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ten paces away. Further on a party of
dockers were involved in a bitter dispute over a heap of crates. A
shivering beggar nearby took a couple of paces towards Glokta,
thought better of it, and slunk away.
    No crowds of
cheering commoners? No carpet of flower petals? No archway of drawn
swords? No bevy of swooning maidens? It was hardly too great a
surprise. There had been none the last time he returned from the
South. Crowds rarely cheer too loudly for the defeated, no matter
how hard they fought, how great their sacrifices, how long the odds.
Maidens might wet themselves over cheap and worthless victories, but
they don’t so much as blush for “I did my bestâ€

Cold Comfort
    West peered out
of the bushes, through the drifting flakes of snow, down the slope
toward the Union picket. The sentries were sat in a rough circle,
hunched round a steaming pan over a miserable tongue of fire on the
far side of the stream. They wore thick coats, breath smoking,
weapons almost forgotten in the snow around them. West knew how they
felt. Bethod might come this week, he might come next week, but the
cold they had to fight every minute of every day.
    â€œRight
then,â€

The High Places
    â€œThe
Broken Mountains,â€

Coming Over
    The road curved
down from the west, down the bare white valley between two long
ridges, all covered in dark pines. It met the river at the ford, the
Whiteflow running high with meltwater, fast flowing over the rocks
and full of spit and froth—earning its name alright.
    â€œSo that’s
it then,â€

Cheap at the Price
    â€œYou have
a visitor, sir,â€

To the Edge of the World
    On the morning
of their ninth day in the mountains, Logen saw the sea. He dragged
himself to the top of yet another painful scramble, and there it was.
The track dropped steeply away into a stretch of low, flat country,
and beyond was the shining line on the horizon. He could almost smell
it, a salty tang on the air with each breath. He would have grinned
if it hadn’t reminded him of home so much.
    â€œThe sea,â€

Before the Storm
    â€œWelcome,
gentlemen. General Poulder, General Kroy. Bethod has retreated as far
as the Whiteflow, and it does not seem likely that he will find any
more favourable ground on which to face us.â€

Questions
    Colonel Glokta
charged into his dining room in a tremendous hurry, wrestling
manfully with the buckle on his sword belt.
    â€œDamn it!â€

Holding the Line
    â€œDid you
sleep?â€

A Fitting Punishment
    It had been
raining, not long ago, but it had stopped. The paving of the Square
of Marshals was starting to dry, the flagstones light round the
edges, dark with damp in the centres. A ray of watery sun had finally
broken through the clouds and was glinting on the bright metal of the
chains hanging from the frame, on the blades, and hooks, and pincers
of the instruments on their rack. Fine weather for it, I suppose.
It should be quite the event. Unless your name is Tulkis, of course,
then it might be one you’d rather miss.
    The crowd were
certainly anticipating a thrill. The wide square was full of their
chattering, a heady mixture of excitement and anger, happiness and
hate. The public area was packed shoulder to shoulder, and still
filling, but there was ample room here in the government enclosure,
fenced in and well guarded right in front of the scaffold. The
great and the good must have the best view, after all. Over the
shoulders of the row in front he could see the chairs where the
members of the Closed Council were sitting. If he went up on his
toes, an operation he dared not try too often, he could just see the
Arch Lector’s shock of white hair, stirred gracefully by the
breeze.
    He glanced
sideways at Ardee. She was frowning grimly up at the scaffold,
chewing slowly at her lower lip. To think. The time was I would
take young women to the finest establishments in the city, to the
pleasure gardens on the hill, to concerts