'That they were, Isern. You saw how fast he died, how much the shock, how little the mercy that the lightning showed, well.' And Crummock's eyes slid across to Logen. 'That's what it'd be to cross that man there. One moment you'd say your hard word, the next?' He clapped his hands together with a crack and made the three children jump. 'He'd send you back to the mud. Faster than the sky killed Wilum, and with no more regret. Your life hangs on a thread, every moment you stand within two strides of that nothing-looking bastard there, does it not, Bloody-Nine?'

'Well…' Logen wasn't much enjoying this.

'How many men you killed then?' the girl shouted at him, sticking her chin out.

Crummock laughed and rubbed his hand in her hair. 'The numbers aren't made to count that high, Isern! He's the king of killers! No man made more deadly, not anywhere under the moon.'

'What about that Feared?' asked the boy with the spear.

'Ohhhhhh,' cooed Crummock, smiling right across his face. 'He's not a man, Scofen. He's something else. But I wonder. Fenris the Feared and the Bloody-Nine, setting to kill one another?' He rubbed his hands together. 'Now that is a thing I would like to see. That is a thing the moon would love to shine upon.' His eyes rolled up towards the sky and Logen followed them with his own. The moon was up there, sitting in the black heavens, big and white, glowing like new fire.

Horrible Old Men

« ^ »

The tall windows stood open, allowing a merciful breeze to wash through the wide salon, to give the occasional cooling kiss to Jezal's sweating face, to make the vast, antique hangings flap and rustle. Everything in the chamber was outsized—the cavernous doorways were three times as high as a man, and the ceiling, painted with the peoples of the world bowing down before an enormous golden sun, was twice as high again. The immense canvases on the walls featured life-size figures in assorted majestic poses, whose warlike expressions would give Jezal uncomfortable shocks whenever he turned around.

It seemed a space for great men, for wise men, for epic heroes or mighty villains. A space for giants. Jezal felt a tiny, meagre, stupid fool in it.

'Your arm, if it please your Majesty,' murmured one of the tailors, managing to give Jezal orders while remaining crushingly sycophantic.