The Devils (The Devils, #1)

by Joe Abercrombie

You can stack your doubts high before. You can polish your regrets up after. But while the fight’s on, your purpose must be pure. Kill the enemy. Don’t die yourself.

Alex was no surgeon but she was pretty sure an arrow in you wasn’t good. Arrows are really sharp and your body’s just meat.

couldn’t have cared less, humming tunelessly to herself, washing blood from her great tangle of black hair. Pink water streamed down a muscle-knotted back tattooed with wolves, dragons, trees, suns and moons, circles and snaking lines of runes, every gap filled in with warnings. One muscular arse cheek had DANGER written

Balthazar was busy bragging. “The princess was set upon by a member of the deceased Eudoxia’s coven, a pyromancer of considerable puissance, but, fortunately for our royal charge, and indeed our entire endeavour, Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi was on … hand … to … there appears to be a very large naked tattooed woman over there.”