Last Argument Of Kings: Book Three (The First Law 3)

There was not so much as a breath of wind. The crisp air was strangely still. Just as if there was no war, no rival armies drawing up, no bloody battles scheduled to begin. West swept his eye-glass back and forth, but he could scarcely see any hint of the Gurkish. Perhaps he imagined a tiny fence, down there before the walls, perhaps the outlines of pin-prick spears, but at this distance, in this light, he could be sure of nothing.

‘They must be expecting us. They must be.’

‘Maybe they’re sleeping late,’ said Jalenhorm, ever the optimist.

Pike was more direct. ‘What difference if they are?’

‘Not much,’ West admitted. King Jezal’s orders had been specific. The city was infested with Gurkish troops and the defences were close to complete collapse. There was no time for clever stratagems, for careful approaches, for probing the enemy for weak spots. Prince Ladisla, ironically, would probably have been as good a commander for this particular situation as anyone else. For once, circumstances called for a magnificent charge, followed closely by death or glory. The only thing under West’s control was the timing.

Brint pulled up his horse nearby, sending a shower of grit into the cold air. He swung down from the saddle and gave a smart salute. ‘General Kroy’s cavalry is in position on the right wing, Lord Marshal, and ready to charge at your order.’

‘Thank you, Captain. His foot?’

‘Perhaps halfway to deploying. Some companies are still spread out down the roads.’

‘Still?’

‘Muddy-going, sir.’

‘Huh.’ Armies left mud behind them like a slug left a trail. ‘What about Poulder?’

‘A similar position, as far as I can tell,’ said Brint. ‘No messages?’

Jalenhorm shook his head. ‘General Poulder has not been forthcoming this morning.’

West stared towards the city, that distant grey line beyond the fields. ‘Soon.’ He chewed at his lip, already raw from his constant worrying. ‘Very soon. Mustn’t let fly half-drawn. When a little more of the foot comes up . . .’

Brint was frowning off to the south. ‘Sir, is that . . .’ West followed his pointing finger. Over on the left wing, where Poulder had been gathering his division, the cavalry were already moving smartly forward.

West stared as the riders gathered pace. ‘What the . . .’

Two full regiments of heavy horse broke into a majestic gallop. Thousands of them, streaming forwards across the open farmland, surging round the trees and the scattered farmhouses, throwing up a wake of dusty earth. West could hear the hammering of their hooves now, like distant thunder, could almost feel the vibration of it through his boots. The sun glinted on raised sword and lance, on shield and full armour. Banners streamed and snapped in the wind. It was quite the display of martial grandeur. A scene from a lurid storybook with a muscular hero in which meaningless words like honour and righteousness were often repeated.

‘Shit,’ growled West through gritted teeth, feeling the familiar pulsing coming up behind his eyes. General Poulder had been itching to mount one of his fabled cavalry charges all across the North and back. There the harsh terrain, or the harsh weather, or the harsh circumstances had all prevented it. Now, with the perfect conditions, it seemed he had been unable to resist the opportunity.

Jalenhorm slowly shook his head. ‘Bloody Poulder.’

West gave a snarl of frustration, raised up his eye-glass to dash it on the ground. He managed to stop himself at the last moment, forced in a heavy breath, and slapped the thing angrily closed. He could not afford to indulge himself today. ‘Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? Order the charge, all across the line!’

‘Sound the charge!’ roared Pike. ‘The charge!’

The sharp bugle call rang out, blaringly loud on the chill morning air, doing nothing to ease West’s throbbing headache. He stuck one muddy boot in his stirrup and dragged himself reluctantly up into his saddle, already sore from riding all night. ‘I suppose we must follow General Poulder to glory. At a less honourable distance, though, perhaps. Someone still needs to co-ordinate this shambles.’ The sounds of answering bugles further down the line floated up to them, and on the right Kroy’s horsemen began to trot forwards.

‘Major Jalenhorm, order the foot forward in support as soon as they come up.’ West worked his mouth. ‘Piecemeal if need be.’

‘Of course, Lord Marshal.’ The big man was already turning his horse to give the orders.

‘War,’ muttered West. ‘A noble business.’

‘Sir?’ asked Pike.

‘Nothing.’

‘The news?’ demanded Jezal.

The Lord Marshal’s tongue darted nervously over his lips. ‘The Gurkish mounted an assault before dawn. The defenders of Arnault’s wall were overwhelmed. Not long afterwards they managed to land men at the docks. A great number of men. We have been fighting a rearguard action with the greatest courage, but . . . well . . .’

There was really no need to say more. As Jezal moved closer to the parapet, and wounded Adua came into view, he could plainly see the Gurkish flooding down the Middleway, the tiny golden standards of the Emperor’s legions bobbing above the mass of humanity like flotsam on a glittering tide. Like seeing one ant on the carpet, then gradually becoming aware of hundreds all across his living room, Jezal began to notice movement elsewhere, then everywhere. The very centre of the city was infested with Gurkish soldiers.

‘Fighting a rearguard action with . . . mixed success,’ finished Varuz lamely.

Down below, a few men burst out from the buildings near the western gate of the Agriont, ran across the cobbled square before the moat, heading for the bridge.

‘Gurkish?’ someone squealed.

‘No,’ muttered the Lord Marshal. ‘Those are ours.’ Men doing their very best to escape the slaughter that was no doubt taking place down in the ruined city. Jezal had faced death often enough to guess at how they felt.

‘Have those men brought to safety,’ he said, voice cracking slightly.

‘I am afraid . . . the gates have been sealed, your Majesty.’

‘Then unseal them!’

Varuz’ dewy eyes wandered nervously to Marovia. ‘That would . . . not be wise.’

A dozen or more had made it to the bridge now, were shouting and waving their arms. Their words were lost over the distance, but the tone of helpless, abject terror was impossible to miss.

‘We should do something.’ Jezal’s hands gripped tight to the parapet. ‘We must do something! There will be others out there, many more!’

Varuz cleared his throat. ‘Your Majesty—’

‘No! Have my horse saddled. Gather the Knights of the Body. I refuse to—’

High Justice Marovia had moved to block the door to the stairs, and now looked calmly, sadly into Jezal’s face. ‘If you were to open the gates now, you would be putting everyone in the Agriont at risk. Many thousands of citizens, all looking to you for protection. Here we can keep them safe, at least for now. We must keep them safe.’ His eyes slid sideways to the streets. Different-coloured eyes, Jezal noticed, one blue, one green. ‘We must weigh the greater good.’

‘The greater good.’ Jezal looked the other way, into the Agriont. Brave defenders were ranged around the walls, he knew, ready to fight to the death for king and country, however undeserving. He pictured civilians too, scurrying for safety through the narrow lanes. Men, women, children, the old and the young, driven from their ruined homes. People to whom he had promised safety. His eyes flickered across the high white buildings around the green park, the wide Square of Marshals, the long Kingsway with its tall statues. They were filled, he knew, with the helpless and the needy. Those unlucky enough to have no one better to rely on than the gutless fraud, Jezal dan Luthar.

It stuck in his throat, but he knew the old bureaucrat was right. There was nothing he could do. He had been shockingly lucky to survive his last magnificent charge, and it was far too late for another. Outside the Agriont, Gurkish soldiers were beginning to boil into the square before the gate. A few of them knelt, bows in hand, and sent a flight of arrows arcing across onto the bridge. Tiny figures tumbled and fell, splashed into the moat. Tiny screams wafted gently up to the top of the Tower of Chains.

An answering volley rattled from the walls, peppered the Gurkish with flatbow bolts. Men dropped, others faltered and fell back, leaving a few bodies scattered across the cobbles. They scurried for cover in the buildings around the edge of the square, men darting through the shadows from house to house. A Union soldier jumped from the bridge and splashed along in the moat for a few strokes before disappearing. He did not resurface. Behind him a last handful of the stranded defenders were still crawling, desperately holding up their arms. The notion of the greater good was likely to be scant consolation for them as they choked their last breaths. Jezal squeezed his eyes shut and looked away.

‘There! To the east!’

Varuz and a few members of his staff had clustered around the far parapet, gazing out past the House of the Maker and towards the distant fields outside the city. Jezal strode over to them, shielded his eyes against the rising sun. Beyond the great wall of the Agriont, beyond the shining river and the wide curve of the city, he thought he caught some trace of movement. A wide crescent of movement, crawling slowly towards Adua.

One of the officers lowered an eye-glass. ‘Cavalry! Union Cavalry!’ ‘Are you sure?’

‘The Army!’

‘Late to the party,’ muttered Varuz, ‘but no less welcome for that.’

‘Hurrah for Marshal West!’

‘We are delivered!’

Jezal was in no mood to whoop for joy. Hope was a fine thing, of course, and had long been in short supply, but celebrations were decidedly premature. He crossed back to the other side of the tower and frowned down.

More Gurkish were surging into the square outside the citadel, and more still, and they were coming well prepared. They wheeled great sloping wooden screens forward, each one big enough for a score of men or more to hide behind. The foremost of them already bristled with flatbow bolts, but they continued to creep towards the bridge. Arrows flitted up and down. The wounded fell, did their best to crawl for the rear. One of the buildings at the side of the square had already caught fire, flames licking hungrily round the eaves of its roof.

‘The army!’ someone whooped from the opposite battlement. ‘Marshal West!’

‘Indeed.’ Marovia frowned down at the carnage below, the sounds of battle growing steadily more frantic. ‘Let us hope he has not come too late.’

Hardly a heartening thing, to be part of all this again.

The sad fact was that Logen had felt more warmth and more trust with Ferro and Jezal, Bayaz and Quai than he did with his own kind now. They’d been a difficult set of bastards, each in their own way. It wasn’t that he’d really understood them, or even liked them much. But Logen had liked himself when he was with them. Out there in the deserted west of the World, he’d been a man you could rely on, like his father had been. A man with no bloody history breathing on his shoulder, no name blacker than hell, no need to watch his back every moment. A man with hopes for something better.

The thought of seeing those folk again, the chance at being that man again, put the spur to him, made Logen want to run at the grey wall of Adua all the faster. It seemed, in that moment anyway, as if he might be able to leave the Bloody-Nine outside it.

But the rest of the Northmen didn’t share his eagerness. It was closer to a stroll than a charge. They ambled up to a stand of trees, a couple of birds went flapping into the white sky, and they stopped altogether. No one said anything. One lad even sat down, with his back to a tree, and started supping water from a flask.

Logen stared at him. ‘By the dead, I don’t reckon I ever saw such a piss-weak charge as this. Did you leave your bones back in the North?’

There was a bit of mumbling, a few shifty looks. Red Hat glanced sideways, his tongue wedged into his bottom lip. ‘Maybe we did. Don’t get me wrong, chief, or your Royal Highness, or whatever it is now.’ He bowed his head to show he meant no disrespect by it. ‘I’ve fought before and hard enough, had my life balanced on a sword’s edge, and all o’ that. Just, well . . . why fight now, is what I’m saying. What we’re all thinking, I reckon. Ain’t none of our business, is it? Ain’t our fight, this.’

Dogman shook his head. ‘The Union are going to take us for a right crowd o’ cowards.’

‘Who cares what they think?’ someone said.

Red Hat stepped up close. ‘Look, chief, I don’t care much of a shit whether some fool I don’t know thinks I’m a coward. I’ve spilled enough blood for that. We all have.’

‘Huh,’ grunted Logen. ‘So your vote’s to stay here, then, is it?’

Red Hat shrugged. ‘Well, I guess—’ He squawked as Logen’s forehead crunched into his face, smashing his nose like a nut on an anvil. He dropped hard on his back in the mud, spluttering blood down his chin.

Logen turned round, and he let his face hang on one side, the way he used to. The Bloody-Nine’s face – cold and dead, caring for nothing. It was easy to do it. Felt as natural on him as a favourite pair of boots. His hand found the cold grip of the Maker’s sword, and all around him men eased back, shuffled away, muttered and whispered.

‘Any other one o’ you cunts want a vote?’

The lad dropped his flask in the grass and jumped up from where he’d been sitting. Logen gave a few of them his eye, one by one, whoever looked hardest, and one by one they looked at the ground, at the trees, at anything but him. Until he looked at Shivers. That long-haired bastard stared straight back at him. Logen narrowed his eyes. ‘How about you?’

Shivers shook his head, hair swaying across his face. ‘Oh no. Not now.’

‘When you’re ready, then. When any one o’ you are ready. Until then, I’ll have some work out o’ you. Weapons,’ he growled.

Swords and axes, spears and shields were all made ready quick-time. Men fussed about, finding their places, competing all of a sudden to be the first to charge. Red Hat was just getting up, wincing with one hand to his bloody face. Logen looked down at him. ‘If you’re feeling hard done by, think on this. In the old days you’d be trying to hold your guts in about now.’

‘Aye,’ he grunted, wiping his mouth. ‘Right y’are.’ Logen watched him walk off back to his boys, spitting blood. Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s got a talent for turning a friend into an enemy.

‘Did you have to?’ asked the Dogman.

Logen shrugged. He hadn’t wanted it, but he was leader now. Always a disaster, but there it was, and a man in charge can’t have men putting questions. Just can’t have it. They come with questions first, then they come with knives. ‘Couldn’t see another way. That’s how it’s always been, ain’t it?’

‘I was hoping times changed.’

‘Times never change. You have to be realistic, Dogman.’

‘Aye. Shame, though.’

A lot of things were a shame. Logen had given up trying to put them right a long time ago. He slid out the Maker’s sword and held it up. ‘Let’s go, then! And this time like we care a shit!’ He started off through the trees, hearing the rest of the lads following. Out into the open air, and the walls of Adua loomed up, a sheer grey cliff at the top of a grassy rise, studded with round towers. There were quite a number of corpses lying around. Enough to give even a battle-hardened Carl some cold feelings. Gurkish corpses mostly, from the colour of their skin, sprawled among all kinds of broken gear, squashed into muddy earth, trampled with hoof-prints.

‘Steady!’ shouted Logen as he jogged on through them. ‘Steady!’ He caught sight of something up ahead, a fence of sharpened stakes, the body of a horse hanging dead from one of them. Behind the stakes, men moved. Men with bows.

‘Cover up!’ A few arrows came zipping down. One thudded into Shivers’ shield, a couple more into the ground round Logen’s feet. A Carl not a stride from him got one in the chest and tumbled over.

Logen ran. The fence came wobbling towards him, a good bit slower than he’d have liked. Someone stood between two of the stakes, dark-faced, with a shining breastplate, a red plume on his pointed helmet. He was shouting to a crowd of others gathered behind him, waving a curved sword. A Gurkish officer, maybe. As good a thing to charge at as any. Logen’s boots squelched at the churned-up ground. A couple more arrows spun past him, hastily aimed. The officer’s eyes went wide. He took a nervous step back, raised his sword.

Logen jerked to his left and the curved blade thudded into the turf at his feet. He growled as he swung the Maker’s sword round and the heavy length of metal clanged deep into the officer’s bright breastplate, left a great dent in it. He screeched, then tottered forwards, all doubled up and hardly able to gasp in a breath. His sword spun out of his hand and Logen hit him on the back of his head, crushed his helmet and sent him sprawling in the mud.

He looked to the others, but not one of them had moved. They were a tattered-looking set, like a dark-skinned version of the weakest kind of Thralls. Hardly the ruthless bastards he’d expected from the way that Ferro had always talked about the Gurkish. They huddled together, spears sticking out this way and that. A couple even had bows with arrows nocked, probably could have stuck him like a hedgehog, but they didn’t. Still, charging right at them might well have been the very thing to wake them up. Logen had taken an arrow or two in his time and he didn’t fancy another.

So instead of coming forward, he stood up tall, and he gave a roar. A fighting roar, like the one he’d given when he charged down the hill at Carleon, all those years ago, when he still had all his fingers and all his hopes intact. He felt the Dogman come up beside him, and lift his sword, and give a scream of his own. Then Shivers was up with them, bellowing like a bull and smashing the head of his axe against his shield. Then Red Hat, with his bloody face, and Grim, and all the rest, yelling their war cries.

They stood in a long line, shaking their weapons, beating them crashing together, roaring and screaming and whooping at the tops of their voices, making a sound as if hell itself had opened up and a crowd of devils was singing welcome. The brown men watched them, staring and trembling, their mouths and their eyes wide open. Logen didn’t reckon they’d ever seen anything like this before.

One of them dropped his spear. Didn’t mean to, maybe, just so struck with the noise and the sight of all these crazy hairy bastards his fingers came open. It fell anyway, whether he meant it or not, and that was it, they all started dropping their gear. Fast as they could, it clattered down in the grass. Seemed stupid to keep shouting, and the war cries died out, left the two groups of men staring at each other in silence across that stretch of mud, planted with bent stakes and twisted corpses.

‘Strange kind o’ battle, that,’ muttered Shivers.

The Dogman leaned towards Logen. ‘What do we do with ’em now we’ve got ’em?’

‘We can’t just sit here minding ’em.’

‘Uh,’ said Grim.

Logen chewed at his lip, spun his sword round and round in his hand, trying to think of some clever way to come at this. He couldn’t see one. ‘Might as well just let ’em go.’ He jerked his head away north. None of them moved, so he tried it again, and pointed with his sword. They cringed and muttered to each other when he lifted it, one of them falling over in the mud. ‘Just piss off that way,’ he said, ‘and we’ve got no argument. Just piss . . . off . . . that way!’ He stabbed with the sword again.

One of them got the idea now, took a cautious step away from the group. When no one struck him dead, he started running. Soon enough the others followed him. Dogman watched the last of them shamble off. Then he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Good luck to ’em, then, I guess.’

‘Aye,’ muttered Logen. ‘Good luck.’ Then, so quiet that no one could hear, ‘Still alive, still alive, still alive . . .’

Cosca and his mercenaries formed a single file with Glokta in their midst, their cursing, grumbling, slapping footfalls echoing up and down the vaulted tunnel, the light from their swinging lamps casting swaying shadows over the glistening stone. Rotten black water dripped from above, trickled down the mossy walls, gurgled in slimy gutters, rushed and churned down the reeking channel beside him. Ardee shuffled along behind with his instruments clasped under one arm. She had abandoned any attempt to hold up the hem of her dress and the fabric was well stained with black slurry. She looked up at him, damp hair hanging across her face, and made a weak effort at a smile. ‘You certainly do take a girl to the very best places.’

‘Oh, indeed. My knack for finding romantic settings no doubt explains my continuing popularity with the fairer sex.’ Glokta winced at a painful twinge. ‘Despite being a crippled monstrosity. Which way are we heading, now?’

Longfoot hobbled along in front, tethered by a rope to one of the mercenaries. ‘North! Due north, give or take. We are just beside the Middleway.’

‘Huh.’ Above us, not ten strides distant, are some of the most fashionable addresses in the city. The shimmering palaces and a river of shit, so much closer together than most would ever like to believe. Everything beautiful has a dark side, and some of us must dwell there, so that others can laugh in the light. His snort of laughter turned to a squeak of panic as his toeless foot slid on the sticky walkway. He flailed at the wall with his free hand, fumbled his cane and it clattered to the slimy stones. Ardee caught his elbow before he fell and pulled him upright. He could not stop a girlish whimper of pain hissing out from the gaps in his teeth.

‘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 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.

‘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.’