Glokta felt his eyelid flickering. He knows I am not likely to forget. He remembered his surprise as a Gurkish spear cut into his body. Surprise, and disappointment, and the most intense pain. Not invulnerable, after all. He remembered his horse rearing, dumping him from the saddle. The pain growing worse, the surprise turning into fear. Crawling among the boots and the bodies, gasping for air, mouth sour with dust, salty with blood. He remembered the agony as the blades cut into his leg. The fear turning to terror. He remembered how they dragged him, screaming and crying, from that bridge. That night they began to ask their questions.

'We won,' said Glokta, but his mouth was dry, his voice was cracked. 'We proved the stronger.'

'That was then. The world changes. Your nation's entanglements in the icy North put you at a most considerable disadvantage. You have managed to break the first rule of warfare. Never fight two enemies at once.'

His reasoning is hard to fault. 'The walls of Dagoska have frustrated you before,' Glokta said, but it did not sound convincing, even to his own ear. Hardly the words of a winner. He felt the eyes of Vurms, and Vissbruck, and Eider on him, making his back itch. Trying to decide who holds the upper hand, and I know who I'd pick in their shoes.

'Perhaps some of you have more confidence in your walls than others. I will return at sunset for your answer. The Emperor's offer lasts for this one day only, and will never be repeated. He is merciful, but his mercy has limits. You have until sunset.' And he swept from the room.

Glokta waited until the door had clicked shut before he slowly turned his chair around to face the others. 'What in hell was that?' he snarled at Vissbruck.

'Er…' The General tugged at his sweaty collar. 'It was incumbent upon me, as a soldier, to admit an unarmed representative of the enemy, in order to hear his terms—'

'Without telling me?'

'We knew you would not want to listen!' snapped Vurms. 'But he speaks the truth! Despite all our hard work, we are greatly outnumbered, and can expect no relief as long as the war drags on in Angland. We are nothing more than a pinprick in the foot of a huge and hostile nation. It might serve us well to negotiate while we still hold a position of some strength. You may depend upon it that we will receive no terms beyond a massacre once the city has fallen!'

True enough, but the Arch Lector is unlikely to agree. Negotiating a surrender was hardly the task for which I was appointed. 'You are unusually quiet, Magister Eider.'