Last Argument Of Kings

Joe Abercrombie

Contents (2)

Part I

The Poison Trade
Being Chief
This Noble Business
The New Man
Feeding Time
So Much in Common
Honesty
Ghosts
Bad Debts
A Ragged Multitude
Beloved of the Moon
Flowers and Plaudits
Too Many Knives
Best of Enemies
Fortunes of War
The Kingmaker
The Trap
Horrible Old Men
Prepared for the Worst
The Habit of Command
The First Day
Such Sweet Sorrow
Picked Up A Shadow
Questions
The Fourth Day
The Perfect Couple
The Seventh Day
Too Many Masters
Sweet Victory
Rude Awakenings

Part II

The Number of the Dead
Leaves on the Water
Authority
The Circle
Greater Good
Skarlings Chair
Leadership
A Rock and a Hard Place
Charity
Better Left Buried
Tomorrow's Hero
Nightfall
Questions
The Day of Judgement
Sacrifices
Open the Box
Dark Paths
Reckonings
After the Rains
Answers
The Wounded
Patriotic Duties
The First Law
Tea and Threats
Behind the Throne
Good Men, Evil Men
Not What You Wanted
Loose Ends
The Beginning

Acknowledgments

The right of Joe Abercrombie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Gollancz

An imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 57507 7 898 (cased) ISBN 978 0 57507 7 904 (trade paperback)

5 7 9 10 8 6 4

Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd, Lymington, Hants

Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD

The Orion Publishing Group's policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

www.orionbooks.co.uk

For the Four Readers

You know who you are

PART I

'Life being what it is,
one dreams of revenge.'

Paul Gauguin

The Poison Trade

^ »

Superior Glokta stood in the hall, and waited. He stretched his twisted neck out to one side and then to the other, hearing the familiar clicks, feeling the familiar cords of pain stretching out through the tangled muscles between his shoulder-blades. Why do I do it, when it always hurts me? Why must we test the pain? Tongue the ulcer, rub the blister, pick the scab?

'Well?' he snapped.

The marble bust at the foot of the stairs offered only its silent contempt. And I get more than enough of that already. Glokta shuffled away, his useless foot scraping over the tiles behind him, the tapping of his cane echoing amongst the mouldings on the faraway ceiling.

When it came to the great noblemen on the Open Council, Lord Ingelstad, the owner of this oversized hall, was an undersized man indeed. The head of a family whose fortunes had declined with the passing years, whose wealth and influence had shrivelled to almost nothing. And the more shrivelled the man, the more swollen his pretensions must become. Why do they never realise? Small things only seem smaller in large spaces.