Their lamp barely lit the rotting drawing room, panelling sagging from the cheap brickwork, the best part of the floor a single festering puddle. The hidden door stood open in the far wall and Glokta shuffled round the edge of the room towards it, his hips burning with the effort.

'What did your man do?'

'Severard? He let me down.' And we will soon find out how badly.

'I hope I never let you down, then.'

'You, I am sure, have better sense. I should go first, then if I fall at least I fall alone.' He winced his way down the steps while she followed with the light.

'Ugh. What's that smell?'

'The sewers. There's an entrance to them down here, somewhere.' Glokta stepped past the heavy door and into the converted wine cellar, the bright steel grilles on the cells to either side glimmering as they passed, the whole place reeking of damp and fear.

'Superior!' came a voice from the darkness. Brother Longfoot's desperate face appeared, pressed up against one set of bars.

'Brother Longfoot, my apologies! I have been so very busy. The Gurkish have laid siege to the city.'

'Gurkish?' squeaked the man, his eyes bulging. 'Please, if you release me-'

'Silence!' hissed Glokta in a voice that brooked no dallying. 'You should stay here.'

Ardee glanced nervously towards the Navigator's cell. 'Here?'

'He isn't dangerous. I think you'll be more comfortable than you would be . . .' and he nodded his head towards the open doorway at the end of the vaulted hall, 'in there.'

She swallowed. 'Alright.'

'Superior, please!' One despairing arm stuck from Longfoot's cell, 'please, when will you release me? Superior, please!' Glokta shut the door on his begging with a gentle click. We have other business today, and it will not wait.

Frost already had Severard manacled to the chair beside the table, still unconscious, and was lighting the lamps one by one with a flaming taper. The domed chamber gradually grew bright, the colour leaking into the mural across the round walls. Kanedias frowned down, arms outstretched, the fire burning behind him. Ah, our old friend the Master Maker, always disapproving. Opposite him his brother Juvens still bled his lurid last across the wall. And not the only blood that will be spilled in here tonight, I suspect.

'Urr,' groaned Severard, his lank hair swaying. Glokta lowered himself slowly into his chair, the leather creaking under him. Severard grunted again, his head dropped back, eyelids flickering. Frost lumbered over, reached out and undid the buckles on Severard's mask, pulled it off and tossed it away into the corner of the room. From a fearsome Practical of the Inquisition to . . . nothing much. He stirred, wrinkled his nose, twitching like a boy asleep.

Young. Weak. Helpless. One could almost feel sorry for him, if one had a heart. But now is not the time for sentiment and soft feelings, for friendship and forgiveness. The ghost of happy and promising Colonel Sand dan Glokta has been clinging to me for far too long. Farewell, my old friend. You cannot help us today. Now is the time for the ruthless Superior Glokta to do what he does best. To do the only thing that he does well. Now is the time for hard heads, hard hearts and even harder edges.

Time to cut the truth out.

Frost jabbed Severard in the stomach with two fingers and his eyes snapped open. He jerked in his chair, the manacles rattling. He saw Glokta. He saw Frost. His eyes went wide as they darted round the room. They went wider still when he realised where he was. He snorted in air, the quick, hard breath of abject terror, the greasy strands of hair across his face blowing this way and that with the force of it. And how will we begin?

'I know . . .' he croaked. 'I know I told that woman who you were . . . I know . . . but I had no choice.' Ah, the wheedling. Every man, more or less, behaves the same way when he's chained to a chair. 'What could I do? She would've fucking killed me! I had no choice! Please-'

'I know what you told her, and I know you had no choice.'

'Then . . . then why-'

'Don't give me that, Severard. You know why you're here.' Frost stepped forward, as impassive as ever, and lifted the lid on Glokta's wonderful case. The trays inside opened up like an exotic flower, proffering out the polished handles, the gleaming needles, the shining blades of his instruments.

Glokta puffed out his cheeks. 'I had a good day, today. I woke up clean, and made it to the bath on my own. Not too much pain.' He wrapped his fingers around the grip of the cleaver. 'Something to celebrate, a good day. I get so very few of them.' He slid it from its sheath, the heavy blade flashing in the harsh lamplight. Severard's eyes followed it all the way, bulging with fear and fascination, beads of sweat glittering on his pale forehead.

'No,' he whispered. Yes. Frost unlocked the cuff around Severard's left wrist, lifted his arm in both meaty hands. He took the fingers and spread them out one by one until they were flattened on the wood in front of him, wrapping his other arm around Severard's shoulders in a tight embrace.

'I think we can dispense with the preamble.' Glokta rocked forward, got up and limped slowly around the table, his cane clicking on the tiles, his left leg dragging behind it, the corner of the cleaver's blade scraping gently across the wood of the table-top. 'I need not explain how this will work to you. You, who have assisted me so very ably, on so very many occasions. Who could know better how we will proceed?'

'No,' whimpered Severard, trying half a desperate smile, but with a tear leaking from the corner of his eye nonetheless. 'No, you wouldn't! Not to me! You wouldn't!'

'Not to you?' Glokta gave a sad smile of his own. 'Oh, Practical Severard, please . . .' He let the grin slowly fade as he lifted the cleaver. 'You know me so much better than that.'

Bang! The heavy blade flashed down and hacked into the table-top, paring the slightest sliver of skin from the end of Severard's middle finger.

'No!' he squawked. 'No!' You don't admire my precision any longer, then?

'Oh, yes, yes.' Glokta tugged at the smooth handle and dragged the blade free. 'How did you think this would end? You've been talking. You've been saying things you shouldn't, to people you had no business saying anything to. You will tell me what. You will tell me who.' The cleaver glimmered as he raised it again. 'And you had better tell me soon.'

'No!' Severard thrashed and wriggled in the chair but Frost had him as tightly as a fly in honey. Yes.

The blade sliced cleanly through the end of Severard's middle finger and took it off at the first joint. The end of his index finger spun across the wood. The tip of his ring finger stayed where it was, wedged into a joint in the table top. With Frost's hand still clamped tight as a vice round his wrist the blood only dribbled gently from the three wounds and spread out in slow rivulets down the grain.

There was a breathless pause. One, two, three . . . Severard screamed. He wailed, and jerked, and trembled, his face quivering. Painful, eh? Welcome to my world.

Glokta worked his aching foot around in his boot. 'Who would ever have thought that our charming association, so enjoyable and profitable to us both, could possibly end like this? Not my choice. Not mine. Tell me who you spoke to. Tell me what you said. Then this unpleasantness will all be over. Otherwise . . .'

Bang! The end of his little finger, now, and three more pieces of the rest. His middle finger was down to the knuckle, almost. Severard stared, his eyes wide with horror, his breath coming in short, fast gasps. Shock, amazement, stunned terror. Glokta leaned down to his ear. 'I hope you weren't planning to take up the violin, Severard. You'll be lucky if you can play a fucking gong by the time we're done here.' He winced at a spasm in his neck as he lifted the cleaver again.

'Wait!' sobbed Severard. 'Wait! Valint and Balk! The bankers! I told them . . . I told them . . .'

I knew it. 'What did you tell them?'

'That you were still looking for Raynault's murderer when we'd already hung the Emperor's emissary!' Glokta met Frost's eyes, and the albino stared back, emotionless. And another secret is dragged kicking into the merciless light. How disappointingly right I was. It always amazes me, how swiftly problems can be solved, once you start cutting things off people. 'And . . . and . . . I told them that you wanted to know about our bastard king, and about Bayaz, and I told them you weren't checking up on Sult like they asked, and I told them . . . I told them . . .'

Severard stuttered to a halt, staring at the remains of his fingers, scattered out across the table in a spreading slick of blood. That mixture of unbearable pain, even more unbearable loss, and total disbelief. Am I dreaming? Or have I really lost half my fingers, forever?

Glokta nudged Severard with the end of the cleaver. 'What else?'

'I told them anything I could. I told them . . . everything I knew . . .' The words came spitting and drooling from his lips, curled back with agony. 'I had no choice. I had debts, and . . . they offered to pay. I had no choice!'

Valint and Balk. Debts, and blackmail, and betrayal. How horribly banal it all is. That's the trouble with answers. They're never as exciting as the questions, somehow. Glokta's lips twitched into a sad smile. 'No choice. I know exactly how you feel.' He lifted the cleaver again.

'But-'

Bang! The heavy blade scraped against the table-top as Glokta swept four more neat slices of flesh carefully out of the way. Severard screamed, and gasped, and screamed some more. Desperate, slobbering screams, his face screwed up tight. Just like the prunes I sometimes have for breakfast. He still had half his little finger, but the other three were nothing more than oozing stumps. But we cannot stop now, not after we have come so far. We cannot stop for anything, can we? We must know it all.

'What about the Arch Lector?' asked Glokta, stretching his neck to the side and working his stiff shoulder. 'How did he know what went on in Dagoska? What did you tell him?'

'How did he . . . what . . . I told him nothing! I told him-'

Bang! Severard's thumb flew off, spinning across the table, leaving behind a spiralling trail of bloody spots. Glokta worked his hips back and forth, trying to wriggle out of the aches down his legs, the aches up his back. But there is no escaping them. Every possible position, a little worse than the one before. 'What did you tell Sult?'

'I . . . I . . .' Severard stared up, his mouth hanging open, a long string of drool dangling from his bottom lip. 'I . . .'

Glokta frowned. That is not an answer. 'Tie it off at the wrist and get the other hand ready. We've nothing left to work with here.'

'No! No! Please . . . I didn't . . . please . . .' How I tire of the pleading. The words 'no' and 'please' lose all meaning after half an hour of this. They begin to sound like a sheep bleating. We are all lambs to the slaughter, in the end. He stared at the pieces of finger scattered across the bloody table. Meat for the butcher. Glokta's head hurt, the room was too bright. He put the cleaver down and rubbed at his sore eyes. A draining business, mutilating your closest friends. He realised he had smeared blood across his eyelids. Damn it.

Frost had already tightened a tourniquet round Severard's wrist and manacled the bloody remains of his left hand back to the chair. He unfastened his right arm and guided it carefully to the table. Glokta watched him do it. All neat, and business-like, and ruthlessly efficient. Does his conscience nag at him, I wonder, when the sun goes down? I doubt it. I give the orders after all. And I act on orders from Sult, on advice from Marovia, on the demands of Valint and Balk. What choice do any of us have, in the end? Why, the excuses almost make themselves.

Frost's white face was dusted with bloody red specks as he spread Severard's right hand out on the table, just where the left one had been. He did not even struggle this time. You lose the will, after a while. I remember. 'Please . . .' he whispered.

It would be so very nice to stop. Most likely the Gurkish will burn the whole city and kill us all, and then who will care who told who what? If by some miracle they fail, no doubt Sult will finish me, or Valint and Balk will collect their debt in my blood. What will it matter when I am floating face-down in the docks whether certain questions were ever answered? Then why do I do this? Why?

The blood reached the edge of the wood and started dripping to the floor with a steady tap, tap, tap. No other answer. Glokta felt a flurry of twitches run up the side of his face. He took hold of the cleaver again.

'Look at this.' He gestured at the pieces of bloody flesh scattered across the table. 'Look what you've lost here, already. All because you won't tell me what I need to know. Do you not value your own fingers? They're no use to you now, are they? They're no use to me, I can tell you that. They're no use to anyone, besides a hungry dog or two, maybe.' Glokta bared the yawning hole in his front teeth, and ground the point of the cleaver into the wood between Severard's outspread fingers. 'One more time.' He pronounced the words with icy precision. 'What . . . did you tell . . . his Eminence?'

'I . . . told him . . . nothing!' The tears ran down Severard's hollow cheeks, his chest shuddered with sobs. 'I told him nothing! Valint and Balk, I had no choice! I've never spoken to Sult in my fucking life! Not a word! Never!'

Glokta looked into his Practical's eyes, his prisoner's eyes, for a long moment, trying to see the truth. All was silent except for Severard's gurgling, agonised breath. Then Glokta wrinkled his lip and tossed the cleaver down rattling on the table. Why give up your other hand, when you have confessed already? He gave a long sigh, reached out and gently wiped the tears from Severard's pale face. 'Alright. I believe you.'

But what then? We are left with more questions than before, and nowhere to look for the answers. He arched his back, wincing at the aches in his twisted spine, down his twisted leg, through his toeless foot. Sult must have gained his information elsewhere. Who else survived Dagoska, who else saw enough? Eider? She would never dare reveal herself. Vitari? If she wanted to spill her guts she could have done it at the time. Cosca? His Eminence would never work with a man that unpredictable. I only use him myself because I have no other choice. Then who?

Glokta's eyes met Frost's. Pink eyes, unblinking. They stared at him, bright and hard as pink gemstones. And the wheels clicked into place.

I see.

Neither one of them spoke. Frost reached out, without much haste, his eyes never leaving Glokta's, and wrapped both his thick arms around Severard's neck. The ex-Practical could only stare, helpless.

'What're-' Frost frowned slightly. There was a sharp crunching sound as he wrenched Severard's head sideways. As simple and careless as killing a chicken. Severard's skull flopped backwards as Frost let him go, and far past backwards, unnatural knobbly shapes sticking from the pale skin of his twisted neck.

The albino stood up, between Glokta and the door, hanging ajar. No way out. Glokta winced as he stumbled backwards, the tip of his cane scraping against the floor. 'Why?' Frost came on, slowly and surely, his white fists clenched tight, his white face expressionless behind his mask. Glokta held up one hand. 'Just tell me why, damn it!'

The albino shrugged. I suppose some questions have no answers, after all. Glokta's twisted back hit the curved wall. And my time is up. Ah well. He took a long breath. The odds were always stacked against me. I do not mind dying, so very much.

Frost raised his white fist, then grunted. The cleaver sank deep into his heavy shoulder with a dull smack. Blood began to leak out from it into his shirt. Frost turned. Ardee stood behind him. The three of them stared at each other for a moment. Then Frost punched her in the face. She reeled away and crashed into the side of the table, slid limp to the floor, dragging it over on its side, Glokta's case clattering down beside her, instruments tumbling, blood and bits of flesh scattering. Frost started to turn back, the cleaver still wedged in his flesh, his left arm hanging limp.

Glokta's lips curled away from his empty gums. I do not mind dying. But I refuse to be beaten.

He set his feet as best he could, ignoring the pain that stabbed through his toeless foot and up his front leg. He brought up his cane and jammed his thumb into its hidden catch. It had been made to his precise instructions by the same man who had made the case for his instruments. And is an even finer piece of craftsmanship.

There was a gentle click as the wood sprang open on secret hinges and dropped away revealing a two-foot needle of mirror-bright metal. He let go a piercing shriek.

Jab, jab, Glokta. Jab, jab.

The steel was a blur. The first thrust ran Frost neatly through the left side of his chest. The second darted silently through the right side of his neck. The third punctured his mask and scraped against his jaw bone, the glinting point showing itself just under his white ear for an instant before it whipped back out.

Frost stood, motionless, his white eyebrows going up with mild surprise. Then blood welled from the tiny wound on his throat and ran down into his shirt in a black line. He reached out with one big white hand. He wobbled, blood bubbling from under his mask.

'Futh,' he breathed.

He crumpled to the ground as though his legs had been snatched suddenly from under him. He put out an arm to push himself up, but there was no strength in it. His breaths gurgled noisily, then quietly, and he was still. And that is all.

Ardee was sitting up near the table, blood running out of her nose and down her top lip. 'He's dead.'

'I used to fence,' murmured Glokta. 'It seems the trick never entirely leaves you.' He stared from one corpse to the other. Frost lay in a slowly widening dark pool, one pink eye staring ahead, still unblinking, even in death. Severard's head was hanging back over the chair, mouth yawning wide open in a silent scream, his mutilated hand still manacled, the other hanging limp. My boys. My eyes. My hands. All finished. He frowned at the bloody length of metal in his fist. Well. We must fumble onwards as best we can without them.

He winced as he reached down and picked up the fallen piece of his cane between two fingers, snapped it shut around the bloody steel. 'If you wouldn't mind closing that case for me.' Ardee stared wide-eyed at the instruments, at Severard's yawning corpse, at the blood-stained table on its side and the fragments of flesh scattered across the floor. She coughed, and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. One forgets that some people are not used to dealing with these matters. But we need such help as we can get, and it is a little late for easing anyone into this gently. If she can chop into a man with a cleaver, she can carry a blade or two for me without swooning. 'The case,' he snapped. 'I will still need my instruments.'

Ardee blinked, collected the few scattered tools with trembling hands and put them back in their places. She wedged the box under her arm and stood up, somewhat unsteadily, wiping the blood from her nose on her white sleeve. Glokta noticed that she had a piece of one of Severard's fingers caught in her hair.

'You have something . . .' he pointed at his head, 'just here.'

'What? Gah!' She tore the dead thing out and flung it on the ground, gave a shiver of disgust. 'You should find another way to make a living.'

'I have been thinking that for some time. But there are still a few more questions I must have answered.'

The door creaked and Glokta felt a sudden stab of panic. Cosca stepped through into the room. He whistled softly as he surveyed the carnage, pushed his cap back on his head, its feather casting a spray of long shadows across the mural behind him. 'You've made quite a mess, Superior, quite a mess.'

Glokta fingered his cane. His leg was on fire, his heart was thumping dully at his temples, he was damp with cold sweat under his scratchy clothes. 'Unavoidable.'

'I thought you'd want to know that we had our visitors. Six Practicals of the Inquisition. I rather suspect they may have been sent here to kill you.' Undoubtedly. On the Arch Lector's orders, acting on information from the late Practical Frost.

'And?' asked Glokta. After the events of the past hour he was almost expecting Cosca to come at him, sword swinging.

But if the last hour has taught us anything, it is that the least trusted henchman is not always the least reliable. 'And we cut them to pieces, of course.' The Styrian grinned. 'I'm insulted you might think otherwise.'

'Good. Good.' At least something has gone to plan. Glokta wanted nothing more than to slide to the floor and lie there, screaming. But there is work to do. He winced as he limped for the door. 'We need to head for the Agriont immediately.'

The first traces of dawn were leaking into the cold, clear sky as Glokta hobbled out onto the Middleway, Ardee at his shoulder. There was still mist on the air, but it was fading, now. A fine day in prospect, it would appear. A fine day for bloodshed, treachery, and- Shapes were moving in the mist, away south down the wide cobbled road, towards the sea. There were noises too. Rattling, jingling. It sounded very much like a body of armoured men on the move. Further off, someone was shouting. A bell began to clang, sullen and muffled. A warning bell.

Cosca frowned into the thinning mist. 'What is that?'

The shapes grew more distinct. Armoured men, carrying spears, and in numbers. Their tall helmets were plainly not of Union design.

Ardee touched Glokta on the arm. 'Are they-'

'Gurkish.' Their armour glinted in the thin, grey light as the fog drifted aside. A vast body of them, marching north up the Middleway. They must finally have landed men at the docks, broken through into the centre of the city. What astonishingly poor timing. 'Back!' Glokta turned towards the alley, slipped and nearly fell, grimacing as Ardee caught him by the elbow and dragged him up straight.

'Back to the mansion!' And hope we weren't seen already. 'And keep those lamps with you, we'll need them.' He hurried to the stinking alley as best he could, barged and jostled by Cosca's mercenaries.

'Damn these Gurkish,' hissed the Styrian. 'I don't know for the life of me what I did to upset them so.'

'You have my sympathy.' The gate squealed shut and a couple of the mercenaries started dragging a broken fountain behind it. I'm not sure how long that will keep out one of the Emperor's legions.

'Might I ask what the plan is now, exactly, Superior? Charming though your palace is, sitting here and waiting for relief would hardly seem to be an option.'

'No.' Glokta struggled up the steps and through the open front door. 'We need to get to the Agriont.'

'Something tells me our Gurkish friends will have had the same idea. We will not be getting there overground, that is certain.'

'Then we must go underground.' Glokta limped into the guts of the building as smartly as he could, Ardee and the mercenaries following behind in a worried crowd. 'There is an entrance to the sewers here. One can get all the way to the Agriont, if one knows the route.'