The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Stories, #1)

by Bernard Cornwell

Only the gods tell him what to do, and you should beware of men who take their orders from the gods.

“You can’t live somewhere,” he told me, “if the people don’t want you to be there. They can kill our cattle or poison our streams, and we would never know who did it. You either slaughter them all or learn to live with them.”

“A leader leads,” Ragnar said, “and you can’t ask men to risk death if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.”

“When an enemy wants to talk,” he said, “it means he does not want to fight. So we have won.”