Glokta sighed. 'Next will come a toe. Then a finger, an eye, a hand, your nose, and so on, do you see? It'll be at least an hour before you're missed, and we are quick workers.' Glokta nodded at the severed ear. 'We could have a pile of your flesh a foot high by that time. I'll carve you until you're nothing but a tongue and a bag of guts, if that's what it takes, but I'll know who the traitor is, that I promise you. Well? Do you know anything yet?'

The ambassador stared at him, breathing hard, dark blood running from his magnificent nose, down his chin, dripping from the side of his head. Speechless with shock, or thinking on his next move? It hardly matters. 'I grow bored. Start on his hands, Frost.' The albino seized hold of his wrist.

'Wait!' wailed the ambassador, 'God help me, wait! It was Vurms. Korsten dan Vurms, the governor's own son!'

Vurms. Almost too obvious. But then again, the most obvious answers are usually the right ones. That little bastard would sell his own father if he only thought that he could find a buyer—

'And the woman, Eider!'

Glokta frowned. 'Eider? You sure?'

'She planned it! She planned the whole thing!' Glokta sucked slowly at his empty gums. They tasted sour. An awful sense of disappointment, or an awful sense of having known all along? She was always the only one with the brains, or the guts, or the resources, for treason. A shame. But we know better than to hope for happy endings.

'Eider and Vurms,' muttered Glokta. 'Vurms and Eider. Our sordid little mystery comes to a close.' He looked up at Frost. 'You know what to do.'

Long Odds

Long Odds

« ^ »

The hill rose out of the grass, a round, even cone like a thing man-made. Strange, this one great mound standing out in the midst of the level plain. Ferro did not trust it.

Weathered stones stood in a rough circle around its top and scattered about the slopes, some up on end, some lying on their sides, the smallest no more than knee high, the biggest twice as tall as a man. Dark, bare stones, standing defiant against the wind. Ancient, cold, angry. Ferro frowned at them.

It felt as though they frowned back.

'What is this place?' asked Ninefingers.

Quai shrugged. 'Old is what this place is, terribly old. Older than the Empire itself. Built before the time of Euz, perhaps, when devils roamed the earth.' He grinned. 'Built by devils, for all I know. Who can say? Some temple to forgotten gods? Some tomb?'

'Our tomb,' whispered Ferro.

'What?'

'Good place to stop,' she said out loud. 'Get a look across the plain.'

Ninefingers frowned up at it. 'Alright. We stop.'