The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  She felt a cold feeling creeping up her back. ‘What, then?’

  ‘You know what.’ His smile widened, scars twisting, and he stretched his neck out one way, then the other.

  She dropped into a fighting crouch just in time. He snarled as he came at her, axe flashing across. She lurched into the stool and upended it, nearly fell, mind still catching up. His axe thudded into the organ pipes, struck a mad clanging note from them. He wrenched the blade free, leaving a great wound behind in the thin metal. He sprang at her again but the shock had faded now and cold anger leaked in to fill the gap.

  ‘You one-eyed cocksucker!’ Not clever, perhaps, but from the heart. She lunged at him but he caught the Calvez on his shield, swung his axe, and she only just hopped away in time, the heavy blade crashing into the organ’s surround and sending splinters flying. She dropped back, watchful, keeping her distance. She’d about as much chance of parrying that weight of steel as she did of playing sweet music on that organ.

  ‘Why?’ she snarled at him, point of the Calvez moving in little circles. She didn’t care a shit about his reasons, really. Just playing for time, looking for an opening.

  ‘Maybe I got sick o’ your scorn.’ He nudged forwards behind his shield and she backed off again. ‘Or maybe Eider offered me more’n you.’

  ‘Eider?’ She spat laughter in his face. ‘There’s your problem! You’re a fucking idiot!’ She lunged on the last word, trying to catch him off guard, but he wasn’t fooled, knocked her jabs calmly away with his shield.

  ‘I’m the idiot? I saved you how many times? I gave up my eye! So you could sneer at me with that empty bastard Rogont? You treat me like a fucking fool and still expect my loyalty, and I’m the idiot?’ Hard to argue with most of that, now it was stuck under her nose. She should’ve listened to Rogont, let him put Shivers down, but she’d let guilt get in the way. Mercy might be brave, like Cosca said, but it seemed it wasn’t always clever. Shivers shuffled at her and she gave ground again, fast running out of it.

  ‘You should’ve seen this coming,’ he whispered, and she reckoned he had a point. It had been coming a long time. Since she fucked Rogont. Since she turned her back on Shivers. Since he lost his eye in the cells under Salier’s palace. Maybe it had been coming from the first moment they met. Before, even. Always.

  Some things are inevitable.

  Thus the Whirligig . . .

  Shivers’ axe clanged into the pipes again. He didn’t know what the hell they were for but they made a bastard of a racket. Monza had already dodged away though, weighing her sword, narrowed eyes fixed on his. More’n likely he should’ve just axed her in the back of the skull and put an end to it. But he wanted her to know who’d done it, and why. Needed her to know.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ she hissed at him. ‘You could still walk away.’

  ‘I thought the dead could do the forgiving,’ he said, circling to cut off her space.

  ‘I’m offering you a chance, Shivers. Back to the North, no one would chase you.’

  ‘They’re free to fucking try, but I reckon I’ll stay a little longer. A man has to stick at something, don’t he? I’ve got my pride, still.’

  ‘Shit on your pride! You’d be selling your arse in the alleys of Talins if it wasn’t for me!’ True, more’n likely. ‘You knew the risks. You chose to take my money.’ True too. ‘I made no promises to you and I broke none!’ True and all. ‘That bitch Eider won’t give you a scale!’

  Hard to argue with most of that, maybe, but it was too late to go back now, and besides, an axe in the head is the last word in any argument. ‘We’ll see.’ Shivers eased towards her, shield leading the way. ‘But this ain’t about money. This is about . . . vengeance. Thought you’d understand that.’

  ‘Shit on your vengeance!’ She snatched up the stool and flung it at him, underhand. He got his shield in the way and knocked it spinning over the balcony, but she pressed in fast behind it. He managed to catch her sword on the haft of his axe, blade scraping down and just holding on the studs in the wood. She ended up close, pressed against him almost, snarling, point of her sword waving near his good eye.

  She spat in his face, made him flinch, threw an elbow and caught him under the jaw, knocked his head sideways. She pulled her sword back for a thrust but he lashed at her first. She dodged, the axe hacked into the railing and broke a great chunk of wood from it. He twisted away, knowing her sword would be coming, felt the steel slide through his shirt and leave a line of hot pain across his stomach as it whipped out. She stumbled towards him, off balance. He shifted his weight, growled as he swung his shield round with all his strength and all his rage behind it. It hit her square in the face, snapped her head about and sent her reeling into the pipes with a dull clang, back of her skull leaving a great dent. She bounced off and pitched over on her back on the wooden floor, sword clattering from her hand.

  He stared at her for a moment, blood whacking at his skull, sweat tickling his scarred face. A muscle twitched in her neck. Not a thick neck. He could’ve stepped up and cut her head off easy as chopping logs. His fingers worked nervously round the grip of his axe at the thought. She coughed out blood, groaned, shook her head. She started to roll over, eyes glassy, dragged herself up onto hands and knees. She reached out woozily for the grip of her sword.

  ‘No, no.’ He stepped up close and kicked it into the corner.

  She flinched, turned her head away from him, started crawling slowly after the blade, breathing hard, blood from her nose pit-pattering on the wooden floor. He followed, standing over her, talking. Strange, that. The Bloody-Nine had told him once – if you mean to kill, you kill, you don’t talk about it – and it was advice he’d always tried to stick to. He could’ve killed her easily as crushing a beetle, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to stretch the moment out or talking to put the moment off. But he was talking, still.

  ‘Let’s not pretend like you’re the injured party in all this! You’ve killed half o’ Styria so you could get your way! You’re a scheming, lying, poisoning, murdering, treacherous, brother-fucking cunt. Aren’t you! I’m doing the right thing. S’all about where you stand and that. I’m no monster. So maybe my reasons ain’t the noblest. Everyone’s got their reasons. The world’ll still be better for one less o’ you!’ He wished his voice hadn’t been down to a croak, because that was a fact. ‘I’m doing the right thing!’ A fact, and he wanted her to admit it. She owed him that. ‘Better for one less o’ you!’ He leaned down over her, lips curling back, heard footsteps hammering up to his side, turned—

  Friendly rammed into him full-tilt and took him off his feet. Shivers snarled, caught him round the back with his shield arm, but the best he could do was drag the convict with him. They plunged through the railing with a snapping of wood and went tumbling out into empty air.

  Nicomo Cosca came into view, whipping off his hat and flinging it theatrically across the room, where it presumably missed its intended peg since Morveer saw it tumble to the floor not far from the latrine door behind which he had concealed himself. His mouth twisted into a triumphant sneer in the pungent darkness. The old mercenary held in his hand a metal flask. The very one Morveer himself had tossed at Cosca as an offhand insult in Sipani. The wretched old drunk must have gone back and collected it afterwards, no doubt hoping to lick out the barest trickle of grog. How hollow now did his promise seem never to drink again? So much for man’s ability to change. Morveer had expected little better, of course, from the world’s leading expert on empty bravado, but Cosca’s almost pitiable level of debasement surprised even him.

  The sound of the cabinet being opened reached his ear. ‘Just must fill this up.’ Cosca’s voice, though he was out of sight. Metal clinked.

  Morveer could just observe the weasel-like visage of his companion. ‘How can you drink that piss?’

  ‘I have to drink something, don’t I? It was recommended to me by an old friend, now, alas, dead.’

  ‘Do y
ou have any old friends who aren’t dead?’

  ‘Only you, Victus. Only you.’

  A rattling of glass and Cosca swaggered through the narrow strip to which Morveer’s vision was reduced, his flask in one hand, a glass and bottle in the other. It was a distinctive purple vessel, which Morveer clearly remembered poisoning but a few moments ago. It seemed he had engineered another fatal irony. Cosca would be responsible for his own destruction, as he had been so often before. But this time with a fitting finality. He heard the rustling, snapping sound of cards being shuffled.

  ‘Five scales a hand?’ came Cosca’s voice. ‘Or shall we play for honour?’

  Both men burst out laughing. ‘Let’s make it ten.’

  ‘Ten it is.’ Further shuffling. ‘Well, this is civilised. Nothing like cards while other men fight, eh? Just like old times.’

  ‘Except no Andiche, no Sesaria and no Sazine.’

  ‘Aside from that,’ conceded Cosca. ‘Now then. Will you deal, or shall I?’

  Friendly growled as he dragged himself clear of the wreckage. Shivers was a few strides away, on the other side of the heap of broken wood and ivory, twisted brass and tangled wire that was all that remained of Duke Orso’s harpsichord. The Northman rolled onto his knees, shield still on his arm, axe still gripped in his other fist, blood running down the side of his face from a cut just above his gleaming metal eye.

  ‘You counting fuck! I was going to say my quarrel ain’t with you. But now it is.’

  They slowly stood, together, watching each other. Friendly slid his knife from its sheath, his cleaver out from his jacket, the worn grips smooth and familiar in his palms. He could forget about all the chaos in the gardens, now, all the madness in the palace. One man against one man, the way it used to be, in Safety. One and one. The plainest arithmetic he could ask for.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Friendly, and he grinned.

  ‘Right, then,’ hissed Shivers through gritted teeth.

  One of the mercenaries who had been breaking the room apart took a half-step towards them. ‘What the hell is—’

  Shivers leaped the wreckage in one bound, axe a shining arc. Friendly dropped away to the right, ducking underneath it, the wind of it snatching at his hair. His cleaver caught the edge of Shivers’ shield, the corner of the blade squealed off and dug into the Northman’s shoulder. Not hard enough to do more than cut him, though. Shivers twisted round fast, axe flashing down. Friendly slid around it, heard it crash into the wreckage beside him. He stabbed with his knife but the Northman already had his shield in the way, twisted it, jerking the blade out of Friendly’s fist, sending it clattering across the polished floor. He hacked with his cleaver but Shivers pressed close and caught Friendly’s elbow against his shoulder, the blade flapping at the blind side of his face and leaving him a bloody nick under his ear.

  Friendly took a half-step back, cleaver going out for a sideways sweep, not giving Shivers room to use his axe. He charged forwards behind his shield instead, caught Friendly’s flailing cleaver against it and lifted him, growling like a mad dog. Friendly punched at his side, struggling to get a good fist around that big circle of wood, but Shivers had more weight and all the momentum. Friendly was bundled through the door, frame thudding against his shoulder, shield digging into his chest, gaining pace all the time. His boots kicked at the floor, then the floor was gone and he was falling. The back of his head hit stone, he jolted, bounced, tumbling over and over, grunting and wheezing, light and darkness spinning round him. Stairs. Falling down stairs, and the worst of it was he couldn’t even count them.

  He growled again as he slowly picked himself up at the bottom. He was in a long kitchen, a vaulted cellar lit by small windows, high up. Left leg, right shoulder, back of his head all throbbing, blood on his cheek, one sleeve torn back and a long raw scrape down his forearm, blood on his trouser leg where he must have cut himself on his own cleaver as he fell. But everything still moved.

  Shivers stood at the top of a flight of fourteen steps, two times seven, a big black shape with light twinkling from one eye. Friendly beckoned to him.

  ‘Down you come.’

  She kept crawling. That was all she could do. Drag herself one stride at a time. Keep both eyes ahead, on the hilt of the Calvez in the corner. Crawl, and spit blood, and will the room to stay still. All the slow way her back was itching, tingling, waiting for Shivers’ axe to hack into it and give her the ugly ending she deserved.

  At least the one-eyed bastard had stopped talking now.

  Monza’s hand closed around the hilt and she rolled over, snarling, waving the blade out in front of her like a coward might wave a torch into the night. There was no one there. Only a ragged gap in the railing at the edge of the gallery.

  She wiped her bloody nose on her gloved hand, came up slowly to her knees. The dizziness was fading now, the roar in her ears had quieted to a steady thump, her face a throbbing mass, everything feeling twice the size it should have. She shuffled to the shattered balustrade and peered down. The three mercenaries who’d been busy destroying the room were still at it, stood staring down at a shattered harpsichord under the gallery. Still no sign of Shivers, still no clue what had happened. But there were other things on Monza’s mind.

  Orso.

  She clenched her aching jaw, crossed to the far door and heaved it open. Down a gloomy corridor, the noise of fighting steadily growing louder. She edged out onto a wide balcony. Above her the great dome was painted with a sky touched by a rising sun, seven winged women brandishing swords. Aropella’s grand fresco of the Fates bearing destinies to earth. Below her the two great staircases swept upwards, carved from three different colours of marble. At their top were the double doors, inlaid with rare woods in the pattern of lions’ faces. There, in front of those doors, she’d stood beside Benna for the last time, and told him she loved him.

  Safe to say things had changed.

  On the round mosaic floor of the hall below, and on the wide marble steps, and on the balcony above, a furious battle was being fought. Men from the Thousand Swords struggled to the death with Orso’s guards, three score or more of them, a boiling, flailing mass. Swords crashed on shields, maces staved in armour, axes rose and fell, spears jabbed and thrust. Men roared with fury, blubbered with pain, fought and died, hacked down where they stood. The mercenaries were mad on the promise of plunder and the defenders had nowhere to run to. Mercy looked in short supply on both sides. A couple of men in Talinese uniform were kneeling on the balcony not far from her, cranking flatbows. As one of them stood to shoot he caught an arrow in his chest, fell back, coughing, eyes wide with surprise, spattering blood over a fine statue behind him.

  Never fight your own battles, Verturio wrote, if someone else is willing to fight them for you. Monza eased carefully back into the shadows.

  The cork came out with that sucking pop that was Cosca’s favourite noise in all the world. He leaned across the table with the bottle and sloshed some of the syrupy contents into Victus’ glass.

  ‘Thanks,’ he grunted. ‘I think.’

  To put it politely, Gurkish grape spirit was not to everyone’s taste. Cosca had developed if not a love for it then certainly a tolerance, when employed to defend Dagoska. In fact he had developed a powerful tolerance for anything containing alcohol, and Gurkish grape spirit contained a very great deal at a most reasonable cost. The very thought of that gloriously repulsive burned-vomit taste was making his mouth flood with saliva. A drink, a drink, a drink.

  He unscrewed the cap of his own flask, shifted in the captain general’s chair, fondly stroking the battered wood of one of its arms. ‘Well?’

  Victus’ thin face radiated suspicion, causing Cosca to reflect that no man he had ever met had a shiftier look to his eyes. They slid to his cards, to Cosca’s cards, to the money between them, then slithered back to Cosca. ‘Alright. Doubles it is.’ He tossed some coins into the centre of the table with that delightful jingle that somehow only hard currency can make. �
��What are you carrying, old man?’

  ‘Earth!’ Cosca smugly spread his cards out.

  Victus flung his own hand down. ‘Bloody earth! You always did have the luck of a demon.’

  ‘And you the loyalty of one.’ Cosca showed his teeth as he swept the coins towards him. ‘I shouldn’t worry, the boys will be bringing us plenty more silver in due course. Rule of Quarters, and all that.’

  ‘At this rate I’ll have lost all my share to you before they get here.’

  ‘We can hope.’ Cosca took a sip from his flask and grimaced. For some reason it tasted even more sour than usual. He wrinkled his lips, sucked his gums, then forced another acrid mouthful down and half-screwed the cap back on. ‘Now! I am deeply in need of a shit.’ He slapped the table with one hand and stood. ‘No tampering with the deck while I’m away, you hear?’

  ‘Me?’ Victus was all injured innocence. ‘You can trust me, General.’

  ‘Of course I can.’ Cosca began to walk, his eyes fixed on the dark crack down the edge of the doorway to the latrine, judging the distances, back prickling as he pictured where Victus was sitting. He twisted his wrist, felt his throwing-knife drop into his waiting palm. ‘Just like I could trust you at Afieri—’ He spun about, and froze. ‘Ah.’

  Victus had somehow produced a small flatbow, loaded, and now aimed with impressive steadiness at Cosca’s heart. ‘Andiche took a sword-thrust for you?’ he sneered. ‘Sesaria sacrificed himself? I knew those two bastards, remember! What kind of a fucking idiot do you take me for?’

  Shenkt sprang through the shattered window and dropped silently down into the hall beyond. An hour ago it must have been a grand dining room indeed, but the Thousand Swords had already stripped it of anything that might raise a penny. Only fragments of glass and plate, slashed canvases in shattered frames and the shells of some furniture too big to move remained. Three little flies chased each other in geometric patterns through the air above the stripped table. Near them two men were arguing while a boy perhaps fourteen years old watched nervously.