Fall of the Argosi (Spellslinger, #0.6)

by Sebastien de Castell

Eventually, though, I’d come to understand that the purpose of constantly devising plans was so that it became so instinctive that every time you walked into a situation you’d instantly work out multiple schemes to distract opponents or disable traps. After enough practice – and I mean a lot of practice – your thoughts speed up from a slow walk to a fast gallop. By the time you see what’s waiting for you in that theoretical room Durral had talked about, your brain would already be coming up with the means to escape. My arta tuco was never as good as his of course, and even he couldn’t keep up with Enna. But there were times when I slid into that way of thinking like it was . . . like I was seeing everything around me in a completely new way. A tree wasn’t a tree any more: it was a ladder that could be climbed; a barrier that could deflect a killing blow; a rough surface that could wear through rope if you rubbed against it just right. Sometimes it was as if the physical world disappeared and in its place were thousands upon thousands of tools and tricks, traps and evasions, all just waiting to be turned to my use. Of all the Argosi talents, however, arta tuco is the most dangerous. There’s a coldness to that way of thinking. People and animals start to look like nothing more than devices, and notions like dignity and decency can disappear altogether. Like with arta eres, the talent of defence, when you can become so obsessed with how best to wield a blade that you forget w...

Enna’s second lesson in arta loquit was to always know why you’re about to say something. Is it simply to impart information? To try to learn something? Or are you doing it to make yourself sound important? What’s the value of what you’re saying, and how will it affect your relationship to the person asking?

See, the most important skill an Argosi wanderer must develop within themselves isn’t found in the fighting techniques of arta eres nor the strategic ingenuity of arta tuco. It’s not in the daring of arta valar nor the persuasive charm we call arta siva. You won’t find the crucial ability within the eloquence of arta loquit, the resilience of arta forteize, or even the perceptive abilities hidden within arta precis that had taken me so long just to begin to understand. Those are merely tools. Which arrow hits the target first? The one that’s aimed in the right direction, of course. The innumerable techniques contained within the seven talents all depend on knowing which of the four ways to follow. Water. Wind. Thunder. Stone. How we navigate these cardinal directions at every single moment of our lives determines whether we live to a ripe old age or die in a ditch; help those we care about or bring them suffering; serve our highest aspirations or become enslaved by our cruellest desires.

there are a thousand ways to lose a fight, but the most common is not having a good reason to win it.