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Back Before They Are Hanged Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Contents
  2. PART I
  3. The Great Leveller
  4. Best Laid Plans
  5. Questions
  6. The Wounds of the Past
  7. The Condition of the Defences
  8. The Tiling About Trust
  9. Allies
  10. Campfire Politics
  11. Small Crimes
  12. Rain
  13. Bloody Company
  14. Long Shadows
  15. And Next… My Gold
  16. Fear
  17. One Hundred Words
  18. The Blind Lead the Blind
  19. Prince Ladisla's Stratagem
  20. Until Sunset
  21. Long Odds
  22. The Road to Victory
  23. Necessary Evils
  24. Among the Stones
  25. The Fruits of Boldness
  26. One for Dinner
  27. One of Them
  28. PART II
  29. Heading North
  30. Scant Mercy
  31. So This is Pain
  32. One Step at a Time
  33. The Rest is Wasted Breath
  34. A Matter of Time
  35. Scars
  36. Furious
  37. To the Last Man
  38. Jewel of Cities
  39. Luck
  40. Beneath the Ruins
  41. No Good for Each Other
  42. The Hero's Welcome
  43. Cold Comfort
  44. The High Places
  45. Coming Over
  46. Cheap at the Price
  47. To the Edge of the World
  48. Before the Storm
  49. Questions
  50. Holding the Line
  51. A Fitting Punishment
  52. The Abode of Stones
  53. Back to the Mud
  54. Acknowledgments

Zacharus and his birds blinked. He frowned, opened his mouth, then shut it silently again as Ferro swung herself up into her saddle and jerked her horse round towards the west. She heard the sounds of the others following, hooves thumping, Quai cracking the reins of the cart, then Bayaz' voice. 'Listen to the birds of the air, the fish of the water, the beasts of the earth. Soon you will hear that Khalul has been finished, his Eaters turned to dust, the mistakes of the past buried, as they should have been, long ago.'

'I hope so, but I fear the news will be worse.' Ferro looked over her shoulder, and saw the two old men exchanging one more stare. 'The mistakes of the past are not so easily buried. I earnestly hope that you fail.'

'Look around you, old friend.' And the First of the Magi smiled as he clambered up into his saddle. 'None of your hopes ever come to anything.'

And so they rode away from the corpses in silence, past the broken hundred-mile column and into the dead land. Towards the ruins of the past. Towards Aulcus.

Under a darkening sky.

A Matter of Time

A Matter of Time

« ^ »

To Arch Lector Sult,
head of his Majesty's Inquisition.

Your Eminence,

Six weeks now, we have held the Gurkish back. Each morning they brave our murderous fire to tip earth and stone into our ditch, each night we lower men from the walls to try and dig it out. In spite of all our efforts, they have finally succeeded in filling the channel in two places. Daily, now, scaling parties rush forward from the Gurkish lines and set their ladders, sometimes making it onto the walls themselves, only to be bloodily repulsed.

Meanwhile the bombardment by catapults continues, and several sections of the walls are dangerously weakened. They have been shored up, but it might not be long before the Gurkish have a practicable breach. Barricades have been raised on the inside to contain them should they make it through into the Lower City. Our defences are tested to the limit, but no man entertains a thought of surrender. We will fight on.

As always, your Eminence, I serve and obey.

Sand dan Glokta
Superior of Dagoska.

Glokta held his breath, licking at his gums as he watched the dust clouds settling across the roofs of the slums through his eye-glass. The last crashes and clatters of falling stones faded, and Dagoska, for that one moment, was strangely silent. The world holds its breath.