The corpse stared up at the night sky, eyes glassy, the feathers of the flatbow bolt sticking out from his neck. The blood round his mouth looked black in the moonlight.

“Dead,” grunted Severard, most unnecessarily.

“A bolt through the neck will do that,” said Glokta. “Clean him up, would you?”

“Right you are.” Severard grabbed the bodyguard’s feet and hauled them over the parapet of the bridge, then he took him under the armpits and heaved the body straight over the side with a grunt. So smooth, so clean, so practised. You can tell he’s done it before. There was a splash as the corpse hit the slimy water below. Frost had Hornlach’s hands tied firmly behind him now, and the bag on. The prisoner squawked through the canvas as he was dragged to his feet. Glokta himself shuffled over to the three sailors, his legs numb after all that time spent standing still in the alley.

“And here we are,” he said, pulling a heavy purse from his inside coat pocket. He held it swinging just above