Logen chewed at his lip, spun his sword round and round in his hand, trying to think of some clever way to come at this. He couldn't see one. 'Might as well just let 'em go.' He jerked his head away north. None of them moved, so he tried it again, and pointed with his sword. They cringed and muttered to each other when he lifted it, one of them falling over in the mud. 'Just piss off that way,' he said, 'and we've got no argument. Just piss… off… that way!' He stabbed with the sword again.

One of them got the idea now, took a cautious step away from the group. When no one struck him dead, he started running. Soon enough the others followed him. Dogman watched the last of them shamble off. Then he shrugged his shoulders. 'Good luck to 'em, then, I guess.'

'Aye,' muttered Logen. 'Good luck.' Then, so quiet that no one could hear, 'Still alive, still alive, still alive…'

Glokta limped through the reeking gloom, down a fetid walkway half a stride across, his tongue squirming into his empty gums with the effort of staying upright, wincing all the way as the pain in his leg grew worse and worse, doing his best not to breathe through his nose. I thought when I lay crippled in bed after I came back from Gurkhul I could sink no lower. When I presided over the brutality of a stinking prison in Angland I thought the same again. When I had a clerk slaughtered in an abattoir I imagined I had reached the bottom. How wrong I was.

Cosca and his mercenaries formed a single file with Glokta in their midst, their cursing, grumbling, slapping footfalls echoing up and down the vaulted tunnel, the light from their swinging lamps casting swaying shadows over the glistening stone. Rotten black water dripped from above, trickled down the mossy walls, gurgled in slimy gutters, rushed and churned down the reeking channel beside him. Ardee shuffled along behind with his instruments clasped under one arm. She had abandoned any attempt to hold up the hem of her dress and the fabric was well stained with black slurry. She looked up at him, damp hair hanging across her face, and made a weak effort at a smile. 'You certainly do take a girl to the very best places.'

'Oh, indeed. My knack for finding romantic settings no doubt explains my continuing popularity with the fairer sex.' Glokta winced at a painful twinge. 'Despite being a crippled monstrosity. Which way are we heading, now?'

Longfoot hobbled along in front, tethered by a rope to one of the mercenaries. 'North! Due north, give or take. We are just beside the Middleway.'