Best Served Cold

by Joe Abercrombie

It’s always the poor who are crushed under rich men’s ambitions. And yet they rarely complain, because… well…” “They dream of having towers o’ their own?” Cosca chuckled. “Why, yes, I suppose they do. They don’t see that the higher you climb, the further you have to fall.” “Men rarely see that ’til the ground’s rushing at ’em.”

It was a bastard of a choice for farmers, when war was on the way. Stick to your land and get a dose of fire and robbery for certain, with rape or murder more’n likely. Make for a town on the chance they’ll find room for you, risk being robbed by your protectors, or caught up in the sack if the place falls. Or run for the hills to hide, maybe get caught, maybe starve, maybe just die of an icy night.

Just to lift the mood rain started flitting down through the darkness, spitting and hissing as it fell on the flickering torches, white streaks through the circles of light around ’em.

their blades feathered together, metal ringing and scraping.

“When life is a cell, there is nothing more liberating than captivity.”

Fire. Visserine by night had become a place of flame and shadow. An endless maze of broken walls, fallen roofs, jutting rafters. A nightmare of disembodied cries, ghostly shapes flitting through the darkness. Buildings loomed, gutted shells, the eyeless gaps of window and doorway screaming open, fire spurting out, licking through, tickling at the darkness. Charred beams stabbed at the flames and they stabbed back. Showers of white sparks climbed into the black skies, and a black snow of ash fell softly the other way.

The only part of the city untouched was the island on which Duke Salier’s palace stood. There were paintings there, Murcatto said, and other pretty things that Ganmark, the leader of Orso’s army, the man they were here to kill, wished to save. He would burn countless houses, and countless people in them, and order murder night and day, but these dead things of paint had to be protected. Friendly thought this was a man who should be put in Safety, so that the world outside could be a safer place. But instead he was obeyed, and admired, and the world burned.

Decisiveness has never been my greatest talent. I am too prone to think on what is lost by a certain course of action. To look with longing at all those doors that will be closed, rather than the possibilities presented by the one that I must open.”

“A weakness in a soldier,” said Monza. “I know it. I am a weak man, perhaps, and a poor soldier. I have relied on good intentions, fair words and righteous causes, and it seems I and my people now will pay for it.”

To the starving man, bread is beautiful. To the homeless man, a roof is beautiful. To the drunkard, wine is beautiful. Only those who want for nothing else need find beauty in a lump of rock.

I always felt a man makes more points worth making if he steers always close to the truth…”

“A man sleeps through most of his life, even when awake. You get so little time, yet still you spend it utterly oblivious. Angry, frustrated, fixated on meaningless nothings. That drawer does not close flush with the front of my desk. What cards does my opponent hold, and how much money can I win from him? I wish I were taller. What will I have for dinner, for I am not fond of parsnips?” Shenkt rolled a mangled corpse out of his way with the toe of one boot. “It takes a moment like this to jerk us to our senses, to draw our eyes from the mud to the heavens, to root our attention in the present. Now you realise how precious is each moment. That is my gift to you.”

“I despise violence. It is the last tool of feeble minds.”

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

when you have a half-mad plan you need men at least half-mad to see it through. Sane ones might be tempted to look for a better idea.

“I shit on your congratulations,” sneered Salier. “You shit on a great many things, it seems. But then a person of your size no doubt produces a vast quantity of the stuff. Bring the fat man closer.”

It is a deplorable thing to run from the enemy, Farans wrote, but often better than the alternative.

Ganmark was quicker, stronger, sharper. Which meant her only chance was to be cleverer, trickier, dirtier. Angrier.

The long hall that housed Duke Salier’s Styrian masterpieces was now further adorned by five corpses. The ultimate decoration for any palace, though the discerning dictator needs to replace them regularly if he is to avoid an odour.

“Any pithy last words?” “Behind you,” growled Monza through gritted teeth, as The Warrior rocked ever so gently forwards. “You must take me for—” There was a loud bang. The statue’s leg split in half and the whole vast weight of stone toppled inexorably forwards. Ganmark was just beginning to turn as the point of Stolicus’ giant sword pinned him between the shoulder blades, drove him onto his knees, burst out through his stomach and crashed into the cobbles, spraying blood and rock chips in Monza’s stinging face.

Fucking KNEW the statue would end up killing him. Talk about blatant symbolism

Treachery is commonplace. Forgiveness is rare.

“For mercenaries are disunited, thirsty for power, undisciplined, and disloyal; they are brave among their friends and cowards before the enemy; they have no fear of God, they do not keep faith with their fellow men; they avoid defeat just as long as they avoid battle; in peacetime you are despoiled by them and in wartime by the enemy”

“Today’s proud legions march over the last vestiges of yesterday’s fallen empire. So it always is with military splendour. Hubris made flesh.”

“Master Friendly!” He jerked round, frowning, hands itching ready to move to knife and cleaver. A figure leaned lazily in a doorway off the street, arms and boots crossed, face all in shadow. “Whatever are the odds of meeting you here?” The voice sounded terribly familiar. “Well, you would know the odds better than me, I’m sure, but a happy chance indeed, on that we can agree.” “We can,” said Friendly, beginning to smile as he realised who it was. “Why, I feel almost as if I threw a pair of sixes…”

Cosca?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!?!?!?!?!?! WHAT??

“A wise man once told me you have to be realistic. Strange how fast we change, ain’t it, when we have to?”

Tell me, General Murcatto, how come you are always first to the field?” “I rise early, shit before daybreak, check I’m pointed in the right direction and let nothing stop me. That and I actually try to get there.”

It seemed everyone had their own wrongs to avenge, but Monza had too many wounds of her own to be much stung by other people’s.

“If you were a man I’d kill you where you stand.” “If you were a man, you mean.

Any man who needs to be worked up to it that hard isn’t likely to be too fearful when he finally gets there.

Forage, Farans wrote, is robbery so vast that it transcends mere crime, and enters the arena of politics.

Each time she woke from sweet oblivion she told herself it would have to be the last, but a few hours later and she’d be sweating desperation from every pore. Waves of sick need, like an incoming tide, each one higher than the last. Each one resisted took a heroic effort, and Monza was no hero, however the people of Talins might once have cheered for her. She’d thrown her pipe away, then in a sticky panic bought another. She wasn’t sure how many times she’d hidden the dwindling lump of husk down at the bottom of one bag or another. But she’d found there’s a problem with hiding a thing yourself. You always know where it is.

“If I seem always contrary it is because I want only the best for you and your venture. It has ever been a failing of mine to be too intransigent in my pursuit of excellence. There is no more important characteristic than pliability in a man who must, perforce, be your humble servant. Can I entreat you to make with me… a heroic effort? To put this unpleasantness behind us?”

“Maybe he just wants to be loved,” came Shivers’ whispery voice as they set off again. “If men can change like that.” And Monza snapped her fingers in his face. “That’s the only way they do change, ain’t it?” His one eye stayed on her. “If things change enough around ’em? Men are brittle, I reckon. They don’t bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them.”

Fact is I’m good at it. As a fighter I’m a man you need to respect. As anything else I’m just a big shiftless fuck wasted a dozen years in the wars, with nothing to show for it but bloody dreams and one less eye than most. I’ve got my pride, still. Man’s got to be what he is, I reckon. Otherwise what is he? Just pretending, no? And who wants to spend all the time they’re given pretending to be what they ain’t?”