Harzoo," the big man said.

Quentyn frowned. "His name was Harghaz."

"Hizdahr, Humsum, Hagnag, what does it matter? I call them all Harzoo."

Sometimes he wanted to slap her, shake her, scream at her, anything to wake her from her dreams. No one is going to save us, he wanted to scream at her. The worst is yet to come. Yet he could somehow never say the words. Instead of giving her a good hard crack across that ugly face of hers to knock the blinders from her eyes, he would find himself squeezing her shoulder or giving her a hug. Every touch is a lie. I have paid her so much false coin that she half thinks she's rich.

It would never do to come before this queen without a retinue of his own, if half of what they said of her was true. She might mistake him for a stableboy and hand him the reins of her horse.

This march was madness. More dying every day, and for what? Some girl?"

"Ned's girl," said Morgan Little.

For Graham's mother there was little to choose between Jews and Catholics. The Jews had holidays that turned up out of the blue and the Catholics had children in much the same way.

But in the back of his mind a small foreign man with glasses was bleeding and confused and then dead for no reason at all except that he'd once been alive.

Don't get smart with me, you little bastard," Rudy said and he tipped the bottle toward his mouth in that futile gesture that wanted a drink and couldn't have it. "I'm just trying to to be the good guy and lend you a hand. If you don't want it, then you can jump off the building and play tag with the walking dead and see if I give a damn. Here's a hint: I won't."

Fatima looked at me like I'd finally screwed my head on straight.

The tent is draped with strings of bare bulbs, with bits of mirror tied here and there to make it sparkle. (It doesn't look shabby until you've already paid.)

'How long has this been going on, Croaker? Seems like forever, doesn't it? Can you even remember a time wen you weren't a soldier? What's the point? Why are we even here? We keep winning battles, but the Lady is losing the war. Why don't they just call the whole thing off and go home?'

When I reflect on my companions' inner natures i usually wish i controlled one small talent. I wish I could look inside them and unmask the darks and brights that move them. Then I take a quick look into the jungle of my own soul and thank heaven I cannot.

'They're drunk,' the Captain told him.

'We're drunk,' One-Eye agreed. 'We're palpably, plausibly, pukingly drunk.'

The legate, the terror called Soulcatcher in old tales, a devil worse than any dozen forvalaka, laughed madly. His crewmen cringed. A great joke, enlisting the Black Company in the service of evil. A great city taken and little villains suborned. A truly cosmic jest.

Maati didn't answer. He was only cold, inside and out. Heshai glanced over at him and sighed. His thick-fingered hand patted Maati's knee the way his father might have had the world been something other than what it was.

In clouds of spinning dust and pelting rubble, in the wild fires of chaotic magic, the dragons returned to the world.

Woman, you should never have let me go. I should have given you that power over me.

'Twenty Kenyll'rah demons? What is this, some bad fairy tale? Why not a demon king? Or a giant three-headed ogre with scorpion tails at the end of every finger and a big one on his cock for added measure? Breathing fire out his arse, too.'

'Fine, so my imagination's failed. Sorry about that- I ain't no spinner of decent tales, Hedge.'

'I'll say. What else should I know? We got to kiss that fucking heart awake once we get it? Put a hat on it? Dance fucking circles around it? Gods, no more blood sacrifice- that stuff creeps me out.'