Sharp Ends

This collection of thirteen short stories is set in the world of Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, a grimdark fantasy universe where the Union, a large industrialized kingdom, the Gurkish Empire, and the warring clans of the North struggle for power. The stories span roughly twenty-six years, united by their preoccupation with violence, moral compromise, and the gap between self-perception and action. Several stories track the turbulent partnership between Shevedieh, a resourceful thief, and Javre, a towering warrior fugitive from a religious order, while others reveal earlier or later chapters in the lives of figures from the novels.

"A Beautiful Bastard" opens in 566 during a Union military campaign against the Gurkish. Salem Rews, a self-loathing quartermaster, watches Colonel Sand dan Glokta, the Union's most celebrated swordsman, humiliate three sparring partners before goading Lieutenant West, a commoner with genuine skill, into a dangerous bout with live steel. When Gurkish cavalry masses beyond a river bridge, Glokta volunteers his regiment for a suicide mission to hold the crossing, ordering West and Corporal Tunny to stay behind and saving their lives before riding toward the bridge.

"Small Kindnesses" introduces Shevedieh (Shev), a former thief running a Smoke House, where patrons inhale husk, an intoxicant, in the port city of Westport. She takes in a badly beaten red-haired woman. Crandall, the son of crime lord Horald the Finger, then forces Shev to steal a satchel, which proves empty: Carcolf, a con artist Shev desires, has already taken its contents. When Crandall orders Shev killed, the red-haired woman rises and defeats the thugs. She is Javre, a warrior from the distant land of Thond known as the Lioness of Hoskopp. Shev kills Crandall, whose falling body knocks over hot coals and burns down the Smoke House. Javre needs a thief to recover her stolen star-metal sword, and Shev, now homeless and hunted, agrees.

"The Fool Jobs" follows Curnden Craw, a veteran Northern warrior, as he leads a small crew to steal a glowing artifact from a Fox Clan village east of the Crinna, a remote marshland. Among his companions is Whirrun of Bligh, an eccentric swordsman carrying the Father of Swords, a legendary blade. After losing the element of surprise, the crew fights into the village's main hall, where a Fox Clan priest wielding the artifact paralyzes Craw with supernatural terror before Jolly Yon, the crew's grim axeman, kills the priest. The hall catches fire, and when they regroup, Yon reveals he grabbed a gold cup instead of the artifact, forcing them to return and sift through the ashes.

"Skipping Town" picks up a year into Shev and Javre's partnership. At an inn where they plan to deliver a stolen jewel, they discover their employer nailed to a table by Weylen, a Knight Templar of the Golden Order from Thond. Javre reveals she is a fugitive from this order, and anyone who aids her faces death. In the ensuing fight, Javre draws her star-metal sword, which emits blinding light, and kills Weylen.

"Hell" shifts to the besieged city of Dagoska in 576. Temple, a former thief educated by Haddish Kahdia, a priest at the Great Temple, witnesses the city fall to Gurkish forces. Eaters, supernatural flesh-eating servants of the Gurkish Prophet Khalul, shatter the temple doors. Their leader Mamun offers Kahdia a choice: The Eaters will take the crowd and spare Kahdia, or take Kahdia and spare everyone else. Temple knows he should volunteer but is paralyzed by cowardice. Kahdia walks away with the Eaters, head held high, and Temple remains, echoing his mentor's words though they ring hollow.

"Two's Company" finds Shev and Javre in the rainy North, where they encounter Whirrun of Bligh on a rope bridge. Their standoff is interrupted first by King Bethod's agents hunting Whirrun, then by Templars of the Golden Order hunting Javre. After both groups are defeated, Javre and Whirrun agree to travel together and begin a sexual relationship, leaving Shev miserable and blood-soaked.

"Wrong Place, Wrong Time" offers three vignettes of ordinary people caught in larger violence across Styria. A bank clerk dies of apparent poison at his workplace. A prostitute comforts a weeping armored guard who only wants to be held, then finds herself trapped as violence and fire erupt. A young recruit watches his comrades killed in battle and, too terrified to fight, raises his sword with the winning side.

"Some Desperado" follows Shy South, a fugitive outlaw, as she fights three former accomplices across the Near Country, a lawless frontier. Her horse dies from an arrow wound, and she takes refuge in an abandoned town, where she kills her pursuers one by one. As her dying former lover Dodd expires, he flings their stolen silver down a well. Shy rides off with nothing.

"Yesterday, Near a Village Called Barden..." weaves multiple perspectives around a skirmish between a Union supply column and Northern raiders. A Union lieutenant stumbles into the ambush while relieving himself and spoils the surprise. In the fighting, the devastating Union warrior Gorst kills multiple men, while a young officer named Kerns dies, possibly by Gorst's own blade. A Northern thrall and a Union soldier silently agree to spare each other. Afterward, Gorst apologizes to a local farmer and leaves a silver coin worth far more than the milk he took earlier.

"Three's A Crowd" climaxes the Shev-Javre-Carcolf thread. Shev receives a document ending Horald the Finger's vendetta, but returns home to find her apartment destroyed and Carcolf missing. A letter from Horald claims he holds Carcolf at a fort. Shev recruits Javre, who has been drinking and pit-fighting for days, and fights her way inside, only to find Carcolf sitting comfortably with Horald. The kidnapping was staged to lure Javre: Horald owes a debt to the High Priestess of the Great Temple of Thond, who is revealed to be Javre's mother. She offers Javre a deal: Steal an item from a Magus, a powerful wizard-like figure from the Old Time, an ancient era, and the fourteen-year pursuit will end. Javre accepts. Later, Shev discovers that Carcolf orchestrated the entire scheme to settle her own debts and separate Shev from Javre. When Carcolf tries to justify the betrayal, Shev picks up her bag and walks out.

"Freedom!" presents an absurdly heroic manuscript by biographer Spillion Sworbreck, describing mercenary captain Nicomo Cosca and his Company of the Gracious Hand liberating the frontier town of Averstock from rebels. In Sworbreck's telling, Cosca is noble, moderate, and selfless. A footnote in a different hand, presumably Cosca's, demands the account be more heroic and bloody.

"Tough Times All Over" tracks a mysterious package through a chain of thieves across the city of Sipani in a single night. Carcolf carries it as a courier but is robbed by a gentleman fencer. The package passes through a debt collector working for Mistress Borfero, who is secretly the Quarryman, a feared criminal figure, and then through several pickpockets and petty criminals before Javre, now calling herself First of the Fifteen, a rank within the Golden Order, seizes it from a slaver. Shev steals it and delivers it back to Carcolf. They share an intimate moment, but Carcolf departs with the package, leaving Shev a purse of forged coins.

The final story, "Made A Monster," is set in 570, early in the collection's timeline, and serves as a dark origin tale. Bethod, Chieftain of the North, dreams of peace: disbanding armies, collecting taxes, and building roads. His wife Ursi warns that his champion Logen Ninefingers, known as the Bloody-Nine, is becoming uncontrollable. Bethod persuades Logen to surrender a prisoner, Rattleneck's son, so he can negotiate peace with the rival chief, and the two leaders shake hands on a deal. Bethod returns elated, only to discover that Logen has butchered the prisoner, disemboweling him and severing his head. Logen stands drenched in blood, smiling, and shrugs that he changed his mind, destroying the peace and confirming that the monster Bethod created cannot be controlled.