Blood Song

War is always an adventure to those who've never seen it.

Knowledge is what shapes us, little brothers,” he told them, for once his smile was absent, his tone entirely serious. “It makes us who we are. What we know informs everything we do and every decision we make.

Speaking it aloud would reveal the absurdity of it, and he preferred the dream.

A fool is any man who doesn’t think he’s a fool.

Ignorant people will believe anything if they’re scared enough.

A man doesn't know his true strength until he fears for his life

Those who have not lived cannot meditate on the mysteries of life.

Between lovers, betrayal is always the worst sin.

When he visited the stables he found Spit also had a welcome waiting. It lasted a full two minutes and Master Rensial stated confidently it was the longest fart he had ever heard a horse produce.

Give them the right lie and they’ll believe it.

It was a curious effect of pain that time became infinite, every instant of agony prolonged to the ultimate.

Vaelin knew himself to be the best swordsman among them. Dentos was master of the bow, Barkus unarmed combat, Nortah the finest rider and Caenis knew the wild like a wolf, but the sword was his.

War is blood and shit…There’s no honour in it, Makril’s words.

Choice is a lie. The greatest of lies.

An hour later it had become obvious that as a swordsman Alucius made a fine poet.

What a burden it is to have an intelligent daughter. It goes against nature for wit to be bound up in so much beauty.

Sellin shrugged. “Times past, brother. Can’t live in ’em. Just learn from ’em.

A warrior’s song is a lonely tune Full of fire and gone too soon Warriors sing of fallen friends Lost battles and bloody ends…

I knew a man once,” Al Sorna continued, “who loved a woman very much. But he had a duty to perform, a duty he knew would cost him his life, and hers too if she stayed with him. And so he tricked her and had her taken far away. Sometimes that man tries to cast his thoughts across the ocean, to see if the love they shared has turned to hate, but he finds only distant echoes of her fierce compassion, a life saved here, a kindness done there, like smoke trailing after a blazing torch. And so he wonders, does she hate me? For she has much to forgive, and between lovers,” his gaze switched from her to me, “betrayal is always the worst sin.

Time is as much a delusion as your faith, brother. To look into the void is to see the vastness and smallness of everything at once, in an instant of terror and wonder.

It is the lessons we learn that change us from boys to men.

For nine more nights they trained, after an arduous day’s march, Vaelin would try to turn a poet into a swordsman.

An axe without a blade is just a stick.

I’ll fight but I won’t murder. His boyhood resolve coming back to him, the promise he had made to himself after saving them in the wild. I’ll kill men who face me in battle but I won’t take the sword to innocents. It felt so hollow now, so naïve.

Battle is a hard business, sister. Soft training will make for soft soldiers, who will in turn become soft corpses.

is just a word. You can’t eat it or drink it and yet everywhere I go men talk of it endlessly, and they all tell a different tale of what it actually means. For the Alpirans it’s all about duty, the Renfaelins think it’s the same as courage. In these islands it appears it means killing a son for a crime committed by his father then slaughtering a helpless man when the pantomime fails to go to plan.

There,” he said, pointing. “We’ll camp on the westward slope. No fires, and it would be greatly appreciated, Baron, if your men refrained from excessive noise.” “I’ll do what I can, my lord. But they’re not peasants, y’know. Can’t just flog them like your lot.” “Maybe you should, milord,” Dentos suggested. “Remind ‘em they bleed the same colour as us peasants.

War is never good for commerce. Lest your trading in steel o’course.