Best Served Cold

by Joe Abercrombie

“The memories of our glories fade,” he whispered, “and rot away into half-arsed anecdotes, thin and unconvincing as some other bastard’s lies.

“I hoped you might do me the favour of minding the dice table tonight.” Friendly took the mask from him with a trembling hand. “I would like that very much.”

“Shit at least makes flowers grow. Honour isn’t even that useful.”

Cosca grinned from Eider, to Monza, and back. “Three people as loyal as us all on one side? I can hardly wait to see how this turns out.”

Poke, poke, poke. “Your dice are liars.” “My dice… are what?”

But the decided habits of a whole life, especially a wasted life, were hard to change.

Friendly wiped it off, looked down at his red-brown fingertips with all the emotion of an empty sink. “Blood.” “Yes. A lot of blood, tonight.”

“Some have tried.” “And?” “And I do not kneel.” “Stand, then. My son is dead.” “You have my sorrow.” “You do not sound sorrowful.” “He was not my son.”

Maybe it would’ve been nice if life was another way. But it was how it was.

“What are you?” he whispered. “I have been many things. A student. A messenger. A thief. A soldier in old wars. A servant of great powers. An actor in great events. Now?”

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

“Like a pimp who lost his mind in a military tailor’s.” Cosca broke out in a radiant grin. “Precisely the look I was aiming at!

I love a good attack, ask anyone, but the problem is… you see…” Pregnant silence stretched out as he spread his hands wide. “I took such an enormous sum of money from Duke Rogont’s Gurkish friend not to.”

I may make men laugh, but I’m no clown.”

a man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he finds entirely beyond sufferance.

Kill everyone not on a horse. Kill anyone on a horse who got in his way. Kill everyone.

‘Things aren’t what they used to be’ is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.”

Shenkt feared no man, but before these children, he was a coward.

That was the difference between a hero and a villain, a soldier and a murderer, a victory and a crime. Which side of a river you called home.

“You sure this is the best time for jokes?” Monza muttered. “Unhappy times are the best for levity. You don’t light candles in the middle of the day, do you?”

“It’s a war. There is no right side.”

Stairs. Falling down stairs, and the worst of it was he couldn’t even count them.

Seven out of seven. It was done.