The Collected Joe Abercrombie (347 page)

He froze in place. There were footsteps on the stairs. He swiftly pushed the cork back into the final bottle, slid it carefully into position and darted through a narrow doorway into the darkness of a small cell, some kind of—

He wrinkled his nose as he was assailed by a powerful reek of urine. Harsh Mistress Fortune never missed an opportunity to demean him. He might have known he would stumble into a latrine as his hiding place. He had now only to hope that Cosca was not taken with a sudden urge to void his bowels . . .

The battle on the walls appeared to have been settled, and with relatively little difficulty. No doubt the battle continued in the inner ward beyond, through the rich staterooms and echoing marble halls of Duke Orso’s palace. But from Cosca’s vantage point atop the constable’s tower he could not see a blow of it. And even if he could have, what difference? When you’ve seen one fortress stormed . . .

‘Victus, my friend!’

‘Uh?’ The last remaining senior captain of the Thousand Swords lowered his eyeglass and gave Cosca his usual suspicious squint.

‘I rather suspect the day is ours.’

‘I rather suspect you’re right.’

‘The two of us can do no more good up here, even if we could see anything.’

‘You speak true, as ever.’ Cosca took that for a joke. ‘It’s all inevitable now. Nothing left but to divide the loot.’ Victus absently stroked the many chains around his neck. ‘My favourite part of any siege.’

‘Cards, then?’

‘Why ever not?’

Cosca slapped his eyeglass closed and led the way back down the winding stair to the chamber he had taken for his own. He strode to the cabinet and snatched the inlaid doors open. The many-coloured bottles greeted him like a crowd of old friends. Ah, a drink, a drink, a drink. He took down a glass, pulled the cork from the nearest bottle with a gentle thwop.

‘Drink, then?’ he called over his shoulder.

‘Why ever not?’

There was still fighting, but nothing you could call an organised defence. The mercenaries had swept the walls clean, driven the defenders out of the gardens and were even now breaking into the towers, into the buildings, into the palace. More of them boiled up the ladders every moment, desperate not to miss out on the plunder. No one fought harder or moved faster than the Thousand Swords when they could smell booty.

‘This way.’ She hurried towards the main gate of the palace, retracing the steps she’d taken the day they killed her brother, past the circular pool, two bodies floating face-down in the shadow of Scarpius’ pillar. Shivers followed, that strange smile on his scarred face he’d been wearing all day. They passed an eager clump of men clustered around a doorway, eyes all shining with greed, a couple of them swinging axes at the lock, door wobbling with each blow. They scrambled over each other as it finally came open, screaming, shouting, elbowing to get past. Two of them wrestled each other to the ground, fighting over what they hadn’t even stolen yet.

Further on a pair of mercenaries had a servant in a gold-trimmed jacket sitting on the side of a fountain, his shocked face smeared with blood. One would slap him and scream, ‘Where’s the fucking money?’ Then the other would do the same. Back and forth his head went. ‘Where’s the fucking money, where’s the fucking money, where’s the fucking money . . .’

A window burst open in a shower of torn lead and broken glass and an antique cabinet tumbled out onto the cobbles, scattering splinters. A whooping mercenary ran past, arms heaped with glinting material. Curtains, maybe. Monza heard a scream, whipped about, saw someone plummet from an upstairs window and headfirst into the garden, drop bonelessly over. She heard shrieking from somewhere. Sounded like a woman’s voice, but it was hard to tell when it was that desperate. There was shouting, screaming, laughing everywhere. She swallowed her sickness, tried not to think that she’d made this happen. That this was where her vengeance had led. All she could do was keep her eyes ahead, hope to find Orso first.

Find him and make him pay.

The studded palace doors were still locked, but the mercenaries had found a way round, smashed through one of the great arched windows to one side. Someone must have cut himself in the rush to get in and get rich – there was blood smeared on the windowsill. Monza eased through, boots crunching on broken glass, dropped down into a grand dining room beyond. She’d eaten there once, she realised, Benna beside her, laughing, Faithful too. Orso, Ario, Foscar, Ganmark had all been there, a whole crowd of other officers. It occurred to her that pretty much every guest from that night was dead. The room hadn’t fared much better.

It was like a field after the locusts come through. They’d carried off half the paintings, slashed up the rest for the sake of it. The two huge vases beside the fireplace were too big to lift, so they’d smashed them and taken the gilt handles. They’d torn the hangings down, stolen all the plates apart from the ones broken to fragments across the polished floor. Strange, how men are almost as happy to break a thing as steal it, at a time like that. They were still rooting around, ripping drawers from cupboards, chiselling sconces from the walls, dismantling the place for anything worth one bit. One fool had a chair balanced on the bare table and was straining up to reach the chandelier. Another was busy with a knife, trying to prise the crystal doorknobs loose.

A pock-faced mercenary grinned at her, fists bursting with gilded cutlery. ‘I got spoons!’ he shouted. Monza shoved him out of the way and he tripped, his treasure scattering, other men pouncing on it like ducks on stray crumbs. She pushed through the open doorway, out into a marble hall, Shivers at her shoulder. Sounds of fighting echoed down it. Wails and yells, metal scraping, wood crashing, from everywhere and nowhere. She squinted both ways into the gloom, trying to get her bearings, sweat tickling at her scalp.

‘This way.’ They passed a vast sitting room, men inside slashing the upholstery of some antique chairs, as if Orso kept his gold in his cushions. The next door was being kicked in by an eager crowd. One man took an arrow in his neck as they broke it open, others poured in past him, whooping, weapons clashed on the other side. Monza kept her eyes ahead, thoughts fixed on Orso. She pushed on up a flight of steps, teeth gritted, hardly feeling the ache in her legs.

Onto a dim gallery at one end of a high, vaulted chamber, its barrelled ceiling crusted with gilded leaves. The whole wall was a great organ, a range of polished pipes sprouting from carved wood, a stool drawn up before the keyboard for the player. Down below, beyond a delicately worked wooden rail, there was a music room. Mercenaries shrieked with laughter, battering a demented symphony from the instruments as they broke them apart.

‘We’re close,’ she whispered over her shoulder.

‘Good. Time to get this over with, I reckon.’

Her very thoughts. She crept towards the tall door in the far wall. ‘Orso’s chambers are up this way.’

‘No, no.’ She frowned over her shoulder. Shivers stood there, grinning, his metal eye shining in the half-light. ‘Not that.’

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 . . .

S
hivers’ 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—