Before They Are Hanged

“You think I care a damn for your broken piss-pot of a town?” thundered Bayaz. “You give me three days? I’ll be gone in one!” And he turned on his heel and stalked across the polished floor towards the entrance, the ringing echoes of his voice still grating from the shining walls, the glittering ceiling.

Jezal dithered a moment, weak and trembling, then shuffled guiltily away, following the First of the Magi past the Legate’s horrified, dumbstruck guards and out into the daylight.

The Condition of the Defences

To Arch Lector Sult,

head of his Majesty’s Inquisition.

Your Eminence,

I have acquainted the members of Dagoska’s ruling council with my mission. You will not be surprised to learn that they are less than delighted at the sudden reduction in their powers. My investigation into the disappearance of Superior Davoust is already underway, and I feel confident that results will not be long in coming. I will be appraising the city’s defences as soon as possible, and will take any and all steps necessary to ensure that Dagoska is impregnable.

You will hear from me soon. Until then, I serve and obey.

Sand dan Glokta,

Superior of Dagoska.

The sun pressed down on the crumbling battlements like a great weight. It pressed through Glokta’s hat and onto his stooped head. It pressed through Glokta’s black coat and onto his twisted shoulders. It threatened to squeeze the water right out of him, squash the life right out of him, crush him to his knees. A cool autumn morning in charming Dagoska.

While the sun attacked him from above, the salt wind came at him head on. It swept in off the empty sea and over the bare peninsula, hot and full of choking dust, blasting the land walls of the city and scouring everything with salty grit. It stung at Glokta’s sweaty skin, whipped the moisture from his mouth, tickled at his eyes and made them weep stinging tears. Even the weather wants to be rid of me, it would seem.

Practical Vitari teetered along the parapet beside him, arms outstretched like a circus performer on the high rope. Glokta frowned up at her, a gangly black shape against the brilliant sky. She could just as easily walk down here, and stop making a spectacle of herself. But at least this way there is always the chance of her falling off. The land walls were twenty strides high at the least. Glokta allowed himself the very slightest smile at the thought of the Arch Lector’s favourite Practical slipping, sliding, tumbling from the wall, hands clutching at nothing. Perhaps a despairing scream as she fell to her death?

But she didn’t fall. Bitch. Considering her next report to the Arch Lector, no doubt. “The cripple continues to flounder like a landed fish. He has yet to uncover the slightest trace of Davoust, or any traitor, despite questioning half the city. The one man he has arrested is a member of his own Inquisition…”

Glokta shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted into the blinding sun. The neck of rock that connected Dagoska with the mainland stretched away from him, no more than a few hundred strides across at its narrowest point, the sparkling sea on both sides. The road from the city gates was a brown stripe through the yellow scrub, cutting southwards towards the dry hills on the mainland. A few sorry-looking seabirds squawked and circled over the causeway, but there were no other signs of life.

“Might I borrow your eye-glass, General?”

Vissbruck flicked the eye-glass open and slapped it sulkily into Glokta’s outstretched hand. Plainly he feels he has better things to do than give me a tour of the defences. The General was breathing heavily, standing stiffly to attention in his impeccable uniform, plump face shining with sweat. Doing his best to maintain his professional bearing. His bearing is the only professional thing about this imbecile, but, as the Arch Lector says, we must work with the tools we have. Glokta raised the brass tube to his eye.

The Gurkish had built a palisade. A tall fence of wooden stakes that fringed the hills, cutting Dagoska off from the mainland. There were tents scattered about the other side, thin plumes of smoke rising from a cooking fire here or there. Glokta could just about make out tiny figures moving, sun glinting on polished metal. Weapons and armour, and plenty of both.

“There used to be caravans from the mainland,” Vissbruck murmured. “Last year there were a hundred of them every day. Then the Emperor’s soldiers started to arrive, and there were fewer traders. They finished the fence a couple of months ago. There hasn’t been so much as a donkey since. Everything has to come in by ship, now.”

Glokta scanned across the fence, and the camps behind, from the sea on one side to the sea on the other. Are they simply flexing their muscles, putting on a show of force? Or are they in deadly earnest? The Gurkish love a good show, but they don’t mind a good fight either—that’s how they’ve conquered the whole of the South, more or less. He lowered the eye-glass. “How many Gurkish, do you think?”

Vissbruck shrugged. “Impossible to say. At least five thousand, I would guess, but there could be many more, behind those hills. We have no way of knowing.”

Five thousand. At the least. If it’s a show, it’s a good one. “How many men have we?”

Vissbruck paused. “I have around six hundred Union soldiers under my command.”

Around six hundred? Around? You lackwit dunce! When I was a soldier I knew the name of every man in my regiment, and who was best suited to what tasks. “Six hundred? Is that all?”

“There are mercenaries in the city also, but they cannot be trusted, and frequently cause trouble of their own. In my opinion they are worse than worthless.”

I asked for numbers, not opinions. “How many mercenaries?”

“Perhaps a thousand, now, perhaps more.”

“Who leads them?”

“Some Styrian. Cosca, he calls himself.”

“Nicomo Cosca?” Vitari was staring down from the parapet, one orange eyebrow raised.

“You know him?”

“You could say that. I thought he was dead, but it seems there’s no justice in the world.”

She’s right there. Glokta turned to Vissbruck. “Does this Cosca answer to you?”

“Not exactly. The Spicers pay him, so he answers to Magister Eider. In theory, he’s supposed to follow my orders—”

“But he only follows his own?” Glokta could see in the General’s face that he was right. Mercenaries. A double-edged sword, if ever there was one. Keen, as long as you can keep paying, and provided that trustworthiness is not a priority. “And Cosca’s men outnumber yours two to one.” It would appear that, as far as the defences of the city are concerned, I am speaking to the wrong man. Perhaps there is one issue, though, on which he can enlighten me. “Do you know what became of my predecessor, Superior Davoust?”

General Vissbruck twitched his annoyance. “I have no idea. That man’s movements were of no interest to me.”

“Hmm,” mused Glokta, jamming his hat down tighter onto his head as another gritty gust of wind blew in