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“Only death would stop me from going after Ban.”
“Now that’s a greeting worth fighting demons from the Otherworld for,” he said, “even if it is most un-queenly behaviour.”
If he thinks he can take Isiltir from me I will make him eat his own intestines.
Battle was mostly finished here, the dead littering the ground, others lying and waiting for death’s last touch, wounds gaping. Screams and weeping, ragged breaths, some men just sitting, staring at blood-crusted palms.
“One day, soon,” it whispered in her ear. “I will crush your skull and suck the jelly from your eyes.”
“And life’s not so simple, is it? One man is not the same as another, and I have come to see that the same is true of you giants. We are all capable of good and evil, kindness and cruelty.”
They have no honour; they are liars who will smile and stab you as they do.”
Doing nothing does not absolve you of choice. Doing nothing puts you firmly on Asroth’s side and makes you a coward, as well, for not having the stones to admit it.”
A drunken pirate. A demon-possessed attraction to flies and a half-burned Kadoshim. How have I sunk so low?
All of us die. How many really live?”
Sometimes caution is wisdom, but sometimes it is fear, and fear is not wise.
“I’ve run across half the world for you, Corban ben Thannon,” Farrell said. “Cursed your name most of the way, but seeing you, by Asroth’s teeth, I have to say it was worth it.”
“I wish I had been there,” Legion muttered. “I would have smashed their bodies and crushed their skulls, I would have broken their bones and fed from their flesh and danced on their dead and sucked out their souls and—” “Shut up, Legion,” Calidus snapped.
“Battle is coming, and we will either be ready, or we will be dead.”
“She’s heavier than my mam with a barrel of mead in her belly,”
“We must treat the shield wall with respect,” he continued. “It is a widow-maker, a death-dealer, no one is safe before it—man or woman, the skill of the Jehar will not save them, nor the strength of a giant.
Gods. Angels and demons. What next? I prefer something I can face and kill. Not myths and stories.
“Because this is not who I am,” she eventually said. “One act of darkness, of treachery. But also many of loyalty, too. Judge me by the sum of my deeds, not just the one mistake.”
I’ve done bad things, sure enough, or been party to them. But things are different now. I’m different now. Got a cause to fight for. Friends. People I believe in. Can’t change the past, but I can be a better man now.
But if we manage those rarest of things, both to win and to survive, then I would have you know that to me at least, this, us, is for always. Not just now, or while this war lasts, but for as long as I draw breath.”
“I came back from death for you,” he said, his voice a whispered tremor. “For me it was always forever, however long that may be. And those words you just spoke, they are the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. They are written upon my heart and soul.”
Only two options. Escape or death.
“I didn’t want to tell you, for a host of reasons. Stab me later if you think I was wrong,”
“Death to our enemies,” the cry was taken up by them all, a wave of sound, a recognition of injustices endured, of kin murdered, homes burned, friends and loved ones slain. Corban looked around at them all, more than a thousand men and women raising their voices, and he thought of the long list of crimes committed by his enemy, the deaths of his mam and da, his King, so many throughout Ardan and Domhain, the slaughter at Gramm’s hold. “DEATH TO OUR ENEMIES,” Corban cried out, joining his voice to theirs.
It must come to an end, and the only way is death. Death to Calidus, death to the Kadoshim, death to Lykos and Nathair.
No doubt that’s Maquin, then. He looks like one of those granite crags that poke from the sea, off of Dun Carreg’s cliffs, weathered and battered, but unbroken.
You have come so far, Corban. We have reached the point where to kill you I have to risk death myself.”
“I’ve waited long enough on those boats,” the Kadoshim growled, his voice strange, multiplied, as if there were an echo within his own throat. “It’s time to kill something.” “His name’s Legion,” Lykos whispered conspiratorially to Fidele as he strapped a leather and iron buckler to his left arm. “Not the most patient creature. And angry, most of the time.” “He ate Agost’s face,” Fidele said, shuddering. “Aye. He has issues. Handy in a scrap, though.”
“Gach fir bás,” Lykos read. All men die.
Calidus unsettled him. Not only his appearance, but something else. There was something terrifying about him, a sense that he could slit your throat at any moment, and smile while he was doing it.
With Lykos’ death accomplished, he had returned to the battle feeling reborn, all of life’s cares and demands stripped away. He felt pure. A white flame burned within him, fed by and yearning for the death of his enemies. And so he had walked through the battlefield like an angel of death, men falling before him as wheat before the reaper.
“You made the wrong choice,” Nathair snarled. “This battle’s won.” “My choice had nothing to do with victory or defeat,” Veradis said. “But right and wrong.”
For all those that Calidus put on spikes in Drassil’s courtyard. From the beginning he has been the puppet-master behind all of this. Behind Nathair. He is responsible for Da’s death too, and so many more. “For everyone,” he said. “Bring me his head,” Cywen snarled as he stalked away.
And with all his might, a world of pain exploding in his gut, Corban swung his sword and cut Calidus’ head from his shoulders.
Corban thought of the victories and losses, the friendships and tragedies, all etched upon his heart in a tapestry of faces, and he knew the others were thinking the same. And as he looked and thought, he felt a weight leaving him, and an excitement building as he thought of the future.
