Read Before They Are Hanged for Free Online Page B

behind him. He felt an absurd pang of pride when he made it to the dusty stones of the docks and finally stood on dry land again.
Ridiculous. Anyone would think I'd beaten the Gurkish and saved the city already, rather than hobbled three strides
. To add insult to injury, now that he had become used to the constant lurching of the ship, the stillness of land was making his head spin and his stomach roll, and the rotten salt stink of the baking docks was very far from helping. He forced himself to swallow a mouthful of bitter spit, closed his eyes and turned his face towards the cloudless sky.
    Hell, but it's hot
. Glokta had forgotten how hot the South could be. Late in the year, and still the sun was blazing down, still he was running with sweat under his long black coat.
The garments of the Inquisition may be excellent for instilling terror in a suspect, but I fear they are poorly suited to a hot climate
.
    Practical Frost was even worse off. The hulking albino had covered every exposed inch of his milky skin, even down to black gloves and a wide hat. He peered up at the brilliant sky, pink eyes narrowed with suspicion and misery, broad white face beaded with sweat around his black mask.
    Vitari peered sidelong at the pair of them. 'You two really should get out more,' she muttered.
    A man in Inquisitor's black was waiting at the end of the wharf, sticking close to the shade of a crumbling wall but still sweating generously. A tall, bony man with bulging eyes, his hooked nose red and peeling from sunburn.
The welcoming committee? Judging by its scale, I am scarcely welcome at all
.
    'I am Harker, senior Inquisitor in the city.'
    'Until I arrived,' snapped Glokta. 'How many others have you?'
    The Inquisitor frowned. 'Four Inquisitors and some twenty Practicals.'
    'A small complement, to keep a city of this size free of treason.'
    Harker's frown grew more surly yet. 'We've always managed.'
Oh, indeed. Apart from mislaying your Superior, of course
. 'This is your first visit to Dagoska?'
    'I have spent some time in the South.'
The best days of my life, and the worst
. 'I was in Gurkhul during the war. I saw Ulrioch.'
In ruins after we burned the city
. 'And I was in Shaffa for two years.'
If you count the Emperors Prisons. Two years in the boiling heat and the crushing darkness. Two years in hell
. 'But I have never been to Dagoska.'
    'Huh,' snorted Harker, unimpressed. 'Your quarters are in the Citadel.' He nodded towards the great rock that loomed up over the city.
Of course they are. In the very highest part of the highest building, no doubt
. 'I'll show you the way. Lord Governor Vurms and his council will be keen to meet their new Superior.' He turned with a look of some bitterness.
Feel you should have got the job yourself, eh? I'm delighted to disappoint you
.
    Harker set off into the city at a brisk pace, Practical Frost trudging along beside him, heavy shoulders hunched around his thick neck, sticking to every trace of shade as though the sun were shooting tiny darts at him. Vitari zig-zagged across the dusty street as if it was a dance-floor, peering through windows and down narrow side-streets. Glokta shuffled along doggedly behind, his left leg already starting to burn with the effort.
    'The cripple shuffled only three strides into the city before he fell on his face, and had to be carried the rest of the way by stretcher, squealing like a half-slaughtered pig and begging for water, while the very citizens he was sent to terrify watched, dumbstruck…'
    He curled his lips back and dug his remaining teeth into his empty gums, forced himself to keep pace with the others, the handle of his cane cutting into his palm, his spine giving an agonising click with every step.
    'This is the Lower City,' grumbled Harker over his shoulder, 'where the native population are housed.'
    A giant, boiling, dusty, stinking slum
. The buildings were mean and badly maintained: rickety shacks of one storey, leaning piles of half-baked mud