The First Law Trilogy

by Joe Abercrombie

You have to love the small things, when you’ve nothing else.

If you could have stabbed someone in the face with the phrase ‘good day’, the head of the Guild of Mercers would have lain dead on the floor.

He was staring about him with the startled expression of a man who went to sleep drunk, and has woken up in an unfamiliar room.

The unfortunate man’s foot scraped on the floor as he backed away, no doubt wishing he had been born a dwarf.

He no longer looked like a corpse, just gaunt and sick, as he had done when Logen first met him. He guessed that was about as healthy as Quai ever looked.

Who wants to learn he’s keeping company with the Bloody-Nine? A man who’s wrought more death than the plague, and with less regret.

But some things have to be done. It’s better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.

Then Frost knocked him on the head. Funny thing. When that boy knocks a man on the head, the trouble all goes out of him.’

It was a noble jaw, that much was clear. No commoner could ever have had a chin so grand.

They stood out among the heaving audience like well-rotted fruit, and seemed about as popular.

Jezal walked in a daze, the noise of the crowd punching at his ears until it seemed his head would split.

That swollen-headed old fool couldn’t turn a pie out of a dish!’

Centuries of dead and justly forgotten Adepti stared gloomily down from their canvases, as though upset by all the noise.

The memory of that unfortunate meeting hung between them for a moment like a fart,

Just stood there, face rigid and chalky pale, staring out of the window, bolt upright like he had a spear all the way up his arse.

The Bloody-Nine’s grip was strong as the roots of mountains, relentless as the tide.

turd’s a turd, whatever light it’s in!

Has one man ever had such a range of deaths to choose from?

Dogman could smell the fear, thick as soup in his nose.

The old man was a caricature of decrepitude, shrunken into his great robes of state like a withered plum in its furry skin.

A few desultory stalls were laid out in the centre, crowded together like sheep in cold weather.

‘Don’t try to be clever with me, Captain Luthar, you have not the equipment.

When it comes to getting murdered, the Old Empire presents a victim with quite the dazzling choice.

He was a devil wearing a cow’s skin, and she was not fooled.

And so she sat apart, sullen and silent, and watched the light drain out of the brooding sky, watched the darkness creep into the land.

Is it ever too late to be . . . a good man?

‘Friends? In my experience, a friend is merely an acquaintance who has yet to betray you.

You’re both as worthless as a bag of sand in the desert!

He glanced over at Ferro, staring yellow knives at him through narrowed eyes.

Prince Ladisla’s incredible powers of self-deception were becoming more frustrating with every passing day.

The Crown Prince and the real world, as Lord Marshal Burr had observed, were entire strangers to one another.

don’t try to take the high ground with me. There is no high ground here.’

‘Nothing but a drizzle. The sun can’t always shine. You have to be realistic!’

kneeling in the long shadows of the past.’

A choice between killing and dying is no choice at all. You have to be realistic about these things.

Those with the least always lose the most in war.

Here he was still, face down in the muck with a sore neck from looking up.

Logen gone, and Forley gone, and the candle burning down fast on the rest of ’em.

‘He’s some new kind o’ useless, that one, eh?

on the other side of the ditch, the bare earth was scarred and burned, bristling with spent flatbow bolts like stubble on a brown chin.

most inspiring leader, for a half-mad drunkard.

‘I’ve got better things to do than keep you informed. We’ve a war to lose, or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘Suffering is what gives a man strength, my boy, just as the steel most hammered turns out the hardest.’

You get what you give, in the long run, and manners cost nothing.

The very air cut into his throat and nipped at his lungs, smoked back out in tickling wheezes.

If you clenched your teeth hard enough, and took enough strides, you could get anywhere.

Stop his tongue flapping or it’s coming out!’

Helping others led to friendships. Friendships led to disappointment, at best.

Soldiers seemed to care a great deal for flags. She had never understood that. You could not kill a man with one. You could not protect yourself with one. And yet men would die for flags.

‘Honour, eh? What the hell is that anyway? Every man thinks it’s something different. You can’t drink it. You can’t fuck it. The more of it you have the less good it does you, and if you’ve got none at all you don’t miss it.’ He shook his head. ‘But some men think it’s the best thing in the world.’