Best Served Cold

by Joe Abercrombie

You were a hero round these parts. That’s what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short.

Dice just thrown can be anything until they stop rolling.

Blades might be unsophisticated tools, but a sword through the guts killed clever men every bit as thoroughly as stupid ones.

“I’m no drunk,” croaked Cosca. “I simply like the taste of wine. So much so that I have to drink some every few hours or become violently ill.”

“The memories of our glories fade,” he whispered, “and rot away into half-arsed anecdotes, thin and unconvincing as some other bastard’s lies. The failures, the disappointments, the regrets, they stay raw as the moments they happened. A pretty girl’s smile, never acted on. A petty wrong we let another take the blame for. A nameless shoulder that knocked us in a crowd and left us stewing for days, for months. Forever.” He curled his lip. “This is the stuff the past is made of. The wretched moments that make us what we are.”

“I believe the word ‘bloodbath’ would fit the circumstances. Then it caught fire.

“If there is one thing I have learned in all my many last stands, it is that death is never certain, only… extremely likely.”