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September 7 - September 19, 2023
Trouble with the good fight, I find… once the fight starts, the good stops.”
the bobbing torches of guides who led foreigners to Westport’s best hostelries, best eateries, best back-alley muggings.
Leo’s voice went shrill with dismay, while the worthies around the table shook their grey heads. The ones who weren’t entirely bald, at least. They shook bald heads.
Still, when you’re sent to fight monsters, it’s a good idea to have a monster or two of your own.
“You want to impress a girl, take a bunch o’ flowers.” Flick gave a sad sigh. “You want to impress a King o’ the Northmen, bring a sack o’ heads.”
Snake!” screamed a woman, and Vick recoiled, then realised it wasn’t a warning but a sales pitch. “Best snake meat!”
“Always has to be a mist, doesn’t there?” grunted Shivers. Isern set off, her boots crunching in the shingle. “I guess nothing looks so magical, d’you see, as what can’t be seen at all.”
Beware of clever men, her father told her once. But beware most of clever men who look like fools.
“That’s the thing about knives,” said Clover. “Cheap to get and with endless applications. Swords are dear as all hell and they’ve got just the one, and it’s one every man should avoid.”
“Do you really think people are that stupid?” “Darling.” She leaned closer, and kissed him gently, and touched him lightly on the tip of his nose with her fingertip. “People are far more stupid than that.”
He was one of those men loves to be despised. That treats loathing like gold, to be clawed for and hoarded up. He hadn’t learned yet that hate’s the one thing never runs out.
She still wasn’t used to sleeping in her father’s bed. But it was likely the best bed in the North. Huge, even though he’d been small. Always said he wanted to keep rolling and never fall out. He’d had the frame carved by the best shipbuilder in Uffrith, monsters prowling over the wood, and bought the goose-feather mattress for its weight in silver off some Styrian merchant. Other than Rikke, it was probably the thing he was proudest of in the world. Broke his heart to leave it when Black Calder took the city, filled him with joy to find it in one piece when he came back. Always said he’d
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And if he is a lion, she is a golden serpent twisted all about him. If she told him down was up, he’d laugh at his mistake and stand on his head.”
“But stupid friends won’t take you far, will they?” Isern thought about that and opened her mouth. “Don’t say it!” snapped Rikke, and she slowly closed it again.
That’s the thing about blood. King’s or commoner’s, everyone’s looks much the same.
If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there’s rarely any need to wade into the bitter ocean for your vengeance. It’ll wash up on the shore soon enough.”
You’re the one man on the Closed Council I entirely trust. You’re simply far too widely hated to make a good conspirator.” Glokta gave a weary snort. “Immensely kind of you to say so, Your Majesty.”
“If it helps, I don’t only fuck men.” As far as could be told through his mask, King Jappo looked faintly amused. “Sometimes I’m fucked by them. Look at it this way—if you needed advice on horses, you wouldn’t go to someone who never rode a horse.” “What?” “How could someone who never had a cock really know what’s best to do with a cock? I’ve debated scholars the world over and no one’s been able to give me a satisfactory answer on that point.”
“So many familial murders I trip up on the details. We do have a rather… complicated family situation.” “Most kings do, I suppose.”
“Coming to something when you can’t rely on folk to come timely to their own ambush.”
“You’re younger’n I thought you’d be.” “Give it time,” said Rikke. “I’ll get older.”
But he doubted Stour wanted to hear that, and once you’ve seen a man starve one poor bastard after another in a cage, you get quite sensitive to what he wants to hear. Which Clover imagined was the point o’ the exercise.
In business, few things went entirely to plan. In war, plans and reality barely noticed each other in passing.
For a man who made so many corpses, he could get quite upset over the ones other people made.
She wished she did not always have to be the strong one. The Fates knew, she could have used some comfort. But some people need to be held up. Which means some people need to do the holding.
You can’t get attached to weapons in a battle any more than you can get attached to men. Sometimes you have to leave ’em in the dirt.
“I tried to do the right thing,” he murmured, striving to make sense of it. “Broadly. The best I could, under the circumstances. Tried to find… reasonable compromises?” It would have made a feeble battle cry. Forth, men, to reasonable compromises!
“A drink?” There was something faintly horrifying about a tipple while men marched to their deaths. Epic disaster as light entertainment. “At a time like this?” asked Orso. Officers glanced at one another, raised their brows, shrugged as if to say, What better time could there be?
“Your Majesty!” piped Gorst. “You should withdraw!” “Nonsense, Colonel, things are just getting interesting.” A ridiculous affectation, of course, things had gone beyond horrifying some time ago and did not look like coming back. But why attend a battle at all if you’re not going to say at least one heroically imperturbable thing?
Perhaps that was all courage really was. Being so convinced of one’s own importance one came to believe death was something only other people need worry about.
“Sounds somewhat underhanded put that way. But once you’ve stabbed a man in the back, you’re best off stabbing him a few more times, don’t you reckon? Make sure of the job.”
