'A small one.' And Vissbruck snapped his well-polished heels together and stood to vibrating attention. He remained like that for a moment, frozen, then turned without a word for the door, soles clicking loud against the floor and dying away in the corridor outside.

Glokta looked over at Kahdia. 'Regardless of what I said to the General, I would urge you to surrender the city at the earliest opportunity.'

Kahdia's tired eyes slid up. 'After all this? Now?'

Especially now. 'Perhaps the Emperor will choose to be merciful. In any case, I can see little advantage for you in fighting on. As things stand, there is still something to bargain with. You might be able to get some kind of terms.'

'And that is the comfort you offer? The Emperor's mercy?'

'That's all I have. What did you tell me about a man lost in the desert?'

Kahdia nodded slowly. 'Whatever the outcome, I would like to thank you.'

Thank me, you fool? 'For what? Destroying your city and leaving you to the Emperor's mercy?'

'For treating us with some measure of respect.'

Glokta snorted. 'Respect? I thought I simply told you whatever you wanted to hear, in order to get what I needed.'

'Perhaps so. But thanks cost nothing. God go with you.'

'God will not follow where I am going,' Glokta muttered, as Kahdia shuffled slowly from the room.

Cosca grinned down his long nose. 'Back to Adua, eh, Superior?'

'Back, as you say, to Adua.' Back to the House of Questions. Back to Arch Lector Sult. The thought was hardly a happy one.

'Perhaps I'll see you there.'

'You think so?' More likely you'll be butchered along with all the rest when the city falls. Then you'll miss your opportunity to see me hanged.

'If I've learned one thing, it's that there's always a chance.' Cosca grinned as he pushed himself away from the wall and strutted towards the door, one hand rested jauntily on the pommel of his sword. 'I hate to lose a good employer.'

'I'd hate to be lost. But prepare yourself for the possibility of disappointment. Life is full of them.' And the manner of its ending is often the greatest one of all.

'Well then. If one of us should be disappointed.' And Cosca bowed in the doorway with a theatrical flourish, the flaking gilt on his once magnificent breastplate glinting in a shaft of morning sunlight. 'It has been an honour.'

Glokta sat on the bed, tonguing at his empty gums and rubbing his throbbing leg. He looked around his quarters. Or Davoust's quarters. That's where an old wizard terrified me in the middle of the night. That's where I watched the city burn. That's where I was nearly eaten by a fourteen-year-old girl. Ah, the happy memories…