Reaper's Gale (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #7)

by Steven Erikson

‘If I give you access to Starvald Demelain, you will use it more than once.’ ‘Not I.’ ‘Do you so vow?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Foolish,’ Hood said in a rasp. ‘I hold you to that vow, Shadowthrone,’ Menandore said.

That’s enough! No more suffering, please! No more hunger, no more war, no more inequity!” Well, as far as I can see, there are never enough generations. We just scrabble on, and on, devouring all within reach, including our own kind, as if it was nothing more than the undeniable expression of some natural law, and as such subject to no moral context, no ethical constraint – despite the ubiquitous and disingenuous blathering over-invocation of those two grand notions.’

Beak ran up to him – the game his brother had been playing with the rope had gone all wrong, and now his brother was choking. He threw his arms about his brother’s kicking legs and tried with all his might to hold him up.