Before They Are Hanged

by Joe Abercrombie

  'You plan to carry a ship over the mountains?'

  'Our employer assures me he can get one on the other side, though how I do not know, for that land is almost utterly unknown. We will sail due west to the island of Shabulyan, which they say rises from the ocean at the very edge of the World.'

  'They say?'

  'Rumour is all that anyone knows of it. Even amongst the illustrious order of Navigators, I have heard of no man who lays claim to have set foot upon the place, and the brothers of my order are well known for… far-fetched claims, shall we say?'

  Logen scratched slowly at his face, wishing that he'd asked Bayaz his plans before. 'It all sounds a long way.'

  'One could scarcely conceive, in fact, of a destination more remote.'

  'What's there?'

  Longfoot shrugged. 'You will have to ask our employer. I find routes, not reasons. Follow me please, Master Ninefingers, and I pray you not to dally. We have a great deal to do if we are to pose as merchants.'

  'Merchants?'

  'That is Bayaz' plan. Merchants often risk the journey west from Calcis to Darmium, even beyond to Aostum. They are large cities still, and largely cut off from the outside world. The profits one can make carrying foreign luxuries to them—spices from Gurkhul, silks from Suljuk, chagga from the North—are astronomical. Why, you can triple your investment in a month, if you survive! Such caravans are a common sight, well armed and well defended, of course.'

  'What about these looters and robbers wandering the plain? Aren't merchants just what they're after?'

  'Of course,' said Longfoot. 'It must be some other threat that this disguise is intended to defend against. One directed specifically at us.'

  'At us? Another threat? We need more?' But Longfoot was already striding out of earshot.

  In one part of Calcis at least, the majesty of the past was not entirely faded. The hall into which they were ushered by their guards, or their kidnappers, was glorious indeed.

  Two lines of columns, tall as forest trees, marched down either side of the echoing space, carved from polished green stone fretted with glittering veins of silver. High above, the ceiling was painted a rich blue-black, marked with a galaxy of shining stars, constellations picked out by golden lines. A deep pool of dark water filled the space before the door, perfectly still, reflecting everything. Another shadowy hall below. Another shadowy night sky beyond it.

  The Imperial Legate lay sprawled out across a couch on a high dais at the far end of the room, a table before him loaded with delicacies. He was a huge man, round-faced and fleshy. Fingers heavy with golden rings snatched up choice morsels and tossed them into his waiting mouth, eyes never leaving his two guests, or his two prisoners, for a moment.

  'I am Salamo Narba, Imperial Legate and governor of the city of Calcis.' He worked his mouth, then spat out an olive stone which pinged into a dish. 'You are the one they call the First of the Magi?'

  The Magus inclined his bald head. Narba lifted up a goblet, holding the stem between his heavy forefinger and his heavy thumb, took a swig of wine, sloshed it slowly round in his mouth while he watched them, and swallowed. 'Bayaz.'

  'The same.'

  'Hmm. I mean no offence.' Here the Legate snatched up a tiny fork and speared an oyster from its shell, 'but your presence in this city concerns me. The political situation in the Empire is… volatile.' He picked up his goblet. 'Even more so than usual.' Swig, slosh, swallow. 'The last thing that I need is someone… upsetting the balance.'

  'More volatile than usual?' asked Bayaz. 'I understood that Sabarbus had finally calmed things.'

  'Calmed them under his boot, for a while.' The Legate tore a handful of dark grapes from a bunch and leaned back on his cushions, popping them one by one into his gaping mouth. 'But Sabarbus… is dead. Poison, they say. His sons, Scario… and Goltus… squabbled over his legacy… then made war on each other. An exceptionally bloody war, even for this exhausted land.' And he spat the pips out onto the table top.

  'Goltus held the city of Darmium, in the midst of the great plain. Scario employed his father's greatest general, Cabrian, to take it under siege. Not long ago, after five months of encirclement, starved of provisions, hopeless of relief… the city surrendered.' Narba bit into a ripe plum, juice running down his chin.

  'So Scario is close to victory, then.'

  'Huh.' The Legate wiped his face with the tip of his little finger and tossed the unfinished fruit carelessly onto the table. 'No sooner had Cabrian finally taken the city, pillaged its treasures and given it over to a brutal sack by his soldiers, than he installed himself in the ancient palace and proclaimed himself Emperor.'

  'Ah. You seem unmoved.'

  'I weep on the inside, but I have seen all this before. Scario, Goltus, and now Cabrian. Three self-appointed Emperors, locked in a deadly struggle, their soldiers ravaging the land, while the few cities who have maintained their independence look on, horrified, and do their best to escape the nightmare unscathed.'

  Bayaz frowned. 'I mean to travel westward. I must cross the Aos, and Darmium is the closest bridge.'

  The Legate shook his head. 'It is said that Cabrian, always eccentric, has lost his reason entirely. That he has murdered his wife and married his own three daughters. That he has declared himself a living god. The city gates are sealed while he scours the city for witches, devils, and traitors. Every day there are new bodies hanging at the public gibbets he has raised on each corner. No one is permitted either to enter or to leave. Such is the news from Darmium.'

  Jezal was more than a little relieved to hear Bayaz say, 'it must be Aostum, then.'

  'Nobody will be crossing the river at Aostum any longer. Scario, running from his brother's vengeful armies, fled across the bridge and had his engineers bring it down behind him.'

  'He destroyed it?'

  'He did. A wonder of the Old Time which stood for two thousand years. Nothing remains. To add to your woes, there have been heavy rains and the great river runs swift and high. The fords are impassable. You will not cross the Aos this year, I fear.'

  'I must.'

  'But you will not. If you wish for my advice, I would leave the Empire to its misery and return from whence you came. Here in Calcis we have always tried to plough a middle furrow, to remain neutral, and firmly aloof from the disasters that have befallen the rest of the land, one hard upon another. Here we still cling to the ways of our forefathers.' He gestured at himself. 'The city is yet governed by an Imperial Legate, as it was in the Old Time, not ruled by some brigand, some petty chieftain, some false Emperor.' He waved a limp hand at the rich hall around them. 'Here, against the odds, we have managed to retain some vestige of the glory of old, and I will not risk that. Your friend Zacharus was here, not but a month ago.'

  'Here?'

  'He told me that Goltus was the rightful Emperor and demanded that I throw my support behind him. I sent him scurrying away with the same answer I will give to you. We in Calcis are happy as we are. We want no part of your self-serving schemes. Take your meddling and get you gone, Magus. I give you three days to leave the city.'

  There was a long, quiet pause as the last echoes of Narba's speech faded. A long, breathless moment, and all the while Bayaz' frown grew harder. A long, expectant silence, but not quite empty. It was full of growing fear.

  'Have you confused me with some other man?' growled Bayaz, and Jezal felt an urgent need to shuffle away from him and hide behind one of the beautiful pillars. 'I am the First of the Magi! The first apprentice of great Juvens himself!' His anger was like a great stone pressing on Jezal's chest, squeezing the air from his lungs, crushing the strength from his body. He held up his meaty fist. 'This is the hand that cast down Kanedias! The hand that crowned Harod! You dare to give me threats? Is this what you call the glory of old? A city shrunken in its crumbling walls like some withered old warrior cowering in the outsize armour of his youth?' Narba shrank behind his silverware and Jezal winced, terrified that the Legate might explode at any
moment and shower the room with gore.

  '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 across the walls. 'The disappearance of the city's Superior of the Inquisition? Of no interest whatsoever?'

  'None,' snapped the General. 'We rarely had cause to speak to one another. Davoust was well-known as an abrasive character. As far as I am concerned, the Inquisition has its responsibilities, and I have mine.' Touchy, touchy. But then everyone is, since I arrived in town. You'd almost think they didn't want me here.

  'You have your responsibilities, eh?' Glokta shuffled to the parapet, lifted his cane and prodded at a corner of crumbling masonry, not far from Vitari's heel. A chunk of stone cracked away and tumbled from the wall into space. A few moments later he heard it clatter into the ditch, far below. He rounded on Vissbruck. 'As commander of the city's defences, would you count the maintenance of the walls as being among your responsibilities?'

  Vissbruck bristled. 'I have done everything possible!'

  Glokta counted the points off with the fingers of his free hand. 'The land walls are crumbling and poorly manned. The ditch beyond is so choked with dirt it barely exists. The gates have not been replaced in years, and are falling to pieces on their
own. If the Gurkish were to attack tomorrow, I do believe we'd be in quite a sorry position.'

  'Not for any oversight on my part, I can assure you! With the heat, and the wind, and the salt from the sea, wood and metal rot in no time, and stone fares little better! Do you realise the task?'

  The General gestured at the great sweep of the towering land walls, curving away to the sea on either side. Even here at the top, the parapet was wide enough to drive a cart down, and they were a lot thicker at the base. 'I have few skilled masons, and precious little materials! What the Closed Council gives me barely pays for the upkeep of the Citadel! Then the money from the Spicers scarcely keeps the walls of the Upper City in good repair—'

  Fool! One could almost believe he did not seriously mean to defend the city at all. 'The Citadel cannot be supplied by sea if the rest of Dagoska is in Gurkish hands, am I right?'

  Vissbruck blinked. 'Well, no, but—'

  'The walls of the Upper City might keep the natives where they are, but they are too long, too low, and too thin to withstand a concerted attack for long, would you agree?'

  'Yes, I suppose so, but—'

  'So any plan that treats the Citadel, or the Upper City, as our main line of defence is one that only plays for time. Time for help to arrive. Help that, with our army committed hundreds of leagues away in Angland, might take a while appearing.' Will never appear at all. 'If the land walls fall the city is doomed.' Glokta tapped the dusty flags underfoot with his cane. 'Here is where we must fight the Gurkish, and here is where we must keep them out. Everything else is an irrelevance.'

  'An irrelevance,' Vitari piped to herself as she hopped from one part of the parapet to another.

  The General was frowning. 'I can only do as the Lord Governor and his council instruct me. The Lower City has always been regarded as dispensable. I am not responsible for overall policy—'

  'I am.' Glokta held Vissbruck's eye for a very long moment. 'From now on all resources will be directed into the repair and strengthening of the land walls. New parapets, new gates, every broken stone must be replaced. I don't want to see a crack an ant could crawl through, let alone a Gurkish army.'