The Blade Itself

Goyle gave a flamboyant shrug. “Dogs.”

“Dogs?” asked Glokta, unable to let that one pass. “Domestic pets run mad, do you think, or wild ones which climbed over the walls?”

The Superior only smiled. “Whichever you like, Inquisitor. Whichever you like.”

“I’m afraid it could not possibly be dogs,” the Adeptus Physical began pompously to explain. “I was only just making clear to Inquisitor Glokta… these marks here, and on the skin here, do you see? These are human bites, undoubtedly…”

The woman sauntered away from the jars, closer and closer to Kandelau, leaning in towards him until her mask was only inches away from his beak of a nose. He slowly trailed off. “Dogs,” she whispered, then barked in his face.

The Adeptus jumped away. “Well, I suppose I could have been mistaken… of course…” He backed into the enormous Northman’s chest, who had moved with surprising speed to position himself directly behind. Kandelau turned slowly around, staring up with wide eyes.

“Dogs,” intoned the giant.

“Dogs, dogs, dogs,” hummed the southerner in a thick accent.

“Of course,” squeaked Kandelau, “dogs, of course, how foolish I’ve been!”

“Dogs!” shouted Goyle in delight, throwing his hands in the air. “The mystery is solved!” To Glokta’s amazement, two of the three Practicals began politely to applaud. The woman stayed silent. I never believed that I would miss Superior Kalyne, but suddenly I am overcome with nostalgia. Goyle turned slowly round, bowing low. “My first day here, and already I warm to the work! You can bury this,” he said, gesturing to the corpse and smiling broadly at the cringing Adeptus. “Best buried, eh?” He looked over at the Northman. “Back to the mud, as you say in your country!”

The massive Practical showed not the slightest sign that anyone had spoken. The Kantic was standing there, turning the ring through his ear round and round. The woman was peering down at the carcass on the table, sniffing at it through her mask. The Adeptus Physical was backed up against his jars, sweating profusely.

Enough of this pantomime. I have work to do. “Well,” said Glokta stiffly, limping for the door, “the mystery is solved. You don’t need me any more.”

Superior Goyle turned to look at him, his good humour suddenly vanished. “No!” he hissed, furious little eyes nearly popping out of his head. “We don’t… need you… any more!”

Never Bet Against a Magus

Logen sat in the hot sun, hunched over on his bench, and sweated. The ridiculous clothes did not help with the sweating, or indeed with anything else. The tunic had not been designed to sit down in, and the stiff leather dug painfully into his fruits whenever he tried to move.

“Fucking thing,” he growled, tugging at it for the twentieth time. Quai looked hardly more comfortable in his magical garb—the glittering of the gold and silver symbols only served to make his face look the more ill and pallid, his eyes the more twitchy and bulging. He’d hardly spoken a word all morning. Of the three of them, only Bayaz appeared to be enjoying himself, beaming round at the surging crowds on the benches, the sunlight shining off his tanned pate.

They stood out among the heaving audience like well-rotted fruit, and seemed about as popular. Even though the benches were packed shoulder to shoulder a small, nervous space had built up around the three of them where no one would sit.

The noise was even more crushing than the heat and the crowds. Logen’s ears hummed with the din. It was the most he could do to keep from clamping his hands over them and throwing himself under the bench for cover. Bayaz leaned towards him. “Was this what your duels were like?” He had to shout even though his mouth was barely six inches from Logen’s ear.

“Huh.” Even when Logen had fought Rudd Threetrees, when a good part of Bethod’s army had drawn up in a great half-circle to watch, shouting and screaming and hammering their weapons against their shields, when the walls of Uffrith above them had been crammed with onlookers, his audience had not been half this size, not half this noisy. No more than thirty men had watched him kill Shama Heartless, kill him then butcher him like a pig. Logen winced and flinched and hunched his shoulders higher at the memory of it. Cutting, and cutting, and licking the blood from his fingers, while the Dogman stared in horror and Bethod laughed and cheered him on. He could taste the blood now, and he shuddered and wiped his mouth.