Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

by Steven Erikson

Children made perfect soldiers, perfect killers. They had no sense of mortality. They did not fear death. They took bright pleasure in destruction, even when that destruction involved taking a life. They played with cruelty to watch the results. They understood the simplicity of power found there in the weapon held in the hand. See a bored child with a stick – and see how every beast nearby flees, understanding well what is now possible and, indeed, probable. See the child, eyes scanning the ground, swinging the stick down to crush insects, to thrash flowers, to wage a war of mayhem. Replace the stick with a sword. Explain how guilt need not be considered when the ones who must die are the enemy. Unleash them, these children with the avid eyes. Good soldiers. Andarist had made them good soldiers. What child, after all, does not know rage? But the vessel breaks. The vessel breaks.