The Wheel of Osheim (The Red Queen's War, #3)

by Mark Lawrence

Courtesy costs nothing, which makes it the ideal gift when you’re as cheap as I am.

Being on a galloping camel bears several resemblances to energetic sex with an enormously strong and very ugly woman.

I’ve never had much use for religion, except when it comes to swearing or begging for mercy.

I nodded sagely. It’s always good to have someone agreeing with you in such a discussion, even if it’s only yourself.

Never drink small if it’s at someone else’s expense.

The desert is hot and boring. I’m sorry, but that’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s also sandy, but rocks are essentially dull things and breaking them up into really small pieces doesn’t improve matters.

I have had two brothers teach me that there’s nothing holy in blood bonds. Given my elder brother, Martus, and a random stranger both dangling over a precipice and only time to save one of them, it would be my day to make a new friend.

The Broken Empire never had a big demand for slaves. We have peasants. Much the same thing, and they think they’re free so they never run off.

Still, I had escaped, and that, as always, was the important thing. A prophecy has to get up very early in the morning indeed if it wants to snare old Jalan!

what do I know about defending cities? I mean it’s soldiery—there must be dozens of better qualified people—” “Hundreds I should think.” Garyus said it a little too enthusiastically for my liking. “But since when was a monarchy about rewarding individual merit? Promote from within, is our mantra.”

The marshal’s manse was a spacious building but had been unoccupied for so long that most of the furniture had wandered off.

For the next several minutes the business of riding at speed along roads variously packed, narrow, winding, or all three at once, occupied our attention. Flattening a peasant or two is all well and good, but if you’re in a hurry to get somewhere it can slow you down.

“Interesting,” I said, by which I meant “shut the fuck up.”

“Clear your mind!” Kara shouted. Advice as useless as any I’d heard. They should take away her cauldron.