The Heroes

Highlights

Page 206

But mostly, if he was honest, from the fear he’d end up getting killed at the top. He’d never laid claim to being a brave man and he’d only got more cowardly with age. Strange thing, that – the fewer years you have to lose the more you fear the losing of ’em. Maybe a man just gets a stock of courage when he’s born, and wears it down with each scrape he gets into.

Page 701

‘What’s going on?’ asked Stodder, in that stodgy-stupid voice of his. ‘They’re at a bit of sacking.’ ‘But … ain’t this our town?’ Flood shrugged. ‘They fought for it. Some of ’em died for it. They ain’t leaving empty-handed.’

Page 240

‘Bread and cheese.’ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. ‘Just the same as I’ve got.’ And he bit a lump off the cheese and tossed it to Scorry. Whirrun sighed. ‘Have none of you no vision?’ He held up his masterpiece to such light as there was, which was almost none. ‘This is no more bread and cheese than a fine axe is wood and iron, or a live person is meat and hair.’ ‘What is it, then?’ asked Drofd, rocking back from his wet wood and tossing the flint aside in disgust. ‘A whole new thing. A forging of the humble parts of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it … a cheese-trap.’ Whirrun took a dainty nibble from one corner. ‘Oh, yes, my friends. This tastes like … progress. Works with ham, too. Works with anything.’ ‘You should try it with a turd,’ said Wonderful.

Page 398

‘Men listened because they knew he had iron in him!’ Scale smashed the arm of his chair with his fist, wood cracking, struck it again and broke it off, sent it clattering across the boards. ‘Do you know what I remember him telling me? “Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter. So when you talk, bring your sword.”’ He stood, and tossed something across the room. Calder squeaked, half-caught it, half-hit painfully in the chest by it. Heavy and hard, metal gleaming faintly. His sheathed sword. ‘Come outside.’ Scale loomed over him. ‘And bring your sword.’

Page 417

‘Whatever we’ve lost, we’ve got each other still.’ Scale put his big hand on Calder’s shoulder. ‘It’s not easy, is it? Being a great man’s son. You’d have thought it would come with all kinds of advantages – with borrowed admiration, and respect. But it’s only as easy as it is for the seeds of a great tree, trying to grow in its choking shadow. Not many make it to the sunlight for themselves.’ ‘Aye.’ Calder didn’t mention that being a great man’s younger son was twice the trial. Then you’ve two trees to take the axe to before you can spread your leaves in the sunshine.

Page 735

There was a whole set of grins pointed at him. As if he’d said something funny. As if he’d done something great. It didn’t feel that way to Calder. He’d just had the idea, which had been no effort at all, and set other men to work out how, and others still to take the risks. Hardly seemed possible that Calder’s father had earned his great reputation like this. But maybe that’s how the world works. Some men are made for doing violence. Some are meant for planning it. Then there are a special few whose talent is for taking the credit.

Page 203

‘Is it “Lord Bayaz” or is there a better term of address for the First of the Magi?’ She pushed some hair out of her face but the wind soon whipped it back. ‘Your Grace, or your Wizardship, or ‘your Magicosity?’ ‘I try not to stand on ceremony.’ ‘How does one become First of the Magi, anyway?’ ‘I was the first apprentice of great Juvens.’ ‘And did he teach you magic?’ ‘He taught me High Art.’ ‘Why don’t you do some then, instead of making men fight?’ ‘Because making men fight is easier. Magic is the art and science of forcing things to behave in ways that are not in their nature.’ Bayaz took a slow sip from his cup, watching her over the rim. ‘There is nothing more natural to men than to fight. You are recovered, I hope, from your ordeal yesterday?’ ‘Ordeal? I’ve almost forgotten about it already! My father suggested that I act as though this is just another day. Then, perhaps it will be one. Any other day I would spend feverishly trying to advance my husband’s interests, and therefore my own.’ She grinned sideways. ‘I am venomously ambitious.’ Bayaz’ green eyes narrowed. ‘A characteristic I have always found most admirable.’ ‘Meed was killed.’ His mouth opening and closing silently like a fish snatched from the river, plucking at the great rent in his crimson uniform, crashing over with papers sliding across his back. ‘I daresay you are in need of a new lord governor of Angland.’ ‘His Majesty is.’ The Magus heaved up a sigh. ‘But making such a powerful appointment is a complicated business. No doubt some relative of Meed expects and demands the post, but we cannot allow it to become some family bauble. I daresay a score of other great magnates of the Open Council think it their due, but we cannot raise one man too close in power to the crown. The closer they come the less they can resist reaching for it, as your father-in-law could no doubt testify. We could elevate some bureaucrat but then the Open Council would rail about stoogery and they are troublesome enough as it is. So many balances to strike, so many rivalries, and jealousies, and dangers to navigate. It’s enough to make one abandon politics altogether.’ ‘Why not my husband?’ Bayaz cocked his head on one side. ‘You are very frank.’ ‘I seem to be, this morning.’ ‘Another characteristic I have always found most admirable.’ ‘By the Fates, I’m admirable!’ she said, hearing the door clatter shut on Aliz’ sobs. ‘I am not sure how much support I could raise for your husband, however.’ Bayaz wrinkled his lip as he tossed the dregs from his cup into the dewy grass. ‘His father stands among the most infamous traitors in the history of the Union.’ ‘Too true. And the greatest of all the Union’s noblemen, the first man on the Open Council, only a vote away from the crown.’ She spoke without considering the consequences any more than a spinning stone considers the water it skims across. ‘When his lands were seized, his power snuffed out as though it had never existed, I would have thought the nobles…

Note: Best section of the book

Page 361

‘The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.’

Page 564

General Jalenhorm leaned close and patted his shoulder. ‘There’s no shame in being scared. Bravery is being scared, and doing it anyway.’

Note: I thought this was from Game of Thrones but actually it was from Patton’s speech

Page 393

‘He’s a right fucking killer, your man there,’ said Dow, more or less summing up Craw’s thoughts. The girl looked over her shoulder. ‘He is …’ searching for the right words. ‘The king’s watcher.’ Dow snorted. ‘He did a bit more’n fucking watch today. He’s got a devil in him, and I mean that as a compliment. Man like him could do well over on our side o’ the Whiteflow. He was a Northman he’d be in all the songs. Shit, might be he’d be a king instead o’ just watching one.’ Dow smiled that killing smile he had. ‘Ask him if he wants to work for me.’ The girl opened her mouth but the neckless one spoke first, with a thick accent and the strangest, high, girlish little voice Craw had ever heard on a man. ‘I am happy where I am.’ Dow raised one brow. “Course you are. Real happy. Must be why you’re so damn good at killing men.’

Page 901

Dow stood his sword up on its end. ‘What you going to do?’ ‘I was a carpenter. A thousand bloody years ago. Thought I might go back to it. Work some wood. You might shape a coffin or two, but you don’t bury many friends in that trade.’ ‘Huh.’ Dow twisted the pommel gently between finger and thumb, the end of the sheath twisting into the dirt. ‘Already buried all mine. Except the ones I made my enemies. Maybe that’s where every fighter’s road leads, eh?’ ‘If you follow it far enough.’ Craw stood there a moment longer but Dow didn’t answer. So he took a breath, and he turned to go. ‘It was pots for me.’ Craw stopped, hand on the doorknob, hairs prickling all the way up his neck. But Black Dow was just stood there, looking down at his hand. His scarred, and scabbed, and calloused hand. ‘I was apprentice to a potter.’ Dow snorted. ‘A thousand bloody years ago. Then the wars came, and I took up a sword instead. Always thought I’d go back to it, but … things happen.’ He narrowed his eyes, gently rubbing the tip of his thumb against the tips of his fingers. ‘The clay … used to make my hands … so soft. Imagine that.’ And he looked up, and he smiled. ‘Good luck, Craw.’

Page 775

And he slid his father’s sword from his belt, held it for a moment, then offered it out to her. ‘Can you put this away?’ ‘Where?’ ‘Anywhere I don’t have to look at it.’ She took it from him, and it felt like a weight he didn’t have to carry no more. ‘Seems like good things can come back from the wars,’ she said. ‘Coming back’s the only good thing I could see.’ He leaned down and set a log on the block, spat on one palm and took up the wood axe. The haft felt good in his hands. Familiar. It fitted ’em better than the sword ever had, that was sure. He swung it down and two neat halves went tumbling. He was no hero, and never would be. He was made to chop logs, not to fight. And that made him lucky. Luckier’n Reft, or Stodder, or Brait. Luckier’n Drofd or Whirrun of Bligh. Luckier’n Black Dow, even. He worked the axe clear of the block and stood back. They don’t sing many songs about log-splitters, maybe, but the lambs were bleating, up on the fells out of sight, and that sounded like music. Sounded a sweeter song to him then than all the hero’s lays he knew. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of grass and woodsmoke. Then he opened ’em, and looked across the valley. Skin all tingling with the peace of that moment. Couldn’t believe he used to hate this place. Didn’t seem so bad, now. Didn’t seem so bad at all.

Page 105

The blush of shock was fading now, her face hard with growing anger, jaw muscles clenched. ‘What happened in Sipani?’ And now it was his cheeks that burned. As if the name was a slap. ‘I was betrayed.’ He tried to make the last word stab at her as it stabbed him, but his voice had lost all its edge. ‘I was made the scapegoat.’ A goat’s plaintive bleating, indeed. ‘After all my loyalty, all my diligence …’ He fumbled for more words but his voice was not used to making them, fading into a squeaky whine as she bared her teeth. ‘I heard when they came for the king you were passed out drunk with a whore.’ Gorst swallowed. But he could hardly deny it. Stumbling from that room, head spinning, struggling to fasten his belt and draw his sword at once. ‘I heard it was not the first time you had disgraced yourself, and that the king had forgiven you before, and that the Closed Council would not let him do it again.’ She looked him up and down, and her lip curled. ‘God of the battlefield, eh? Gods and devils can look much alike to us little people. You went to a ford, and a bridge, and a hill, and what did you do there except kill? What have you made? Who have you helped?’ He stood there for a moment, all his bravado slithering out. She is right. And no one knows it better than me. ‘Nothing and no one,’ he whispered. ‘So you love war. I used to think you were a decent man. But I see now I was mistaken.’ She stabbed at his chest with her forefinger. ‘You’re a hero.’ She turned with one last look of excruciating contempt and left him standing among the wounded.

Note: So he’s an asshole too. Unsurprising. But his inner thoughts have all been bleak af.

Page 294

He looked around at that one room, and the few things in it. He’d always thought retiring would be going back to his life after some nightmare pause. Some stretch of exile in the land of the dead. Now it came to him that all his life worth living had happened while he was holding a sword. Standing alongside his dozen. Laughing with Whirrun, and Brack, and Wonderful. Clasping hands with his crew before the fight, knowing he’d die for them and they for him. The trust, the brotherhood, the love, knit closer than family. Standing by Threetrees on the walls of Uffrith, roaring their defiance at Bethod’s great army. The day he charged at the Cumnur. And at Dunbrec. And in the High Places, even though they lost. Because they lost. The day he earned his name. Even the day he got his brothers killed. Even when he’d stood at the top of the Heroes as the rain came down, watching the Union come, knowing every dragged-out moment might be the last. Like Whirrun had said – you can’t live more’n that. Certainly not by fixing a chair. ‘Ah, shit,’ he muttered, and he grabbed his sword-belt and his coat, threw ’em over his shoulder and strode out, slapping the door shut. Didn’t even bother to lock it behind him. ‘Hardbread! Wait up!’

Note: Predictable

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