Best Served Cold

“Let’s not pretend like you’re the injured party in all this! You’ve killed half o’ Styria so you could get your way! You’re a scheming, lying, poisoning, murdering, treacherous, brother-fucking cunt. Aren’t you! I’m doing the right thing. S’all about where you stand and that. I’m no monster. So maybe my reasons ain’t the noblest. Everyone’s got their reasons. The world’ll still be better for one less o’ you!” He wished his voice hadn’t been down to a croak, because that was a fact. “I’m doing the right thing!” A fact, and he wanted her to admit it. She owed him that. “Better for one less o’ you!” He leaned down over her, lips curling back, heard footsteps hammering up to his side, turned Friendly rammed into him full-tilt and took him off his feet. Shivers snarled, caught him round the back with his shield arm, but the best he could do was drag the convict with him. They plunged through the railing with a snapping of wood and went tumbling out into empty air.

– 

N icomo Cosca came into view, whipping off his hat and flinging it theatrically across the room, where it presumably missed its intended peg since Morveer saw it tumble to the floor not far from the latrine door behind which he had concealed himself. His mouth twisted into a triumphant sneer in the pungent darkness. The old mercenary held in his hand a metal flask. The very one Morveer himself had tossed at Cosca as an offhand insult in Sipani. The wretched old drunk must have gone back and collected it afterwards, no doubt hoping to lick out the barest trickle of grog. How hollow now did his promise seem never to drink again? So much for man’s ability to change. Morveer had expected little better, of course, from the world’s leading expert on empty bravado, but Cosca’s almost pitiable level of debasement surprised even him.

The sound of the cabinet being opened reached his ear. “Just must fill this up.” Cosca’s voice, though he was out of sight. Metal clinked.

Morveer could just observe the weasel-like visage of his companion. “How can you drink that piss?”

“I have to drink something, don’t I? It was recommended to me by an old friend, now, alas, dead.”

“Do you have any old friends who aren’t dead?”

“Only you, Victus. Only you.”

A rattling of glass and Cosca swaggered through the narrow strip to which Morveer’s vision was reduced, his flask in one hand, a glass and bottle in the other. It was a distinctive purple vessel, which Morveer clearly remembered poisoning but a few moments ago. It seemed he had engineered another fatal irony. Cosca would be responsible for his own destruction, as he had been so often before. But this time with a fitting finality. He heard the rustling, snapping sound of cards being shuffled.

“Five scales a hand?” came Cosca’s voice. “Or shall we play for honour?”

Both men burst out laughing. “Let’s make it ten.”

“Ten it is.” Further shuffling. “Well, this is civilised. Nothing like cards while other men fight, eh? Just like old times.”

“Except no Andiche, no Sesaria and no Sazine.”

“Aside from that,” conceded Cosca. “Now then. Will you deal, or shall I?”

– 

F riendly growled as he dragged himself clear of the wreckage. Shivers was a few strides away, on the other side of the heap of broken wood and ivory, twisted brass and tangled wire that was all that remained of Duke Orso’s harpsichord. The Northman rolled onto his knees, shield still on his arm, axe still gripped in his other fist, blood running down the side of his face from a cut just above his gleaming metal eye.

“You counting fuck! I was going to say my quarrel ain’t with you. But now it is.”

They slowly stood, together, watching each other. Friendly slid his knife from its sheath, his cleaver out from his jacket, the worn grips smooth and familiar in his palms. He could forget about all the chaos in the gardens, now, all the madness in the palace. One man against one man, the way it used to be, in Safety. One and one. The plainest arithmetic he could ask for.

“Right, then,” said Friendly, and he grinned.

“Right, then,” hissed Shivers through gritted teeth.

One of the mercenaries who had been breaking the room apart took a half-step towards them. “What the hell is-”

Shivers leaped the wreckage in one bound, axe a shining arc. Friendly dropped away to the right, ducking underneath it, the wind of it snatching at his hair. His cleaver caught the edge of Shivers’ shield, the corner of the blade squealed off and dug into the Northman’s shoulder. Not hard enough to do more than cut him, though. Shivers twisted round fast, axe flashing down. Friendly slid around it, heard it crash into the wreckage beside him. He stabbed with his knife but the Northman already had his shield in the way, twisted it, jerking the blade out of Friendly’s fist, sending it clattering across the polished floor. He hacked with his cleaver but Shivers pressed close and caught Friendly’s elbow against his shoulder, the blade flapping at the blind side of his face and leaving him a bloody nick under his ear.