'No negotiation!' someone called.

'Damn the Gurkish!'

'We will never surrender!' Jezal bellowed, striking the parapet with his fist. 'We will fight for every street! For every house! For every room!'

'For every house!' someone squealed with rabid excitement, and the citizens of Adua bellowed their approval.

Feeling the moment upon him, Jezal slid his sword from its sheath with a suitably warlike ringing and held it high above his head. 'And I will be proud to draw my sword beside you! We will fight for each other! We will fight for the Union! Every man… every woman… a hero!'

There was a deafening cheer. Jezal waved his sword and a glittering wave surged out among the spears as they were shaken in the air, thumped against armoured chests, hammered down against the stone. Jezal smiled wide. The people loved him, and were more than willing to fight for him. Together they would be victorious, he felt it. He had made the right decision.

'Nicely done,' murmured Bayaz in his ear. 'Nicely—'

Jezal's patience was worn out. He rounded on the Magus with his teeth bared. 'I know how it was done! I have no need of your constant—'

'Your Majesty.' It was Gorst's piping voice.

'How dare you interrupt me? What the hell is—'

Jezal's tirade was cut off by a ruddy glare at the corner of his eye, followed a moment later by a roaring detonation. He jerked his head round to see flames springing up above the jumble of roofs some distance away on his right. Below in the square there was a collective gasp, a wave of nervous movement through the crowd.

'The Gurkish bombardment has begun,' said Varuz.

A streak of fire shot up into the white sky above the Gurkish lines. Jezal watched it open-mouthed as it plummeted down towards the city. It crashed into the buildings, this time on Jezal's left, bright fire shooting high into the air. The terrifying boom assaulted his ears an instant afterward.

Shouts came from below. Orders, perhaps, or screams of panic. The crowd began to move in every direction at once. People rushed for the walls, or for their homes, or nowhere in particular, a chaotic tangle of pressing bodies and waving polearms.

'Water!' someone shouted.

'Fire!'

'Your Majesty.' Gorst was already leading Jezal back towards the stairway. 'You should return to the Agriont at once.'

Jezal started at another thunderous explosion, this one even closer. Smoke was already rising in oily smudges over the city. 'Yes,' he muttered, allowing himself to be led to safety. He realised that he still had his sword drawn, and sheathed it somewhat guiltily. 'Yes of course.'

Fearlessness, as Logen Ninefingers had once observed, is a fool's boast.

A Rock and a Hard Place

« ^ »

Glokta shook with laughter, wheezing gurgles slobbering through his empty gums, the hard chair creaking under his bony arse. His coughs and his whimpers echoed dully from the bare walls of his dim living room. In a way, it sounded very much like weeping. And perhaps it is, just a little.