The Mongoliad Quotes

“AMONGOL, KNOCKED INTO a cook fire during the initial surge of horsemen, had lived long enough to run—shirt and hair on fire—into the rows of tents. Rutger assumed he had died from the burns, but before he had expired, the flames had leaped from him to several tents. The fire was spreading, and a haze of ash and embers was starting to fill the air. A storm of glittering snow.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“Domingo regarded the man for a moment before answering. “The Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae do not hire themselves out as caravan guards,” he said finally. “There are several hundred men-at-arms in Barcelona who would satisfy your needs.” “I know none of them,” Jacobi replied. “Nor their reputations.” Domingo made a noise in his chest and idly reached over to scratch the end of his shortened arm. Andreas had only been at the Shield-Brethren chapter house for a few months, but he had been there long enough to notice a connection between the quartermaster’s mood and the presence of a nagging itch in the scarred knob of Domingo’s arm. The trader’s comment was a bit clumsy in its inference, but not surprising. The Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae—the Shield-Brethren, as they were more commonly known—were famed”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“He looked behind him at the unadorned outer walls of the Septizodium. He stood in an alley, one of the many unmarked and unmemorable gaps between buildings in Rome. The door through which he had stumbled wasn’t a real door, but a clever panel of stone. Any other time, he would never have noticed it against the mottled background of the surrounding stone, but it hung open now, and a column of black smoke spiraled up from it. There were other spires of smoke rising over the rooftop; clearly, there were other exits from the Septizodium. They might not have been plain to those who were sequestered inside, but smoke had a talent for finding a way out.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“One of the soldiers slapped Gansukh on the legs with the shaft of his spear, and the Mongol warrior rolled away from the blow, getting his legs under him. Even though Gansukh didn’t understand a word of what was being said, the message was clear. Clenching his teeth, Gansukh wobbled to his feet, and as he stood upright, one of the other soldiers whacked him across the back, causing him to stumble and nearly fall.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“No wind stirred the scene, and the pluming smoke billowed and roiled at its own whim. The plain near the bridge had been flattened by the passage of so many horses and men that it was nothing more than a flat field between the high banks of the river and the verge of a narrow band of trees that demarked fallow fields to the west. There was no shelter on this plain—it was exposed ground that Dietrich had hoped to cover swiftly before his Mongol pursuers could get within arrow range. His goal had been the bridge, but that hope died in his breast as soon as he realized where the smoke was coming from.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“Andreas had been trying to remember the words to a ribald drinking song he had heard a few weeks ago when Saluador rode up next to him. The Spaniard’s horse was a hand or so taller than his own, and in keeping with the man himself, much more spirited. Andreas was tall enough to see over most crowds, but Saluador eclipsed him readily. The Spaniard kept his beard and hair short, cropped close to his head, and when he smiled, his cheeks dimpled in a way that was very disarming to the ladies. Unfortunately, Saluador had not managed how to make his ready charm extend to his eyes. The ladies found this contrast exciting and dangerous, but Andreas thought that a man who couldn’t smile naturally was a man who harbored a deep and long-standing grudge. Probably against something he could never change, like God or the weather or the color purple. Which made him unpredictable.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“Their morning training was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a plainly dressed man. Lugo, the youngest initiate at the chapter house, noticed him first and nearly received a blow to the head as a result of his inattention. Shouting at the rest of the men to stop their drill, Andreas glared at the man who was standing inside the chapter house gate. “How might we assist you?” he called across the yard, more than a little annoyed at the interruption.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“My son, in the eyes of Heaven, we are all as little children. No one of us is more important than another. In fact, the more important we think we are, the less we stand out in the eyes of the Lord.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“WITH CNÁN’S HELP, Raphael dressed the knife wound on Haakon’s hip. Raphael moved stiffly, and Haakon eventually saw why. A tiny stub of a broken arrow protruded from Raphael’s back. When Raphael finished with Haakon, Cnán said something about the arrow.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“In any crisis, survivors will always berate themselves that they could have done more,” Léna said, almost to herself. She blinked and then her sharp focus returned to Ocyrhoe. “I should get you out of Rome,” she said, almost as if to herself.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“A great warrior must always search for the enemy’s intentions and guard his own.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“changing her course several times. And when she spotted the flag raised over Master Chucai’s tent, she quickly”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“No one would be fooled, but propriety would be maintained.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“Men were drawn to civilization; only the most severe ascetic among them relished isolation. Penitent hermits craved seclusion. Being away from the squalor of humanity was an integral part of their spiritual monasticism. They could talk more readily to God in the silence of their mountaintop cave or their desert isolation. It was easier to believe that the voice you heard responding to your queries issued from a divine trumpet if there were no other souls nearby. But he was a soldier.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“Death itself was always quick, Raphael reflected, staring off at the distant horizon. It is the survivors who feel pain the longest.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three

“boy knows much about the layout of the Mongol camp.” The older man squeezed Hans’s”
― Neal Stephenson, The Mongoliad: Book Three