Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of The First Law (13 page)

The horrible fact was, she’d got no worse than she deserved. Quite possibly better. If this was hell, she’d earned every bit of it. She took a deep breath and blew it out so her lips flapped.

‘Uh … uh … uh!’

‘Rrrrrrrrrrr!’

Shev hunched her shoulders, staring back towards the bridge.

She paused, heart sinking even lower than before. Right into her blistered feet.

‘You two,’ muttered Shev, slowly standing, fumbling with her shirt-buttons. ‘You two!’

‘We are …’ came Javre’s strangled voice.

‘A little …’ groaned Whirrun.

‘Busy!’

‘You may want to fucking stop!’ screeched Shev, sliding out a knife and hiding it behind her arm. She realised she’d got her buttons in the wrong holes, a great tail of flapping-wet shirt plastered to her leg. But it was a little late to smarten up. Once again, there were figures coming from the mist. From the direction of the bridge. First one. Then two. Then three women.

Tall women who walked with that same easy swagger Javre had. That swagger that said they ruled the ground they walked on. All three wore swords. All three wore sneers. All three, Shev didn’t doubt, were Templars of the Golden Order, come for Javre in the name of the High Priestess of Thond.

The first had dark hair coiled into a long braid bound with golden wire, and old eyes in a young face. The second had a great burn mark across her cheek and through her scalp, one ear missing. The third had short red hair and eyes slyly narrowed as she looked Shev up and down. ‘You’re very …
wet
,’ she said.

Shev swallowed. ‘It’s the North. Everything’s a bit damp.’

‘Bloody North.’ The scarred one spat. ‘No horses to be had anywhere.’

‘Not for love nor money,’ sang the red-haired one, ‘and believe me, I’ve tried both.’

‘Probably the war,’ said the dark-haired one.

‘It’s the North. There’s always a war.’

Whirrun gave a heavy sigh as he clambered from behind the rock, fastening his belt. ‘’Tis a humbling indictment of our way of life, but one I find I can’t deny.’ And he hefted the Father of Swords over his shoulder and came to stand beside Shev.

‘You aren’t nearly as funny as you think you are,’ said the scarred one.

‘Few of us indeed,’ said Shev, ‘are as funny as we think we are.’

Javre stepped out from behind the rock, and the three women all shifted nervously at the sight of her. Sneers became frowns. Hands crept towards weapons. Shev could feel the violence coming, sure as the grass grows, and she clung tight to that entirely inadequate knife of hers. All the fights she got into, she really should learn to use a sword. Or maybe a spear. She might look taller with a spear. But then you’ve got to carry the bastard around. Something with a chain, maybe, that coiled up small?

‘Javre,’ said the one with the braid.

‘Yes.’ Javre gave the women that fighter’s glance of hers. That careless glance that seemed to say she had taken all their measure in a moment and was not impressed by it.

‘You’re here, then.’

‘Where else would I be but where I am?’

The dark-haired woman raised her sharp chin. ‘Why don’t you introduce everyone?’

‘It feels like a lot of effort, when you will be gone so soon.’

‘Indulge me.’

Javre sighed. ‘This is Golyin, Fourth of the Fifteen. Once a good friend to me.’

‘Still a good friend, I like to think.’

Shev snorted. ‘Would a good friend chase another clear across the Circle of the World?’ Under her breath, she added, ‘Not to mention her good friend’s partner.’

Golyin’s eyes shifted to Shev’s, and there was a sadness in them. ‘If a good friend had sworn to. In the quiet times, perhaps, she would cry that the world was this way, and wring her hands, and ask the Goddess for guidance, but …’ She gave a heavy sigh. ‘She would do it. You must have known we would catch you eventually, Javre.’

Javre shrugged, sinews in her shoulders twitching. ‘I have never been hard to catch. It is once you catch me that your problems begin.’ She nodded towards the scarred one, who was slowly, smoothly, silently easing her way around the top of the canyon to their right. ‘She is Ahum, Eleventh of the Fifteen. Is the scar still sore?’

‘I have a soothing lotion for it,’ she said, curling her lip. ‘And I am Ninth now.’

‘Nothingth soon.’ Javre raised a brow at the red-haired one, working her way around them on the left. ‘Her I do not know.’

‘I am Sarabin Shin, Fourteenth of the Fifteen, and men call me—’

‘No one cares,’ said Javre. ‘I give you all the same two choices I gave Hanama and Birke and Weylen and the others. Go back to the High Priestess and tell her I will be no one’s slave. Not ever. Or I show you the sword.’

There was that familiar popping of joints as Javre shifted her shoulders, scraping into a wider stance and lifting the sword-shaped bundle in her left hand.

Golyin sucked her teeth. ‘You always were so overdramatic, Javre. We would rather take you back than kill you.’

Whirrun gave a little snort of laughter. ‘I could swear we just had this exact conversation.’

‘We did,’ said Javre, ‘and this one will end the same way.’

‘This woman is a murderer, an oathbreaker, a fugitive,’ said Golyin.

‘Meh.’ Whirrun shrugged. ‘Who isn’t?’

‘There is no need for you to die here, man,’ said Sarabin Shin, finding her own fighting crouch.

Whirrun shrugged again. ‘One place is as good for dying as another, and these ladies helped me with an unpleasant situation.’ He pointed out the six corpses scattered across the muddy ground with the pommel of his sword. ‘And my friend Curnden Craw always says it’s poor manners not to return a favour.’

‘You may find this situation of a different order of unpleasantness,’ said the scarred one, drawing her sword. The blade smoked in a deeply unnatural and worrying way, a frosty glitter to the white metal.

Whirrun only smiled as he shrugged his huge sword off his shoulder. ‘I have a tune for every occasion.’

The other two women drew their swords. Golyin’s curved blade appeared to be made of black shadow, curling and twisting so its shape was never sure. Sarabin Shin smiled at Shev and raised her own sword, long, and thin, and smouldering like a blade just drawn from the forge. Shev hated swords, especially ones pointed at her, but she rarely saw one she liked the look of less than that.

She held up the hand that didn’t have the knife in. ‘Please, girls.’ She wasn’t above begging. ‘Please! There really is no upside to this. If we fight, someone will die. They will lose everything. Those who win will be no better off than now.’

‘She is a pretty little thing,’ said the scarred one.

Shev tidied a bloody strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Well, that’s nice to—’

‘But she talks too much,’ said Golyin. ‘Kill them.’

Shev flung her knife. Sarabin Shin swept out her sword and swatted it twittering away into the mist as she charged screaming forward.

Shev rolled, scrambled, ducked, dodged, dived while that smouldering blade carved the air around her, feeling the terrible heat of it on her skin. She tumbled more impressively than she ever had with that travelling show, the flashes of Javre’s sword at the corner of her eye as she fought Golyin, the ringing of metal crashing on her ears as Whirrun and Ahum traded blows.

Shev flung all the knives at her disposal, which was maybe six, then when those were done started snatching up anything to hand, which, after the last fight, was a considerable range of fallen weapons, armour and gear.

Sarabin Shin dodged a hastily flung mace, then an axe, then carved a water-flask in half with a hissing of steam, then stepped around a flapping boot with a hissing of contempt.

The one hit Shev scored was with a Northman’s cloven helmet, which bounced off Shin’s brow opening a little cut, and only appeared to make her more intent on Shev’s destruction than ever.

She ended up using the fallen saddle as a shield, desperately fending off blows while the snarling woman carved smoking chunks from it, leaving her holding an ever smaller lump of leather until, with a final swing, Shin chopped it into two flaming fist-sized pieces and caught Shev by her collar, dragging her close with an almost unbelievable strength, the smoking blade levelled at her face.

‘No more running!’ she snarled through her gritted teeth, pulling back her sword for a thrust.

Shev squeezed her eyes shut, hoping, for the second time that day, that against all odds and the run of luck she would find a way to creep into heaven.

‘Get off my
partner
!’ came Javre’s furious shriek.

Even through her lids she saw a blinding flash and Shev jerked away, gasping. There was a hiss and something hot brushed gently against Shev’s face. Then the hand on her collar fell away, and she heard something heavy thump against the ground.

‘Well, that is that,’ said Whirrun.

Shev prised one eye open, peered down at herself through the glittering smear Javre’s sword had left across her sight. The headless body of Sarabin Shin lay beside her.

‘God,’ she whimpered, standing stiff with horror, clothes soaked with blood, hair dripping with blood, mouth, eyes, nose full of blood. Again. ‘Oh, God.’

‘Look on the sunny side,’ said Javre, her sword already sheathed in its ragged scabbard. ‘At least it is not—’

‘Fuck the sunny side!’ screamed Shev. ‘And fuck the North, and fuck you pair of rutting lunatics!’

Whirrun shrugged. ‘That I’m mad is no revelation, I’m known for it. They call me Cracknut because my nut is cracked and that’s a fact.’ With the toe of his boot he poked at the corpse of Ahum, face down beside him, leaking blood. ‘Still, even I can reckon out that these Templars of the Silver Order—’

‘Golden,’ said Javre.

‘Whatever they call themselves, they are not going to stop until they catch you.’

Javre nodded as she looked about at the King of the Northmen’s dead agents. ‘You are right. No more than Bethod will stop pursuing you.’

‘I have nothing pressing,’ said Whirrun. ‘Perhaps we could help each other with our enemies?’

‘Two swords are better than one.’ Javre tapped a forefinger thoughtfully against her lips. ‘And we could fuck some more.’

‘The thought had occurred,’ said Whirrun, grinning. ‘That was just starting to get interesting.’

‘Wonderful.’ Shev winced as she tried to blow the blood from her nose. ‘Do I get a vote?’

‘Henchpeople don’t vote,’ said Javre.

‘And even if you did,’ added Whirrun, giving an apologetic shrug, ‘there are three of us. You’d be outvoted.’

Shev tipped her head back to look up at the careless, iron-grey sky. ‘There’s the trouble with fucking democracy.’

‘So it’s decided!’ Whirrun clapped his hands and gave a boyish caper of enthusiasm. ‘Shall we fuck now, or … ?’

‘Let us make a start while there is still some daylight.’ Javre stared over the fallen corpse of her old friend Golyin, off towards the west. ‘It is a long way to Carleon.’

Whirrun frowned. ‘To Thond first, so I can pay my debt to you.’

Javre puffed up her chest as she turned to face him. ‘I will not hear of it. We deal with Bethod first.’

With a sigh of infinite weariness, Shev sank down beside the puddle, took up the bloody rag she had used earlier and wrung it out.

‘I must insist,’ growled Whirrun.

‘As must I,’ growled Javre.

As though by mutual agreement they seized hold of each other, tumbled wrestling to the ground, snapping, hissing, punching, writhing.

‘This is hell.’ Shev put her head in her hands. ‘This is hell.’

Westport, Spring 580

C
anto Silvine finished his morning slice of bread and honey, licked his finger, used it to sweep up the crumbs from the plate, and smiled as he sucked it clean. The quiet joy of routine. It was something Mauthis was very keen on, routine. Canto tried to be keen on the same things powerful people were. He thought, perhaps, that might one day make him like them. He had no other ideas how to achieve it, anyway.

He frowned at a honey spot on his sleeve. ‘Damn it!’ Mauthis would be less keen on that, presentation being key, but any more time dithering and he would be late. And if Mauthis hated one quality above all others in a clerk, it was tardiness. He stood, trying desperately to make no noise, but the legs of his chair caught on the uneven boards and made an awful grinding.

‘Cantolarus!’ hissed Mimi’s voice from the other room, and Canto winced. Only his mother used his full name. Only his mother, and his wife when she meant to give him a lecture. As she padded into the room with their son in her arms she had her serious eyes out, that slight wrinkle between the brows that he’d loved to see before he married her, but which had steadily lost its appeal over the months since. To begin with, that wrinkle had come when she told him how their life would be when they were married. Now it came when she told him how far their actual life fell short of what they had agreed.

‘Yes, my love?’ he said, in a tone that tried to laugh her off and reassure her both at once, and achieved neither.

‘How long do you expect us to stay here?’

‘Well, certainly until I get back from work!’ He gave a nervous titter.

She did not. Rather, that wrinkle deepened. There was a loud bang on the ceiling, followed by the burble of raised voices from above, and Mimi’s eyes rolled up towards it. Damn bad timing, for those bastards to start arguing just then. If Canto was half a man he would have gone up there and had a stern word with them about it. So Mimi told him. But Canto was not half a man. Mimi told him that, too.

‘This was supposed to be temporary,’ she said, and their son gave a quivering stretch as though attempting to pile more guilt on Canto’s sagging shoulders.

‘I know, and it is, it is! But … we can’t afford anything better quite yet. My pay won’t cover it—’

‘Then either your pay must rise or you must find a better-paying position.’ That wrinkling grew harder. ‘You’re a father now, Cantolarus. You have to demand your due. You have to be a
man
about it.’

‘I
am
a man!’ he snapped, in the most peevish and effeminate way possible. He forced his voice deeper. ‘I’m due a promotion. Mauthis said so.’

‘He did?’

‘I just said so, didn’t I?’ In fact, Mauthis had not spoken to him directly for three months, and that had been to bloodlessly correct him over a minor error in one of his calculations.

Mimi’s angry frown had turned into a suspicious frown, however, and Canto counted that a victory, however it was managed. ‘He’s said it before,’ she grumbled, hitching their son up a little. He truly was an enormous baby. ‘It hasn’t happened.’

‘It will happen this time, my love. Trust me.’ That’s what he said every time. But it was easier to lie than to have the hard conversation. Much easier. Fortunately, their son chose that moment to give a mew and tug at his mother’s nightshirt. Canto seized his chance. ‘I have to go. I’m late as it is.’

She tipped her face towards him, probably expecting a kiss, but he did not have it in him, and fortunately their son was struggling now, eager to be fed. So instead he flashed a watery smile, and stepped out into the mouldy hallway, and pulled the door rattling to.

A problem left behind was just the same as a problem solved.

Wasn’t it?

Canto flung his ledger shut and started up from his desk, wriggling between a well-heeled merchant and her bodyguard and across the crowded banking floor. ‘Sir! Sir, might I—’

Mauthis’s cold stare flickered over him like a pawnbroker’s over a dead man’s chattels. ‘Yes, Silvine?’

‘Er …’ Canto was wrong-footed, if not to say somewhat flushed with pleasure, at the mere fact of Mauthis knowing who he was. And it was so damned hot in the banking hall today that he found himself quite flustered. His mouth ran away with him. ‘You know my name, sir—?’

‘I know the names of every man and woman employed by the Banking House of Valint and Balk in Styria. Their names, and their roles, and their salaries.’ He narrowed his eyes a fraction. ‘I dislike changes to any of them. What can I do for you?’

Canto swallowed. ‘Well, sir, the thing is …’ Sounds seemed to be echoing at him in a most distracting way. The scratching of clerks’ pens on paper and their rattling in inkwells; the hushed burbling of numbers, terms and rates; the clomp of a ledger being heaved shut felt loud as a door slamming. Nerves, was all, just nerves. He heard Mimi’s voice.
You have to be a man about it.
Everyone was looking at him, though, the senior clerks with their books held close, and two fur-trimmed merchants who Canto now realised he had interrupted.
Have to be a man.
He tugged at his collar, trying to get some air in. ‘The thing is—’

‘Time is money, Silvine,’ said Mauthis. ‘I should not have to explain to you that the Banking House of Valint and Balk does not look kindly upon wasted money.’

‘The thing is …’ His tongue felt suddenly twice its usual size. His mouth tasted strange.

‘Give him some air!’ somebody shouted, over in the corner, and Mauthis’s brows drew in, puzzled. Then almost pained.

‘The thing …’

And Mauthis doubled up as though punched in the stomach. Canto took a sharp step back, and for some reason his knee almost gave way. So hot in the banking hall. Like that foundry he once visited with his father.

‘Turn him over!’ came echoing from the back of the hall. Everyone was staring. Faces swimming, fascinated, afraid.

‘Sir? Sir?’ One of the senior clerks had caught his master’s elbow, was guiding him to the floor. Mauthis raised one quivering arm, one bony finger pointing, staring towards a woman in the press. A pale woman whose eyes burned bright behind black hair.

‘Muh,’ he mouthed. ‘Muh …’

He started to flop wildly about on the floor. Canto was troubled by the thought that, plainly, this was not routine. Mauthis had always been such a stickler for routine. Then he was bent over by a sudden and deeply unpleasant coughing fit.

‘Help!’

‘Some air, I said!’

But there was no air. No air in the room at all. Canto sank slowly to his knees, tearing at his collar. Too tight. He could hardly catch a proper breath.

Mauthis lay still, pink foam bubbling from his mouth, his wide eyes staring up unseeing at the black-haired woman while she stared back. Who would Canto talk to now about a raise? But perhaps that was the wrong thing to be worrying about?

‘Plague!’ somebody shouted. A desk crashed over. People were charging this way and that. Canto clawed at someone for help but his fingers would hardly work. A flying knee caught him in the back and he was flung down, face crunching against the tiles, mouth filling with salty blood.

He tried to get up but he could hardly move, everything rigid, shaking, as if he was one enormous cramp. He thought the time had probably come now to cry out, but all that came was a bubbling gurgle. Mimi was right. Even now, he was half a man.

He saw feet stamping, shuffling. A woman screamed as she fell beside him, and the sound seemed to echo from the end of a long tunnel.

Everything was growing blurry.

He found, to his great dismay, that he could not breathe.

Sipani, Spring 580

‘Don’t much like the look of these,’ muttered Onna, frowning as the entertainers strutted, danced, slouched into the courtyard of Cardotti’s House of Leisure.

Do this job a while, you get a sense when someone’s not right. When they’ve a slant towards violence. You still can’t avoid unpleasant surprises, of course. There are few worse jobs for unpleasant surprises. But you listen to your gut, if you’re sensible, and Onna’s gut was twitching now.

They might all be in gilded masks and merry motley but there was just something
off
about each and every one. A jaw muscle twitching on the stubbled side of a face. A set of eyes sliding suspiciously sideways through the eyeholes of a mask. A hand with scarred knuckles clenching and unclenching and clenching, over and over.

Onna shook her head. ‘Don’t like the look of these at all.’

Merilee blew out a plume of foul-smelling chagga smoke and sucked at her teeth. ‘If you want men you like the look of, you might want to pick a profession other than whoring.’

Jirry took a break from filing her nails to give that little titter of hers, grinning with those pointy teeth. She was a great one for tittering, Jirry.

‘We’re supposed to call ourselves hostesses,’ said Onna.

‘Course we are.’ Merilee could make her voice ooze so much sarcasm it was almost painful on the ears. ‘Hostesses who fuck.’

Jirry tittered again and Onna sighed. ‘You don’t have to be ugly about it.’

‘Don’t have to be.’ Merilee took another pull at her pipe and let the smoke curl from her nose. ‘But I find it helps. You’re too bloody nice for your own good. Read your book if you want pretty.’

Onna winced down at it. She was making slow progress, it had to be admitted. An overblown romance about a beautiful but bullied scullery girl she was reasonably sure would end up whisked away to a life of ease by the duke’s handsome younger son. You’d have thought the uglier life got, the more you’d crave pretty fantasies, but maybe Merilee was right, and pretty lies just made the ugly truth feel all the worse. Either way, she was too nice to argue. Always had been. Too nice for her own good.

‘Who are those two?’ asked Jirry, nodding over towards a pair of women Onna hadn’t seen before, slipping quietly indoors, already masked and dressed for entertaining. There was a set to the jaw of the dark-haired one that made Onna nervous, somehow. That, and when her leg slid out from her skirts, it looked like there was a long, red scar all the way up her thigh.

You need to be careful of strange hostesses. Strange hostesses attract strange guests. Onna shook her head. ‘Don’t like the looks of them, either.’

Merilee took the pipe from between her teeth long enough to snarl, ‘Fucking save us,’ at the sky.

‘Ladies.’ A fellow with waxed whiskers and a tall hat flicked out a bright handkerchief and gave a flourishing bow. There was a glint in his eye behind a mask sparkling with crystals. An ugly glint indeed. ‘A most profound honour.’ And he swaggered past, just the slightest bit trembly. A drinker, Onna reckoned.

‘Silly old cock,’ Merilee muttered out of the corner of her mouth in Northern, before wedging her pipe back between her teeth.

Onna gave her mask a little tweak, then plucked at her bodice under the armpits, trying to wriggle it up. However tight she asked one of the other girls to pull the laces, the damn thing always kept slipping. She was getting a little chafed from it, and cast an envious glance towards Bellit, who had the unimaginable luxury of straps on her dress. Straps, was that too much to ask? But off-the-shoulder was the fashion.

‘Fuck,’ hissed Jirry through gritted teeth, turning her back on the candlelit room, letting her smile slip to show a grimace of pain as she twisted her hips and tried to pluck her clinging skirts away. ‘I’m like fucking raw beef down there.’

‘How often have I told you to put some olive oil on it?’ snapped Bellit, grabbing her wrist and shoving a little vial into her hand.

‘Chance’d be a fine thing! I haven’t had time to piss since we opened the doors. You didn’t say there’d be half this many!’

‘Twice the guests means twice the money. Get some oil on it then stand up and smile.’

Twice the guests meant twice the worry, far as Onna was concerned. There was a mad sense to Cardotti’s tonight. Even worse than usual. Way overcrowded and with a feel on the edge of bloodthirsty. Voices shrill and crazy, braying boasts and hacking laughter. Maybe it was all the masks, made folk act even more like animals. Maybe it was that horrible screeching music, or the flame-lit darkness, or the high stakes at the gaming tables. Maybe it was all the drink, and the chagga, and the husk, and the pearl dust going round. Maybe it was the demented entertainments – fire and blades and danger. Onna didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. Her gut was twitching worse than ever.

Felt like trouble coming, but what could she do? If she didn’t need the money, she wouldn’t be there in the first place, as Merilee was always telling her. So she stood, awkward, trying to strike a pose alluring enough to satisfy Bellit while at the same time fading into the many shadows and catching no one’s eye. Sadly, an impossible compromise.

She jumped as Bellit leaned close to hiss in her ear. ‘This one’s yours.’

Onna glanced over to the door and felt her gut twitch worse than ever. He looked like a clenched fist, this bastard. Great bull shoulders and no neck at all, close-cropped ram of a head leaned forward, veins and tendons standing stark from the backs of his thick hands. Hands that looked meant for beating people with. Most men had to give up weapons at the gate but he had a sword at his hip and a polished breastplate, and that made him some rich man’s guard, which made him a man used to doing violence and to facing no consequences. Beside his mask of plain, hard metal, the jaw muscles squirmed as he ground his teeth.

‘I don’t like the looks of that one,’ she muttered, almost taking a step away.

‘You don’t like the fucking looks of anything!’ hissed Bellit furiously through her fixed smile, catching her by the elbow and dragging her towards him. ‘You think a baker likes the looks of the dough she kneads? Milk him and get on to the next!’

Onna had no idea why Bellit hated her. She tried to be nice. While Merilee was the biggest bitch in Styria and got her own way every time. It was like her mother said – nice comes last. But Onna just never had much nasty in her.

‘All right,’ she muttered, ‘all right.’ She wriggled her bodice up again. ‘Just saying.’ And she plastered the smile over her profound misgivings and swayed towards her mark. Her guest.