Laying Down The [First] Law

It was cased all in bright armour sealed with heavy rivets, a round helmet clamped over the top half of its skull, eyes glinting beyond a thin slot. It grunted and snorted, sounds loud as a bull, iron-booted feet thudding on the stone as it thundered forwards, a massive axe in its iron-gloved hands. A giant among Shanka. Or some new thing, made from iron and flesh, down here in the darkness. Its axe curved in a shining arc and the Bloody-Nine rolled away from it, the heavy blade crashing into the ground and sending out a shower of fragments. It roared at him again, maw opening wide under its slotted visor, a cloud of spit hissing from its hanging mouth. The Bloody-Nine faded back, shifting and dancing with the shifting shadows and the dancing flames. That Frazetta-grade dream of a red meeting is from Joe Abercrombie’s 2007 novel Before They Are Hanged, and so is this one: He came on closer, this shadow, and he took on more shape, and more, and the clearer he got, the worse gr...