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

loon,’ grunted Hands-in-Pockets.
    ‘Lioness of Hoskopp,’ said Big Coat, and gave a little giggle.
    ‘I will have to steal it back,’ she was musing. ‘Do any of you know a decent thief?’
    There was a pause, then Shev raised that one finger again.
    ‘Ah!’ Javre’s blood-clotted brow went up. ‘It is said the Goddess places the right people in each other’s paths.’ She frowned as though she was only just making sense of the situation. ‘Are these men inconveniencing you?’
    ‘A little,’ Shev whispered, grimacing at the dull ache that had spread from her side right to the tips of her fingers.
    ‘Best to check. You never can tell what people enjoy.’ Javre slowly worked her bare shoulders. They reminded Shev of the Amazing Zaraquon’s, too, woody hard and split into a hundred little fluttering shreds of muscle. ‘I will ask you once to put the dark-skinned girl down and leave.’
    Crandall snorted. ‘And if we don’t?’
    That one eye narrowed slightly. ‘Then long after we are gone to the Goddess, the grandchildren of the grandchildren of those who witness will whisper fearful stories of the way I broke you.’
    Hands-in-Pockets shoved his hands down further still. ‘You ain’t even got a weapon,’ he snarled.
    But Javre only smiled. ‘My friend, I am the weapon.’
    Crandall jerked his head towards her. ‘Put this bitch out o’ my misery.’
    Pock-Face and Big-Coat let go of Shev, which was a blessing, but closed in towards Javre, which didn’t seem to be. Big-Coat pulled a stick from his coat, which was a little disappointing since he had ample room for a greatsword in there. Pock-Face spun his jagged-edged dagger around in his fingers and stuck out his tongue, which was uglier than the blade, if anything.
    Javre just stood, hands on her hips. ‘Well? Do you await a written invitation?’
    Pock-Face lunged at her but his knife caught nothing. She dodged with a speed even Shev could hardly follow and her white hand flashed out and chopped him across the side of the neck with a sound like a cleaver chopping meat. He dropped as if he had no bones in him at all, knife bouncing from his hand, flopping and thrashing on the floor like a landed fish, spitting and gurgling and his eyes popping out further than ever.
    Big-Coat hit her in the side with his stick. If he’d hit a pillar, that was the sound of it. Javre hardly even flinched. Muscle bulged in her arm as she sank her fist into his gut and he bent right over with a breathy wheeze. Javre caught him by the hair with her big right fist and smashed his head into Shev’s butcher-block counter, blood spattering the cheap hangings.
    ‘Shit,’ breathed Crandall, the hand he was holding Shev with going limp.
    Javre looked over at the one with his hands rammed in his pockets, whose mouth had just dropped open. ‘No need to feel embarrassed,’ she said. ‘If I had a cock I would play with it all the time, too.’
    He jerked his hands out and flung a knife. Shev saw the metal flicker, heard the blade twitter.
    Javre caught it. She made no big show of it, like the jugglers in that travelling show used to. She simply plucked it from the air as easily as you might catch a coin you’d tossed yourself.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said. She tossed it back and it thudded into the man’s thigh. He gave a great spitty screech as he staggered back through the doorway and into the street.
    Mason had just pulled his own knife out, a monster of a thing you could’ve called a sword without much fear of correction. Javre planted her hands on her hips again. ‘Are you sure this is the way you want it?’
    ‘Can’t say I want it,’ said Mason, drifting into a fighting crouch. ‘But there’s no other way for it to be.’
    ‘I know.’ Javre shook her shoulders again and raised those big empty hands. ‘But it is always worth asking.’
    He sprang at her, knife a blur, and she whipped out of the way. He slashed at her and she dodged again, watching as he