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Strange thing, that–the fewer years you have to lose the more you fear the losing of ’em. Maybe a man just gets a stock of courage when he’s born, and wears it down with each scrape he gets into.
“Ah, yes!” Bayaz raised his brows. “I believe we had a mutual friend in Logen Ninefingers.”
Dogman shrugged. “A man, anyway. Some good and some bad in him, like most. As for much missed, depends on who you ask, don’t it?” “True.” Bayaz gave a rueful smile, and spoke a few words in fluent Northern: “You have to be realistic about these things.”
Savour the little moments, son, that’s my advice. They’re what life is. All the things that happen while you’re waiting for something else.
When you’re planning what to do, always think of doing nothing first, see where that gets you.
What is love anyway, but finding someone who suits you? Someone who makes up for your shortcomings? Someone you can work with. Work on.
Perhaps that was the moment you grew up, when you learned your parents were just as fallible as everyone else.
It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.
“Have you ever noticed that everyone’s an idiot but you?” She opened her eyes wide. “You see it too?”
“You get scared, Shivers?” A pause, that eye of his glinting as the sun peeped through the branches. “Used to. All the time.” “What changed?” “Got my eye burned out o’ my head.”
So much for calming small talk. “Reckon that could change your outlook.” “Halves it.”
There aren’t many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in a war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they’ll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There’s no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more.”
Defeat, it seems, brings out the best in some men.
And the engineers no doubt will harangue the labourers, and the labourers will whip the mules, and the mules will kick at the dogs, and the dogs will snap at the wasps, and with any luck one of the wasps will sting Bayaz on his fat arse, and thus the righteous wheel of life will be ready to turn once again…
Felnigg. What a suppurating arse. Look at him. Arse.
Black Dow, no question. Who beat Bethod’s men six times in the long winter then burned Kyning to the ground with its people in the houses. Who fought the Bloody-Nine in the circle and nearly won, was left with his life and bound to serve. Fought alongside him then, and with Rudd Threetrees, and Tul Duru Thunderhead, and Harding Grim, as tough a crew as ever walked the North since the Age of Heroes and of which, aside from the Dogman, he was the last drawing breath.
“Patience is as fearsome a weapon as rage. More so, in fact, ’cause fewer men have it.”
But maybe that’s how the world works. Some men are made for doing violence. Some are meant for planning it. Then there are a special few whose talent is for taking the credit.
“The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.”
Calder smiled to hear it. At least he’d stood up, and done one thing worth singing about. At least he’d given his father’s men a laugh. His brother’s men. His men. Before they all got fucking murdered.
“There’s no shame in being scared. Bravery is being scared, and doing it anyway.”
Craw always had his doubts. Ate ’em, breathed ’em, lived ’em twenty years or more. Hardly a moment free of the bastards.
“Sun’s coming out, at least.” He shook his head, still smiling. “What do you know? Shoglig was talking shit.” Then he was still.
You have to be realistic, as the Bloody-Nine had been so bloody fond of saying.
Craw took up the reins and turned back to the north. “Every sword’s a curse, boy.” And he gave ’em a snap, and the wagon trundled off. Away up the road. Away from the Heroes.
“Life is, basically, fucking shit.”
Caul Shivers stood glowering down in the midst of those gaping faces, the sword that had been the Bloody-Nine’s in his fist, the grey blade dashed and speckled with Black Dow’s blood. “I’m no dog,” he said.
“Ah, shit,” he muttered, and he grabbed his sword-belt and his coat, threw ’em over his shoulder and strode out, slapping the door shut.
