Chris

“You didn’t get to be the villain of one story, she supposed, unless you were the”
― Nicholas Eames, Bloody Rose

“What the fuck is this?” he roared, striding into the centre of the room, water dripping from his beard, down through the grizzled white hairs on his chest, off his slapping fruits. It was a strange sight to see. A naked old man confronting three armed Practicals of the Inquisition. Ridiculous, and yet no one was laughing. There was something strangely terrifying about him, even without his clothes and running with wet. It was the Practicals who shifted backwards, confused, scared even. “You’re coming with us,” the woman repeated, though a certain doubt seemed to have entered her voice. One of her companions stepped warily towards Bayaz. Jezal felt a strange sensation in his stomach. A tugging, a sucking, an empty, sick feeling. It was like being back on the bridge, in the shadow of the Maker’s House. Only worse. The wizard’s face had turned terribly hard. “My patience is at an end.” Like a bottle dropped from a great height, the nearest Practical burst apart. There was no thunderclap, only a gentle squelching. One moment he was moving towards the old man, sword raised, entirely whole. The next he was a thousand fragments. Some unknown part of him thudded wetly against the plaster next to Jezal’s head. His sword dropped and rattled on the boards. “You were saying?” growled the First of the Magi.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“Or not lost, he considered, since they lingered on in the hearts of those who loved them, who love them still, their memory nurtured like a sprig of green in an otherwise desolate soul. Which was, he supposed, a kind of immortality, after all.”
― Nicholas Eames, Kings of the Wyld

“There’s glory in it,” he acknowledged. “Dagda Mor! It’s why I like to fight. When the battle-frenzy fills you, you feel like a god, I think.” He paused, remembering. “But then you hear a friend’s voice begging you to help, and you see your friend’s guts falling out of a hole in his belly, and you can’t stop to help, because someone is trying to kill you, so you have to keep going. You tread upon a corpse and realize it’s a man who taught you how to hunt when you were ten years old. You see the woman who just got married run through by a spear, falling over her husband’s body.” The others were hushed, listening. Eamonn shook his head. “And when it’s over,” he said simply, “they’re still dead. Victory doesn’t matter to the dead, nor to the living who mourn them.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Scion