“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 I still 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.
“Your concern is touching, Superior, but I’m used to disappointments. Believe me, I will live with this one. The question remains. How long can we hold out?”
“If the sea lanes stay open and we can be supplied by ship, if the Gurkish cannot find a way round the land walls, if we can stick together and keep our heads, we could hold out here for weeks.”
“Hold out for what?”
Glokta paused. For what indeed? “Perhaps the Gurkish will lose heart.”
“Hah!” snorted Kahdia. “The Gurkish have no hearts! They did not subdue all Kanta with half measures. No. The Emperor has spoken, and will not be denied.”
“Then we must hope that the war will be quickly settled in the North, and that Union forces will come to our aid.” An utterly futile hope. It will be months before matters are settled in Angland. Even when they are, the army will be in no state to fight. We are on our own.
“And when might we expect such help?”
When the stars go out? When the sky falls in? When I run a mile with a smile on my face? “If I had all the answers I’d hardly have joined the Inquisition!” snapped Glokta. “Perhaps you should pray for divine help. A mighty wave to wash the Gurkish away would suit nicely. Who was it told me that miracles happen?”
Kahdia nodded slowly. “Perhaps we should both pray. I fear there is more chance of aid from my god than your masters.” Another stretcher was carried past, a squealing Styrian stretched out on it with an arrow in his stomach. “I must go.” Kahdia swept away and the curtain dropped back behind him.
Glokta frowned at it. And so the doubts begin. The Gurkish slowly tighten their grip on the city. Our doom draws nearer, and every man sees it. A strange thing, death. Far away, you can laugh at it, but as it comes closer it looks worse and worse. Close enough to touch, and no one laughs. Dagoska is full of fear, and the doubts can only grow. Sooner or later someone will try to betray the city to the Gurkish, if only to save their lives, or the lives of those they love. They might well begin by disposing of the troublesome Superior who set this madness in motion…