Glokta had never seen slaughter like it. Not even after the siege of Ulrioch, when the breach had been choked with Union dead, when Gurkish prisoners had been murdered by the score, when the temple had been burned with hundreds of citizens inside. Corpses sagged and lolled and sprawled, some charred with fire, some bent in attitudes of final prayer, some spread out heedless, heads smashed by rocks flung from above. Some had clothes ripped and rooted through. Where they tore at their own shirts to check their wounds, hoping they were not fatal. All of them disappointed.
Flies buzzed in legions around the bodies. Birds of a hundred species hopped and flapped and pecked at the unexpected feast. Even here, high up in the blasting wind, it was starting to reek. The stuff of nightmares. Of my nightmares for the next few months, I shouldn't wonder. If I last that long.
Glokta felt his eye twitching, and he blew out a deep breath, stretched his neck from side to side. Well. We must fight on. It is a little late now for second thoughts. He peered gingerly over the parapet to take a look down at the ditch, his free hand grasping tight at the pitted stone to keep his balance.
Not good. 'They have nearly filled the channel down below us, and over near the gates.'
'True,' said Cosca cheerfully. 'They drag up their boxes of rocks and try to tip them in. We can only kill them so fast.'
'That channel is our best defence.'
'True again. It was a good idea. But nothing lasts forever.'
'Without it there is nothing to stop the Gurkish mounting ladders, rolling up rams, mining under our walls even. It might be necessary to organise a sortie of some kind, dig it back out.'
Cosca rolled his dark eyes sideways. 'Lowered from the wall by ropes, slaving in the darkness, not two hundred strides from the Gurkish positions? Was that what you had in mind?'
'Something like that.'
'Then I wish you luck with it.'
Glokta snorted. 'I would go, of course.' He tapped his leg with his cane. 'But I'm afraid my days of heroics are far behind me.'
'Lucky for you.'
'Hardly. We should build a barricade behind the gates. That is our weakest point. A half circle, I would guess, some hundred strides across, would make an effective killing ground. If they manage to break through we might still contain them there, long enough to push them back.' Might…
'Ah, pushing them back.' Cosca scratched at the rash on his neck. 'I'm sure the volunteers will be falling over each other for that duty when the time comes. Still, I'll see it done.'
'You have to admire them.' General Vissbruck strode up to the parapet, his hands clasped tightly behind his impeccably pressed uniform. I'm surprised he finds the time for presentation, with things as they are. Still, we all cling to what we can. He shook his head as he peered down at the corpses. 'Some courage, to come at us like this, over and over, against defences so strong and so well manned. I've rarely seen men so willing to give their lives.'
'They have that most strange and dangerous of qualities,' said Cosca. 'They think they're in the right.'
Vissbruck stared sternly out from under his brows. 'It is we who are in the right.'
'If you like.' The mercenary grinned sideways at Glokta. 'But I think the rest of us long ago gave up on the idea that there's any such thing. The plucky Gurkish come on with their barrows…
and it's my job to shoot them full of arrows!' He barked out a sharp laugh.
'I don't think that's amusing,' snapped Vissbruck. 'A fallen opponent should be treated with respect.'
'Why?'
'Because it could be any one of us rotting in the sun, and probably soon will be.'
Cosca only laughed the louder, and clapped Vissbruck on the arm. 'Now you're getting it! If I've learned one thing from twenty years of warfare, it's that you have to look at the funny side!'
Glokta watched the Styrian chuckling at the battlefield. Trying to decide when would be the best time to change sides? Trying to work out how good a fight to give the Gurkish before they pay better than I do? There's more than rhymes in that scabby head, but for the moment we cannot do without him. He glanced at General Vissbruck, who had moved further down the walkway to sulk on his own. Our plump friend has neither the brains nor the bravery to hold this city for longer than a week.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned back to Cosca. 'What?' he snapped.
'Uh,' muttered the mercenary, pointing up into the blue sky. Glokta followed his finger. There was a black spot up there, not far above them, but moving upwards. What is that? A bird? It had peaked now, and was coming down. Realisation dawned suddenly. A stone. A stone from a catapult.
It grew larger as it fell, tumbling over and over, seeming to move with ridiculous slowness, as if sinking through water, its total silence adding to the sense of unreality. Glokta watched it, open-mouthed. They all did. An air of terrible expectancy settled on the walls. It was impossible to tell exactly where the stone was going to fall. Men began to scatter this way and that along the walkway, clattering, scuffling, gasping and squealing, tossing away weapons.
'Fuck,' whispered Severard, throwing himself face down on the stones.
Glokta stayed where he was, his eyes locked on that one dark spot in the bright sky. Is it coming for me? Several tons of rock, about to splatter my remains across the city? What a ludicrously random way to die. He felt his mouth twitch up in a faint smile.
There was a deafening crash as a section of parapet was ripped apart nearby, sending out a cloud of dust and flinging chunks of stone into the air. Splinters whizzed around them. A soldier not ten strides away was neatly decapitated by a flying block. His headless body swayed for a moment on its feet before its knees buckled and it toppled backwards off the wall.
The missile crashed down somewhere in the Lower City, smashing through the shacks, bouncing and rolling, flinging shattered timbers up like matchsticks, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Glokta blinked and swallowed. His ears were still ringing, but he could hear someone shouting. A strange voice. A Styrian accent. Cosca.
'That the best you can do, you fuckers? I'm still here!'
'The Gurkish are bombarding us!' Vissbruck was squealing pointlessly, squatting down behind the parapet with his hands clasped over his head, a layer of light dust across the shoulders of his uniform. 'Solid shot from their catapults!'
'You don't say,' muttered Glokta. There was another mighty crash as a second rock struck the walls further down and burst apart in a shower of fragments, hurling stones the size of skulls into the water below. The very walkway beneath Glokta's feet seemed to tremble with the force of it.
'They're coming again!' Cosca was roaring at the very top of his voice. 'Man the walls! To the walls!'
Men began to hurry past: natives, mercenaries, Union soldiers, all side by side, cranking their flatbows, handing out bolts, shouting and calling to one another in a confusion of different languages. Cosca moved among them slapping backs, shaking his fist, snarling and laughing with not the slightest sign of fear. A most inspiring leader, for a half-mad drunkard.
'Fuck this!' hissed Severard in Glokta's ear. 'I'm no damn soldier!'
'Neither am I, any more, but I can still enjoy a show.' He limped up to the parapet and peered out. This time he saw the catapult's great arm fly up in the distant haze. The distance was poorly judged this time, and it sailed high overhead. Glokta winced at a twinge in his neck as he followed it with his eyes. It crashed down not far short of the Upper City's walls with a deep boom, throwing chunks of stone far into the slums.
A great horn sounded behind the Gurkish lines: a throbbing, rumbling blast. Drums followed behind, thumping together like monstrous footsteps. 'Here they come!' roared Cosca. 'Ready with your bows!' Glokta heard the order echoing across the walls, and a moment later the battlements on the towers bristled with loaded flatbows, the bright points of the bolts glinting in the harsh sun.
The great wicker shields that marked the Gurkish lines began slowly, steadily, to move forwards, edging
across the blighted no-man's-land towards them. And behind, no doubt, Gurkish soldiers crawl like ants. Glokta's hand clutched the stone of the parapet painfully tight as he watched them come on, his heart beating almost as loud as the Gurkish drums. Fear, or excitement? Is there a difference? When was the last time I felt such a bittersweet thrill? Speaking before the Open Council? Leading a charge of the King's cavalry? Fighting in the Contest before the roaring crowds?
The screens were coming steadily closer, still in an even row across the peninsula. Now a hundred strides, now ninety, now eighty. He looked sideways at Cosca, still grinning like a madman. When will he give the order? Sixty, fifty…
'Now!' roared the Styrian. 'Fire!' There was a mighty rattling along the walls as the flatbows were loosed in one great volley, peppering the screens, the ground around them, the corpses, and any Gurkish unlucky enough to be have left some part of their body visible. Men knelt behind the parapet and began to reload, fumbling with bolts, cranking handles, sweating and straining. The drum beats had grown faster, more urgent, the screens passed heedless over the scattered bodies. Not much fun for the men behind, staring down at the corpses beneath their feet, wondering how long before they join them.
'Oil!' shouted Cosca.
A bottle with a burning wick was flung spinning from a tower on the left. It smashed against one of the wicker screens and lines of fire shot hungrily out across the surface, turning it brown, then black. It began to wobble, to bend, then gradually started to tip over. A soldier ran out howling from behind it, his arm wreathed in bright flames.
The burning screen fell to the ground, exposing a column of Gurkish troops, some pushing barrows full of boulders, others carrying long ladders, others with bows, armour, weapons. They yelled their war-cries, charging forward with their shields raised, shooting arrows up at the battlements, zig-zagging back and forth between the corpses. Men pitched on their faces, riddled with flatbow bolts. Men howled and clutched at wounds. Men crawled, and gurgled, and swore. They pleaded and bellowed defiance. They ran for the rear and were shot in the back.
Up on the walls bows twanged and clanked. More bottles of oil were lit and hurled down. Some men roared and hissed and spat curses, some cowered behind the parapet as arrows zipped up from below, clattering from stone or shooting overhead, occasionally thudding into flesh. Cosca had one foot up on the battlements, utterly careless, leaning out dangerously far and brandishing a notched sword, bellowing something that Glokta could not hear. Everyone was screaming and shouting, attackers and defenders both. Battle. Chaos. I remember now. How could I ever have enjoyed this?
Another of the screens was blazing, filling the air with reeking black smoke. Gurkish soldiers spilled out from behind it like bees from a broken hive, milling around on the far side of the ditch, trying to find a spot to foot their ladder. Defenders further down the walls began to hurl chunks of masonry down at them. Another rock from a catapult crashed down far short and ripped a long hole through a Gurkish column, sending bodies and parts of bodies flying.
A soldier was dragged past with an arrow in his eye. 'Is it bad?' he was wailing, 'is it bad?' A moment later a man just beside Glokta squawked as a shaft hit him in the chest. He was spun half round, his flatbow went off and the bolt thudded into his neighbour's neck, right up to the feathers. The two of them fell together right at Glokta's feet, leaking blood across the walkway.
Down at the foot of the walls, a bottle of oil burst apart in the midst of a crowd of Gurkish soldiers, just as they were trying to raise their ladder. A faint tang of cooking meat joined the stinks of rot and wood smoke. Men burned, scrambling and screaming, charging around madly or flinging themselves into the flooded ditch in full armour. Death by burning or death by drowning. Some choice.
'You seen enough yet?' Severard's voice hissed in his ear.
'Yes.' More than enough. He left Cosca shouting himself hoarse in Styrian and pushed breathlessly through the press of mercenaries towards the steps. He followed a stretcher down, wincing at every painful step, trying to keep up while a steady stream of men shoved past the other way. Never thought that I'd be glad to be going down a set of steps again. His happiness did not last long, however. By the time he reached the bottom his left leg was twitching with the all-too-familiar mixture of agony and numbness.
'Damn it!' he hissed to himself, hopping back against the wall. 'There are casualties more mobile than I am!' He watched the wounded hobbling past, bandaged and bloody.
'This isn't right,' hissed Severard. 'We've done our bit. We found the traitors. What the hell are we still doing here?'
'Fighting for the King's cause beneath you, is it?'
'Dying for it is.'
Glokta snorted. 'You think there's anyone in this whole fucking city enjoying themselves?' He thought he heard the faint sound of Cosca screaming insults floating down over the clamour of the fighting. 'Apart from that crazy Styrian of course. Keep an eye on him, eh, Severard? He betrayed Eider, he'll betray us, especially if things look bleak.'
The Practical stared at him, and for once there was no trace of a smile round his eyes. 'Do things look bleak?'
'You were up there.' Glokta grimaced as he stretched his leg out. 'They've looked better.'
The long, dim hall had once been a temple. When the Gurkish assaults had begun the lightly wounded had been brought here, to be tended to by priests and women. It was an easy place to bring them: down in the Lower City, close to the walls. This part of the slums was mostly empty of civilians now, in any case. The risks of raging fire and plummeting boulders can quickly render a neighbourhood unpopular. As the fighting continued the lightly wounded had gone back to the walls, leaving the more serious casualties behind. Those with severed limbs, with deep cuts, with terrible burns, with arrows in the body, lay scattered round the dim arcades on their bloody stretchers. Day by day their numbers had mounted until they choked every part of the floor. The walking wounded were dealt with outside, now. This place was reserved for the ruined, for the maimed. For the dying.
Every man had his own special language of agony. Some screamed and howled without end. Some cried out for help, for mercy, for water, for their mothers. Some coughed and gurgled and spat blood. Some wheezed and rattled out their last breaths. Only the dead are entirely silent. And there were a lot of them. From time to time you would see them being dragged out, limbs lolling, ready to be wrapped in cheap shrouds and heaped up behind the back wall.
All day, Glokta knew, grim teams of men were busy digging graves for the natives. According to their firmly-held beliefs. Great pits in the ruins of the slums, good for a dozen corpses at a time. All night, the same men were busy burning the Union dead. According to our lack of belief in anything. Up on the bluffs, where the oily smoke will be carried out over the bay. We can only hope it will blow right into the faces of the Gurkish on the other side. One last insult, from us, to them.
Glokta shuffled slowly through the hall, echoing with the sounds of pain, wiping the sweat from his forehead, peering down at the casualties. Dark-skinned Dagoskans, Styrian mercenaries, pale-skinned Union men, all mixed up together. People of all nations, all colours, all types, united against the Gurkish, and now dying together, side by side, all equal. My heart would be warmed. If Istill had one. He was vaguely aware of Practical Frost, lurking in the darkness by the wall nearby, eyes moving carefully over the room. My watchful shadow, here to make sure that no one rewards my efforts on the Arch Lectors behalf with a fatal head wound of my own.
A small section at the back of the temple had been curtained off for surgery. Or as close as they can get here. Hack and slash with saw and knife, legs off at the knee, arms at the shoulder. The loudest screams in the whole place came from behind those dirty curtains. Desperate, slobbering wails. Hardly any less brutal than what's happening on the other side of the land walls. Glokta could see Kahdia working through a gap, his white robe spattered, smeared, turned grubby brown with blood. He was squinting down at some glistening meat
while he cut away at it with a blade. The stump of a leg, perhaps? The screams bubbled to a stop.
'He's dead,' said the Haddish simply, tossing his knife down on the table and wiping his bloody hands on a rag. 'Bring in the next one.' He lifted the curtain and pushed his way through. Then he saw Glokta. 'Ah! The author of our woes! Have you come to feed your guilt, Superior?'
'No. I came to see if I have any.'
'And do you?'
A good question. Do I? He looked down at a young man, lying on dirty straw by the wall, wedged in between two others. His face was waxy pale, eyes glassy, lips moving rapidly as he mumbled some meaningless nonsense to himself. His leg was off just above the knee, the stump bound with a bloody dressing, a belt buckled tight round the thigh. His chances of survival? Slim to none. A last few hours in agony and squalor, listening to the groans of his fellows. A young life, snuffed out long before his time, and blah, blah, blah. Glokta raised his eyebrows. He felt nothing but a mild distaste, no more than he might have had the dying man been a heap of rubbish. 'No,' he said.
Kahdia looked down at his own bloody hands. 'Then God has truly blessed you,' he muttered. 'Not everyone has your stomach.'
'I don't know. Your people have been fighting well.'
'Dying well, you mean.'
Glokta's laughter hacked at the heavy air. 'Come now. There's no such thing as dying well.' He glanced round at the endless wounded. 'I'd have thought that you of all people would have learned that by now.'
Kahdia did not laugh. 'How much of this do you think we can stand?'
'Losing heart, eh, Haddish? As with so many things in life, heroic last stands are a great deal more appealing in concept than in reality.' The dashing young Colonel Glokta could have told us that, dragged away from the bridge with the remains of his leg barely attached, his notions of how the world works radically altered.