Before They Are Hanged recap

The three roads opened at the end of the first book run to bitter ends. Bayaz leads Logen, Jezal, Ferro and the rest west across the ruined Old Empire to the edge of the World in search of the Seed, enduring pursuit and starvation; Jezal is humbled and scarred and grows closer to Ferro, but the quest fails and the weapon is never recovered, while the darker truth of the magus becomes harder to deny. In the South, Glokta struggles to hold Dagoska against the Gurkish with threats, bribes and Cosca's mercenaries, uncovers treachery within, and learns that a hidden banking house, Valint and Balk, secretly controls the Union and now controls him; Dagoska falls and he barely escapes. In the North, Prince Ladisla's army is annihilated, and West, cast into the wilderness with the Dogman's crew, beats the cowardly prince to death after Ladisla attacks a woman under their protection. Threetrees is killed and the Dogman becomes chief. Battered and empty-handed, all of them turn back toward Adua and a Union sliding toward collapse.

Previously, in The Blade Itself: Bayaz, First of the Magi - an old wizard most people believed to be a myth - forced his way onto the Union's ruling Closed Council and gathered an unlikely company. The Northman Logen Ninefingers, the crippled and bitter Inquisitor Glokta, the vain young Contest champion Jezal dan Luthar, and the vengeful escaped Gurkish slave Ferro Maljinn were each drawn, willing or not, into his orbit, along with the apprentice Malacus Quai and the Navigator Brother Longfoot. Bayaz revealed his purpose: a journey west, past the edge of the known World, to recover the Seed - an ancient weapon out of the Old Time that he insists is the only thing that can stop the Gurkish Empire and its Prophet, Khalul. As the Union braced for war with King Bethod in the North and the threat of the Gurkish in the South, the company set out. Arch Lector Sult sent Glokta south to take command of the isolated fortress-city of Dagoska, whose previous Superior had vanished. Major Collem West marched north with the Union army under the vain, foolish Crown Prince Ladisla, entrusting his sister Ardee to Glokta before he left. Three roads opened - a quest, a siege, and a war - with Bayaz alone knowing where each truly led.

The three roads run apart across the map. Bayaz's company grinds westward into the Old Empire, once the heart of civilization and now a lawless waste of feuding warlords and ruined cities, and the travellers learn quickly that the magus's road offers neither comfort nor safety and that he will explain almost nothing. Logen and Ferro circle each other warily; Jezal, soft and self-pitying, is worn down by hardship he has never known. In the far South, Glokta reaches Dagoska to find the city rotting from within: his predecessor gone without trace, the Gurkish army massing beyond the walls, the ruling merchants led by Magister Eider pursuing their own ends, and the native townsfolk kept as second-class subjects behind the walls. He sets about shoring up the crumbling defences by any ruthless means available. In the North, West serves in Crown Prince Ladisla's army as it advances against Bethod, and watches royal vanity, jealousy and sheer incompetence steer a large force toward disaster against a canny and patient enemy who knows the ground far better than they do.

Each strand tightens toward crisis. In Dagoska, Glokta holds the city together with threats, bribery and the unreliable mercenary company of Nicomo Cosca, all the while hunting the traitor feeding the Gurkish from inside the walls; his search leads toward Magister Eider and the merchants, and he begins to sense a hidden power - a banking house - moving behind the Union's affairs. Out in the Old Empire, Bayaz's party endures pursuit, starvation and the magus's maddening secrecy as it presses toward the coast; Jezal, stripped of his vanity by suffering, slowly becomes a better man and grows closer to Ferro. In the North, Prince Ladisla's army marches straight into catastrophe: it is ambushed and shattered at a river crossing, and West is flung into the wilderness with a handful of survivors, thrown together with the Dogman and the last of Logen's old crew - Threetrees, Tul Duru, Black Dow and Grim - and with a hard-bitten woman, Cathil, rescued from a labour camp. What began as three orderly campaigns has collapsed into three desperate fights simply to stay alive.

Every strand reaches a bitter turn. Bayaz's company at last crosses the Old Empire - passing through the dead city of Aulcus, where they are attacked and Jezal's face is smashed and scarred - and reaches the island at the very edge of the World where the Seed should lie. There the quest fails: the ancient weapon is beyond their grasp, the whole terrible journey seemingly for nothing, and the glimpses of what Bayaz truly is, and what he did in ages past, grow impossible to ignore. Dagoska falls to the Gurkish; Glokta escapes the city's ruin having confirmed that a shadowy banking house, Valint and Balk, secretly holds the Union - and now holds him. In the North, the scattered survivors of Ladisla's army fight their way back through the wilderness; Rudd Threetrees, the old crew's leader, is killed, and the Dogman takes his place. Crown Prince Ladisla, cowardly and cruel to the end, attempts to force himself on Cathil, and West, in a fury, beats him to death - a desperate, irreversible act that will shadow everything after. Bloodied and changed, all three parties turn at last back toward Adua: the quest empty-handed, the South lost, the North in ruins. Nothing Bayaz promised has come to pass, and the Union is weaker and more exposed than when the book began.

Before They Are Hanged ends with all three campaigns in ruins. Bayaz's company reaches the island at the edge of the World only to find the Seed beyond their reach; the quest that justified everything fails outright, and the magus's ruthless, ancient nature is now plain to those who travelled with him. Jezal returns disfigured and humbled, bound uneasily to Ferro. In the South, Dagoska falls to the Gurkish and Glokta escapes with his life, carrying the knowledge that the banking house Valint and Balk owns the Union's debts - and, through blackmail, owns him. In the North, Prince Ladisla's army has been destroyed; Collem West has survived only by joining the Dogman's crew, but at the cost of beating the prince to death after Ladisla tried to rape the woman Cathil, a killing he must now conceal. Rudd Threetrees is dead and the Dogman leads what remains of the old crew. Every party turns back toward Adua: the quest empty-handed, a city lost, a royal army wiped out, and a prince secretly murdered. The Union is weaker, its enemies bolder, and Bayaz's true purpose - and the price of it - still hidden as the final book opens.