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The Condition of the Defences
To Arch Lector Sult,
head of his Majesty’s Inquisition.
Your Eminence,
I have acquainted the members of Dagoska’s ruling council with my mission. You will not be surprised to learn that they are less than delighted at the sudden reduction in their powers. My investigation into the disappearance of Superior Davoust is already underway, and I feel confident that results will not be long in coming. I will be appraising the city’s defences as soon as possible, and will take any and all steps necessary to ensure that Dagoska is impregnable.
You will hear from me soon. Until then, I serve and obey.
Sand dan Glokta,
Superior of Dagoska.
The sun pressed down on the crumbling battlements like a great weight. It pressed through Glokta’s hat and onto his stooped head. It pressed through Glokta’s black coat and onto his twisted shoulders. It threatened to squeeze the water right out of him, squash the life right out of him, crush him to his knees. A cool autumn morning in charming Dagoska.
While the sun attacked him from above, the salt wind came at him head on. It swept in off the empty sea and over the bare peninsula, hot and full of choking dust, blasting the land walls of the city and scouring everything with salty grit. It stung at Glokta’s sweaty skin, whipped the moisture from his mouth, tickled at his eyes and made them weep stinging tears. Even the weather wants to be rid of me, it would seem.
Practical Vitari teetered along the parapet beside him, arms outstretched like a circus performer on the high rope. Glokta frowned up at her, a gangly black shape against the brilliant sky. She could just as easily walk down here, and stop making a spectacle of herself. But at least this way there is always the chance of her falling off. The land walls were twenty strides high at the least. Glokta allowed himself the very slightest smile at the thought of the Arch Lector’s favourite Practical slipping, sliding, tumbling from the wall, hands clutching at nothing. Perhaps a despairing scream as she fell to her death?
But she didn’t fall. Bitch. Considering her next report to the Arch Lector, no doubt. “The cripple continues to flounder like a landed fish. He has yet to uncover the slightest trace of Davoust, or any traitor, despite questioning half the city. The one man he has arrested is a member of his own Inquisition…”
Glokta shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted into the blinding sun. The neck of rock that co
“Might I borrow your eye-glass, General?”
Vissbruck flicked the eye-glass open and slapped it sulkily into Glokta’s outstretched hand. Plainly he feels he has better things to do than give me a tour of the defences. The General was breathing heavily, standing stiffly to attention in his impeccable uniform, plump face shining with sweat. Doing his best to maintain his professional bearing. His bearing is the only professional thing about this imbecile, but, as the Arch Lector says, we must work with the tools we have. Glokta raised the brass tube to his eye.
The Gurkish had built a palisade. A tall fence of wooden stakes that fringed the hills, cutting Dagoska off from the mainland. There were tents scattered about the other side, thin plumes of smoke rising from a cooking fire here or there. Glokta could just about make out tiny figures moving, sun glinting on polished metal. Weapons and armour, and plenty of both.
“There used to be caravans from the mainland,” Vissbruck murmured. “Last year there were a hundred of them every day. Then the Emperor’s soldiers started to arrive, and there were fewer traders. They finished the fence a couple of months ago. There hasn’t been so much as a donkey since. Everything has to come in by ship, now.”
Glokta sca
Vissbruck shrugged. “Impossible to say. At least five thousand, I would guess, but there could be many more, behind those hills. We have no way of knowing.”
Five thousand. At the least. If it’s a show, it’s a good one. “How many men have we?”
Vissbruck paused. “I have around six hundred Union soldiers under my command.”
Around six hundred? Around? You lackwit dunce! When I was a soldier I knew the name of every man in my regiment, and who was best suited to what tasks. “Six hundred? Is that all?”
“There are mercenaries in the city also, but they ca
I asked for numbers, not opinions. “How many mercenaries?”
“Perhaps a thousand, now, perhaps more.”
“Who leads them?”
“Some Styrian. Cosca, he calls himself.”
“Nicomo Cosca?” Vitari was staring down from the parapet, one orange eyebrow raised.
“You know him?”
“You could say that. I thought he was dead, but it seems there’s no justice in the world.”
She’s right there. Glokta turned to Vissbruck. “Does this Cosca answer to you?”
“Not exactly. The Spicers pay him, so he answers to Magister Eider. In theory, he’s supposed to follow my orders—”
“But he only follows his own?” Glokta could see in the General’s face that he was right. Mercenaries. A double-edged sword, if ever there was one. Keen, as long as you can keep paying, and provided that trustworthiness is not a priority. “And Cosca’s men outnumber yours two to one.” It would appear that, as far as the defences of the city are concerned, I am speaking to the wrong man. Perhaps there is one issue, though, on which he can enlighten me. “Do you know what became of my predecessor, Superior Davoust?”
General Vissbruck twitched his a
“Hmm,” mused Glokta, jamming his hat down tighter onto his head as another gritty gust of wind blew in across the walls. “The disappearance of the city’s Superior of the Inquisition? Of no interest whatsoever?”
“None,” snapped the General. “We rarely had cause to speak to one another. Davoust was well-known as an abrasive character. As far as I am concerned, the Inquisition has its responsibilities, and I have mine.” Touchy, touchy. But then everyone is, since I arrived in town. You’d almost think they didn’t want me here.
“You have your responsibilities, eh?” Glokta shuffled to the parapet, lifted his cane and prodded at a corner of crumbling masonry, not far from Vitari’s heel. A chunk of stone cracked away and tumbled from the wall into space. A few moments later he heard it clatter into the ditch, far below. He rounded on Vissbruck. “As commander of the city’s defences, would you count the maintenance of the walls as being among your responsibilities?”
Vissbruck bristled. “I have done everything possible!”
Glokta counted the points off with the fingers of his free hand. “The land walls are crumbling and poorly ma