Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1)

by Steven Erikson

‘The Tiste view the Vitr as an enemy,’ said T’riss. ‘It is no such thing. It exists for itself. It is a sea of possibilities, of potential. It holds life in the manner that blood holds life.’ ‘Did it create you?’ Anomander asked. ‘No.’ ‘Yet it grows. It devours land – this indeed poses a threat to Kurald Galain.’ The woman shrugged. ‘The sea does not dream of you.’

He had heard it all before, a thousand flavours but ever the same taste. It broke his heart to hear such life pushing through the gathering, suffocating fugue that came in the moments before battle. Each jest, each voice raised in rough banter, shone like a gold flag in a black forest, making all that was to come that much harder to bear.