Sharp Ends
Chapters - Joe Abercrombie
Story 1: A Beautiful Bastard
Set in Kadir during the Gurkish War, this story follows Salem Rews, a quartermaster in the Union's First Regiment, as he observes the vain and brilliant Colonel Glokta in his pre-cripple days. Glokta humiliates sparring partners, flirts with Lady Wetterlant, and nearly forces a duel with Lieutenant West after being nicked with a live blade. When the Gurkish army appears at the bridge, Glokta volunteers his regiment for what amounts to a suicide mission to buy the rest of the army time to retreat, riding off to glory while Rews stays behind, torn between relief and horror.
On page: Sand dan Glokta, Corporal Tunny
Story 2: Small Kindnesses
Shevedieh runs a struggling Smoke House in Westport with her young employee Severard, taking in a beaten stranger she finds in her doorway. When the local crime boss's son Crandall forces Shev to steal a satchel, she is double-crossed by her old flame Carcolf, who has already emptied it. As Crandall's thugs close in to kill her, the stranger reveals herself as Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp, and demolishes the entire gang. Shev kills Crandall with a hatchet, the Smoke House burns down, and she finds herself bound to the mighty warrior woman and her quest to reclaim a stolen sword.
On page: Practical Severard
Story 3: The Fool Jobs
Curnden Craw leads his dozen into a village east of the Crinna to retrieve a mysterious glowing artefact for an unspecified employer. What should be a simple heist descends into farce as the crew botches the infiltration, a fight breaks out, the village hall catches fire, and Yon grabs the wrong item - a golden cup instead of the enchanted thing with light about it. As Whirrun of Bligh howls with laughter, Craw is left cursing his luck and contemplating how to pick through the ashes of a burned-down hall.
POV: Curnden Craw
Story 4: Skipping Town
Shev and Javre return from a botched heist in the Near Country to collect payment from their employer Tumnor, only to find him nailed to a table by Weylen, a Knight Templar of the Golden Order sent to kill Javre for deserting the temple in Thond. After a vicious brawl with Weylen's hired thugs - during which Shev accidentally drops a chandelier on half of them - Javre draws her mysterious star-forged sword and slays Weylen, though the dying Templar warns that more hunters will follow. Shev gives their jewel to the innkeeper as compensation and the pair flee town at dawn.
Story 5: Hell
As Dagoska falls to the Gurkish, Temple flees through the burning Upper City towards the Great Temple, where the priest Kahdia tends to the wounded and refuses to evacuate to the Citadel. General Vissbruck mentions that Superior Glokta warned him about the horrors of Gurkish captivity before departing. When the Eater Mamun and his terrifying companions breach the temple doors, Kahdia is offered a choice: his life for his people, or theirs for his. He walks willingly to his death with quiet dignity while Temple, paralysed by cowardice, cannot bring himself to step forward. Left among the spared survivors, Temple repeats Kahdia's words about caring for the wounded, knowing how hollow they sound.
POV: Temple·Mentioned: Sand dan Glokta, Nicomo Cosca
Story 6: Two's Company
Stranded somewhere in the rain-sodden North, Shev and Javre encounter Whirrun of Bligh on a rope bridge and nearly come to blows over who should step aside. After settling on a fistfight on solid ground instead, they are interrupted by Flood and six of Bethod's agents sent to capture Whirrun. A bloody fight ensues in which Whirrun mentions Craw owes him three chickens. While Shev cleans gore off herself, Javre and Whirrun settle their differences by sleeping together. Three Templars of the Golden Order then arrive seeking Javre, and another lethal battle erupts. Javre kills them all with her star-forged sword, and the unlikely trio decides to travel together - though Shev has no say in the matter.
Mentioned: Bethod, Curnden Craw
Story 7: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Told through three viewpoints set at different points during the Styrian wars. In Westport, a bank clerk named Canto watches as a mysterious poisoning kills his superior Mauthis and many others. In Sipani, a whore named Onna is assigned to a hulking, sword-bearing customer named Bremer who only wants to be held and wept upon, before Cardotti's House of Leisure descends into fire and chaos. Near Ospria, a young soldier named Predo watches Monza Murcatto kill his beloved Sergeant Mazarine at the Battle of the Fords, with Shivers at her side, and decides soldiering is not the life for him.
On page: Monzcarro Murcatto, Caul Shivers, Bremer dan Gorst
Story 8: Some Desperado
Shy South, an outlaw with a four-thousand-mark bounty, flees across the Near Country after a bank robbery gone wrong. Her horse dies from a wound and she takes refuge in a ghost town, scattering stolen silver to slow her three former partners - Jeg, Neary and Dodd - who want both the money and the price on her head. Armed with nothing but an eating knife, she uses every trick she has to survive: a bloody footprint trail to mislead them, a stolen bow, and sheer desperate ferocity. She kills all three but loses the silver down a well, then spots more riders approaching and flees on horseback into the empty plains.
POV: Shy South
Story 9: Yesterday, Near a Village Called Barden …
During the Union's campaign in the North, Colonel Gorst is writing his daily letter to the king on a farmer's tree stump when Northern raiders attack the supply column. The story alternates between the terrified farmer Tinder, who is desperate to protect his two children, and Gorst, who slaughters the Northmen with horrifying efficiency while feeling nothing but mild annoyance. After the battle, Gorst approaches the farmhouse and Tinder prepares to die defending his family, but Gorst only asks if they are all right, apologises for everything, and leaves a silver coin worth a fortune for a cup of milk.
POV: Bremer dan Gorst·Mentioned: Bethod, Scale Ironhand
Story 10: Three's A Crowd
In Talins on the day of King Jappo's coronation, Shev watches the ceremony from a balcony with Vitari, Monza Murcatto's spymaster, and collects a signed pardon from the crime lord Horald the Finger. But when she returns to her flat, she finds it ransacked and Carcolf kidnapped by Horald, who has no intention of honouring his word. She tracks down a spectacularly drunk Javre in the lowest dive in the city, where Javre is losing at cards to Corporal Tunny and mentions having previously worked with Shivers. The two set out across the harbour by stolen boat to rescue Carcolf from Horald's island fortress.
On page: Practical Vitari, Monzcarro Murcatto·Mentioned: Caul Shivers, Bayaz
Story 11: Freedom!
Penned as a hilariously unreliable account by the biographer Spillion Sworbreck, this story describes Cosca's Company of the Gracious Hand liberating the town of Averstock from rebels in Starikland. Sworbreck presents Cosca as a noble, temperate, athletic hero of unimpeachable character while unwittingly hinting at the truth: a drunken, vainglorious mercenary leading a band of killers on a massacre. Friendly is mentioned as Cosca's faithful henchman who counts the looted coins. A footnote in a different hand - clearly Cosca's own - demands that Sworbreck make the account more heroic, add rescued maidens, and remove all mention of the treacherous notary.
On page: Nicomo Cosca, Friendly
Story 12: Tough Times All Over
A mysterious package passes through a chain of hands across Sipani in a single night. The courier Carcolf is robbed by a desperate swordsman, who is in turn visited by Friendly, collecting debts for the Quarryman. The package moves through a street urchin, a violinist, a pimp, and a fence before reaching the Northmen Deep and Shallow, who are meant to drop it down a well for their terrifying bald boss. A pickpocket steals it, and it winds up with a child-trafficker named Fallow, who is brutally relieved of it by Javre. Javre delivers it to Pombrine, but Shev steals it from his office through the skylight. The package ends up back with Carcolf, its contents still a mystery, and she sails from Sipani leaving Shev behind.
On page: Friendly
Story 13: Made A Monster
Bethod teaches his sons Scale and Calder about peace and building a nation through roads and taxes, while his wife Ursi warns him that Logen Ninefingers is becoming too dangerous to control. Bethod visits Logen's tent and, through careful persuasion, convinces him to surrender Rattleneck's captured son in exchange for a truce. A stranger named Sulfur appears briefly, offering help from Bayaz. With Craw at his side, Bethod negotiates a fragile peace with Rattleneck, only to descend into the cellar and discover that the Bloody-Nine has butchered the prisoner, dismembered and disembowelled him, and hung his guts around the cell like decorations - destroying every hope of peace with a grin.
POV: Bethod·On page: Logen Ninefingers, Calder, Scale Ironhand, Curnden Craw, Yoru Sulfur·Mentioned: Bayaz