Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of The First Law by Joe Abercrombie Page A

the long blade looking to Shev’s eye to be made of a writhing black smoke.
    ‘It need not,’ said Javre. ‘You have two choices, just as Hanama and Birke did. You can go back to Thond. Go back to the High Priestess and tell her I will be no one’s slave. Not ever. Tell her I am free.’
    ‘Free? Ha! Do you suppose the High Priestess will accept that answer?’
    Javre shrugged. ‘Tell her you could not find me. Tell her whatever you please.’
    Weylen’s mouth bitterly twisted. ‘And what would be my other—’
    ‘I show you the sword.’ There was a popping of joints as Javre shifted her shoulders, boots scraping into a wider stance, and from inside her coat she drew a bundle, long and slender, a thing of bandages and rags, but near the end Shev caught the glint of gold.
    Weylen lifted her chin, and did not so much smile as show her teeth. ‘You know there is no choice for us.’
    Javre gave a nod. ‘I know. Shevedieh?’
    ‘Yes?’ croaked Shev.
    ‘Close your eyes.’
    She jammed them shut as Weylen sprang over a table with a fighting scream, high, harsh and horrible. She heard quick footsteps on the boards, rushing up with inhuman speed.
    There was a ringing of metal and Shev flinched as a sudden bright light shone pink through her lids. A scraping, and a croaking gasp, and the light was gone.
    ‘Shevedieh.’
    ‘Yes?’ she croaked.
    ‘You can open them now.’
    Javre still held the bundle in one hand, torn rags flapping about it. With the other she held Weylen up, her limp arms flopping back, steel-cased knuckles scraping the floor. There was a red stain on her chest, but she looked peaceful. Aside from the black blood pouring from her back to spatter on the boards in spurts and dashes.
    ‘They will find you, Javre,’ she whispered, blood specking her lips.
    ‘I know,’ said Javre. ‘And they each will have their choice.’ She lowered Weylen to the boards, into the spreading pool of her blood, and gently brushed her eyelids closed over her green, green eyes. ‘May the Goddess have mercy on you,’ she murmured.
    ‘May she have mercy on us first,’ muttered Shevedieh, wiping the blood from under her throbbing nose as she approached the counter, dagger at the ready, and peered over. The inn’s owner was cowering behind and cringed even further as he saw her. ‘Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!’
    ‘I won’t.’ She hid the dagger behind her back and showed him her open palm. ‘No one will. It’s all right, they’ve …’ She wanted to say ‘gone’ but, glancing around the wreckage of the inn, was forced to say, rather croakily, ‘died. You can get up.’
    He slowly stood, peered over the counter, and his jaw dropped open. ‘By the—’
    ‘I must apologise for the damage,’ said Javre. ‘It looks worse than it is.’
    Part of the far wall, riddled with cracks, chose that moment to collapse into the street, sending up a cloud of stone dust and making Shev step back, coughing.
    Javre pushed her lips out and put one considering fingertip against them. ‘Perhaps it is exactly as bad as it looks.’
    Shev heaved up an aching sigh. Not the first she’d given in the company of Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp, and she doubted it would be the last. She pulled the pouch from her shirt, undid the strings and let the jewel roll onto the split counter, where it sat glinting.
    ‘For your trouble,’ she said to the gawping innkeeper. Then she wiped her dagger on the jacket of the nearest corpse and slid it back into its sheath, turned without another word, stepped over the splintered remains of the door and out into the street.
    Dawn was coming, the sun bringing the faintest grey smudge to the eastern sky above the ramshackle roofs. Shev took a long breath and shook her head at it. ‘Damn it, Shevedieh,’ she whispered to herself, ‘but a conscience is a hell of an encumbrance to a thief.’
    She heard Javre’s heavy footsteps behind, felt her looming presence at her shoulder, heard her