Kings Of The Wyld Quotes

WHEN WE SEEK TO RULE ONLY OURSELVES, WE ARE EACH OF US KINGS.

You should write a book," Matrick suggested. Kit snorted. "Who wants to read the self-pitying lamentations of an old revenant?" "There's your title right there," said Ganelon.

Clay pushed his body off him and mumbled another apology - because, enemy or not, when you hit a man in the nuts with a magic hammer the least you could say was sorry.

Watch this!” he said, and what happened next might have been extraordinarily funny were their lives not at stake. But they were, so it wasn’t.

But what does a mirror know? What can it show us of ourselves? Oh, it might reveal a few scars, and perhaps a glimpse—there, in the eyes—of our true nature. The spirit beneath the skin. Yet the deepest scars are often hidden, and though a mirror might reveal our weakness, it reflects only a fraction of our strength.

How do I look?" he asked. Barret grinned. "Old." Moog glanced over appraisingly. "Tired." Gabriel snorted a laugh. "Fuck you guys.

As individuals they were each of them fallible, discordant as notes without harmony. But as a band they were something more, something perfect in its own intangible way

Well, you see how big he was. Apparently he broke through a latrine seat and drowned in the sewage below.” A shitty way to go,

A tiger, however fearsome, could be hunted into a corner. It fought alone, so it died alone. But to hunt a wolf was to constantly look over your shoulder, wondering if others were behind you in the dark. “Lost?

Judge them for what they wished to be,” he begged the Father of Gods, “not what the world made of them.

Matrick plied his knives like a parade drummer, his rhythm so fast his enemies didn’t know he’d murdered them until their god asked them if they took milk in their tea

Clay smiled like a man who’d won first place in a “Whose Life Sucks the Most

We were giants once, remember? Kings of the Wyld.

Who says vanquish anymore?" Moog breathed. People who vanquished things, Clay supposed.

he had long since learned that harbouring regrets was akin to stashing embers in your pockets: it was pointless and bound to hurt.

And so it goes, thought Clay. Life was funny, and fickle, and often cruel. Sometimes the unworthy went on living, while those who deserved better was lost. Or not lost, he considered, since they lingered on in the hearts of those who loved them, who love them still, their memory nurtured like a sprig of green in an otherwise desolate soul. Which was, he supposed, a kind of immortality, after all.

Ganelon sighed. "Slowhand..." "Never again," Clay said. "Where you stand, I stand.

But life, Clay knew, didn’t work that way. It wasn’t a circle; you didn’t go round and round again. It was an arc, its course as inexorable as the sun’s trek across the sky, destined at its highest, brightest moment to begin its fall.

Among them is a renegade king, he who sired five royal heirs without ever unzipping his pants. A man to whom time has imparted great wisdom and an even greater waistline, whose thoughtless courage is rivalled only by his unquenchable thirst. At his shoulder walks a sorcerer, a cosmic conversationalist. Enemy of the incurable rot, absent chairman of combustive sciences at the university in Oddsford, and the only living soul above the age of eight to believe in owlbears. Look here at a warrior born, a scion of power and poverty whose purpose is manifold: to shatter shackles, to murder monarchs, and to demonstrate that even the forces of good must sometimes enlist the service of big, bad motherfuckers. His is an ancient soul destined to die young. And now comes the quiet one, the gentle giant, he who fights his battles with a shield. Stout as the tree that counts its age in aeons, constant as the star that marks true north and shines most brightly on the darkest nights. A step ahead of these four: our hero. He is the candle burnt down to the stump, the cutting blade grown dull with overuse. But see now the spark in his stride. Behold the glint of steel in his gaze. Who dares to stand between a man such as this and that which he holds dear? He will kill, if he must, to protect it. He will die, if that is what it takes. “Go get the boss,” says one guardsman to another. “This bunch looks like trouble.” And they do. They do look like trouble, at least until the wizard trips on the hem of his robe. He stumbles, cursing, and fouls the steps of the others as he falls face-first onto the mud-slick hillside.

What was it about fathers, Clay wondered, that compelled so many of them to test their children? To insist that a daughter, or a son, prove themselves worthy of a love their mother offered without condition?

Judge them for what they wished to be,” he begged the Father of Gods, “not what the world made of them.” The

A battle, as relayed by a poet, is a glorious thing, full of heroic stands, daring charges, and valiant sacrifice. But a battlefield, as experienced by some poor bastard mired in the thick of it, is something different altogether. The word clusterfuck came to mind.

This day,” said Gabriel, “this moment, is when you step out from the shadow of the past. Today you make your name. Today your legend is born. Come tomorrow, every tale the bards tell will belong to you, because today we save the world!” Clay sighed in relief. There’d been a hammer, after all. Gabriel tore Vellichor from its scabbard and leveled it at the encroaching Horde. “This is not a choice between life and death, but life and immortality! Remain here and die in obscurity, or follow me now and live forever!

If it sounds like a sheep but looks like a lion, it's probably a lion.

they passed through the wide-open gates into the city whose parents had hired a prostitute as a babysitter and never come home. The

Saying glory to a warrior was like saying walk to a dog—you got its tail wagging, sure as shit. “Because

Be careful of making friends out of enemies, lest they remember why they didn't like you in the first place.

In stories, when a giant was slain, it toppled thunderously to the ground. In reality, a giant died much the same way anything else did: screaming and shitting itself.

What a nice bunch of girls,” declared Matrick, watching her go. “They certainly were,” Gabe agreed. “I mean, they made us breakfast and everything,” said Moog, and the other two nodded. Which left Clay to state the obvious. “Y’all are fucking crazy,” he said.

This is not a choice between life and death, but life and immortality! Remain here and die in obscurity, or follow me now and live forever!

(...) Clay knew better. He and Gabriel had been friends for thirty-five years, and Gabe had been talking him into doing recklessly stupid shit for damn near all of them. He was a charismatic craftsman: every heart a furnace, every soul a blade.

Pike,” Clay said by way of greeting. “Heard you were dead.” “Close. Married.

Despite this, his prejudice against helmets remained unchanged. You had your pride, Ganelon had told him once, or you had nothing.

and in the ensuing silence Clay heard the quiet but ominous thud of Ganelon setting his beer down on the table.

a little embellishment was so often the difference between a good story and a great one.

The pool,” said Kallorek, pointing. “The pool, right there.” “You mean the pond?” “I mean the pool,” growled the booker. “Get in. Swim.” He accompanied these words with effusive gestures that set his jewellery ringing. Clay examined the pond. “Swim to where?” he asked. “What do you mean swim to where?” Kallorek’s brow deepened. “Is it a healing spring?” Gabe asked. He flexed his arm, wincing as he extended it fully. “Because I think my elbow—” “Listen, fuck your elbow!” Kallorek blew up. Clay had forgotten how short the booker’s fuse was. That big toothy smile one moment, and the next …“It ain’t a spring, or a pond, or a godsdamned sea nymph’s bathtub. It’s a fucking pool. Just a pool! You swim around in it to relax.

Because even a misspent life, he reasoned, was worth remembering.

What's that, honey? What was I doing while Uncle Gabe was dueling a god with all of civilization at stake? Why, I was wrestling in the muck with an exceptionally tenacious cow.

He considered going for his hammer, which lay just out of reach, or maybe diving for Ganelon instead, since waking the warrior was probably his best hope of survival.

Clay smiled like a man who’d won first place in a “Whose Life Sucks the Most” contest.

A man needs food, beer, and a pot to piss in.

For a while no one spoke, because in the roundabout course of thirty-some years they had said just about all there was to say to one another, until finally Clay could bear the silence no longer and cleared his throat. “I love you guys,” he said, and gods-be-damned if his voice didn’t sell him out at the end and crack like a boy of twelve summers.

A pinecone?” “Ha! Can you imagine? All this at stake and I give you a pinecone?” Moog’s cackle died in silence, and everyone simply stared until he went on. “Okay, yes, it’s a pinecone. But it’s a magic pinecone.

And what are those things that look like dragons and sound like dragons?” he asked facetiously. “I believe they’re called dragons, boss.” “Thank you, Ashe.” He sighed heavily and dragged his fingers through his shaggy hair.

Clay found himself wondering what the Council of Courts etiquette was regarding vomiting your breakfast onto your boots. He suddenly wished he were elsewhere, anywhere—or better yet, someone else entirely. A simple man doing simple things. A cobbler, maybe. Cobblers rarely, if ever, made enemies of vengeful immortals, or so he figured.

It was a kobold’s hovel, and that meant shithole.

Who didn’t enjoy the glassy stare of a severed animal’s head gazing down at them as they ate supper?

Sounds better than being a king," said Matrick. Kit nodded. "It was - until a plague tore through the village and killed every man, woman, and child in the tribe. I was left alone to do whatever gods do once all who believe in them are dust.

Don’t be a corpse, Clay prayed under his breath. Please, don’t be a corpse. Moog had been a staunch enemy of necromancy his entire life, but when you left lonely old wizards in ancient towers for too long, it stood to reason they’d start meddling with dark and unfathomable powers sooner or later.

The ghoul cracked a smile like a coffin’s lid sliding ajar. “I’m glad you found me, too,” he said. “It will be my honour to tell your story. It has been vastly entertaining thus far. I do hope it has a happy ending, though.” “It won’t,” Matrick murmured. “It will,” Gabe assured them. “It might,” Clay said.

The ship, which appeared to belong to another band, was just passing by for a look. She was bigger than the Old Glory, but not by much. The words Lucky Seven had been painted on her belly, but the seven had been crossed out, as had the six below it. The word five was scrawled underneath, but Clay only spotted four people at the rail and wondered silently if the ship was due for another paint job.

But even a coward found his courage in a corner, and there were things even a craven heart could not allow.

And so it goes, thought Clay. Life was funny, and fickle, and often cruel. Sometimes the unworthy went on living, while those who deserved better were lost.

We are each what the past has made of us. You would do well to remember what has come and gone before. Time is a circle, history a turning wheel.

You don't find glory at a fair. It isn't something that just lands in your lap. You need to go after it and take it for yourself.

This day, this moment, is when you step out from the shadow of the past. Today you make your name. Today your legend is born. Come tomorrow, every tale the bards tell will belong to you, because today we save the world!

We were giants, once,” he said. “Bigger than life. And now …” “Now we are tired old men,” Clay muttered, to no one but the night. And what was so wrong with that? He’d met plenty of actual giants in his day, and most of them were assholes.

Or not lost, he considered, since they lingered on in the hearts of those who loved them, who love them still, their memory nurtured like a sprig of green in an otherwise desolate soul. Which was, he supposed, a kind of immortality, after all.

The druins were brilliant craftsmen and powerful sorcerers, who ruled with the liberty of gods over the then-primitive tribes of men and monsters. But as with anything that grows too big for its own good—ambitious spiderwebs, for instance, or those giant, late-harvest pumpkins—it became something altogether monstrous, and eventually collapsed on itself. The

I screwed the King of the Man-whores—condom-free—in a damned shed, because I’m classy like that.

Alchemy is a costly hobby, I fear. I barely make ends meet selling my phylactery. Frigid Hells, if it wasn't for the limp dicks of Conthas I'd be flat broke!

He had heard it said by an exceptionally clever bard that if you tried to number the ways you could die in the Heartwyld you’d be dead before you finished counting.

to be courageous you had to first know fear.

Griff trundled over to his mat and gave his balls a few good licks before promptly falling asleep. Clay fought down a surge of envy, seeing that.

In reality, a giant died much the same way anything else did: screaming and shitting itself.

They both looked to Clay, who was busy weighing the threat of the darkness ahead against the darkness behind. At last he sighed. “Into the storm, then.

There were, naturally, several casualties during the course of the fair, but what was any good party without a few deaths?

Where you stand, I stand.

I spat in the face of death, and death could do nothing but rage in impotence as I worked up another mouthful of phlegm.

You run away as fast as you can, and I give you a five-second head start before I tell these boys —” he motioned at the two looming sentinels “—to make you the meat in a golem sandwich.

I just wanted her to be able to protect herself. You know, stick ’em with the pointy end and all that. But she wanted more. She wanted to be…” he paused, searching for the word, “… great.

Ah, yes, I do have erectile dysfunction by the throat!” He gave a derisive snort and curled his fingers around the imaginary neck of … well, Clay let that image slide right on out of mind.

Would you look at us, Clay thought scathingly. We, who might once have faced down a dragon and only stopped to ask how it preferred to get its ass kicked, baulking at glow-in-the-dark spiders!

A tiger, however fearsome, could be hunted into a corner. It fought alone, so it died alone. But to hunt a wolf was to constantly look over your shoulder, wondering if others were behind you in the dark.

Look here at a warrior born, a scion of power and poverty whose purpose is manifold: to shatter shackles, to murder monarchs, and to demonstrate that even the forces of good must sometimes enlist the service of big, bad motherfuckers. His is an ancient soul destined to die young.

Clay considered offering up the fact that it wasn’t just Saga coming to her rescue, but a wine-swilling ghoul, an amnesiac daeva, and a half-blind ettin were along for the ride as well. Then again, if something sounded ridiculous in your head, then voicing it aloud rarely did it any favours.

In stories there were marches without weeping foot sores, swordfights without septic wounds that killed heroes in their sleep. In stories, when a giant was slain, it toppled thunderously to the ground. In reality, a giant died much the same way anything else did: screaming and shitting itself.

Clay found himself smiling, recalling the first time he and his bandmates had paraded the spoils of their own Heartwyld tour down this very same street –not that there was much to recall, since they’d all been blind drunk at the time. Moog had slept through most of it; Matrick had fallen from the wagon into the crowd and was missing for three days.

The monstrous wolf was the size of a Cascar plow horse, and Clay had just begun composing his death scream – he was thinking something high-pitched, sort of, er, 'falling from a great height' meets, 'I just shat my pants' with a touch of, 'petulant little girl doesn't get her way' thrown in to spice things up – when he heard a deep growling behind him.

There were men moving up the street, four abreast and three ranks deep, armed with cudgels and oval shields. They hadn’t resorted to violence yet, but had managed to clear a good length of street behind them with iron glares and those big shields. Behind them walked a man in soiled leathers with a wolf’s pelt draped over his head. He raised his arms and called out to the crowd. “Good people of Conthas! Hear me!” Clay searched the crowd for good people and came up short, but Wolfhead went on nevertheless.

Here's to moist britches and the boundless, irrational optimism of youth!

The first of these was the owlbear, a mythical creature that no one alive had ever seen but whose existence Moog (along with a pathetically small society of owlbear enthusiasts) staunchly asserted.

Because, enemy or not, when you hit a man in the nuts with a magic hammer the least you could say was sorry.

Behind them came their warchief, Sicklung, limping in his fetters, sporting a face so battered and bruised he looked ugly even by the notoriously low standards of goblinkind.

For three riotous days in late fall, every band, bard, and booker in each of the five courts gathered to fight, fuck, and drink themselves blind.

The door was suddenly thrown open, and there was Moog. He was wearing what looked to Clay like one-piece pyjamas: tiny moons and stars scattered across a dark blue sky. He was skinny as ever, and his long beard was white as cotton. He’d gone bald up top, but the fringe that remained was long and wisp thin. His eyes were the same startling blue beneath bushy white brows. “Gabriel! Clay!” The wizard cackled delightedly and did a little dance that only reinforced the fact that he was dressed like a child,

It also didn’t help that scrubbing one’s scalp with a druin’s blood was said to cure baldness – this dubious fact alone made them fair game for bounty hunters the world over.

It was, however, very angry. The moment it saw Moog the treant began thrashing against the cords binding it to the table. The branches too small to serve as limbs all strained toward the wizard, seeking to grasp hold of him. Though this creature looked far too frail to threaten a full-grown man, Clay was reminded again of Hollow Hill. The treants there had been huge and hale, capable of swallowing men whole or snapping them, ironically, like twigs.

Glancing around, Clay saw the heavy lid of the sarcophagus Gabe and Kal had each tripped over sliding ajar. A pair of desiccated fingers scrabbled around the edge, seeking purchase. Whatever Kit the Unkillable was –and Clay was fairly certain it wasn’t necessarily alive –was about to break free.

was

He was ugly as a rain cloud on a wedding day, that one.

Clay had once tried describing to his wife the difference between a wyvern and a dragon. They were each vaguely reptilian, he’d admitted, and covered with metallic scales. They shared commonalities like razor-sharp fangs and claws that could punch through an iron breastplate as though it were made of eggshell. They both had leathery wings and sinuous necks, and were equally capable of shearing a man in half with a snap of the tail. Ginny had stopped him there to point out what a piss-poor job he was doing of differentiating the two, whereupon Clay was forced to concede that there was essentially no difference between them whatsoever.

The company from Phantra was entirely female. The Salt Queen’s kingdom was matriarchal: the sailors, soldiers, and laborers were commonly men, while women formed the core of the merchant class and held most of the senior positions in both the government and the military.

The druin stopped where he was. He didn’t appear to notice the king had spoken. The wyvern craned its neck and lowered its head so the druin could stroke the glossy scales along its jaw. Clay assumed the beast was a matriarch, since it was twice the size of most wyverns he’d seen, and he’d seen quite a few. The creature emitted a sound like ten thousand cats purring at once, and the ribbed fins along her neck and below her chin vibrated in pleasure.

The druins, Clay knew, possessed something Vespian had referred to as “the prescience,” which gave them insight into the very near future. It meant they often knew your mind a moment before you spoke it, and made even the kindest druin seem impatient, since they sometimes replied to something you hadn’t quite finished saying. And of course it made them real nasty fuckers in a fight.

I’ll be a troll’s new testicle, I still can’t believe it.

And then came the cyclops.” “Cyclops?” Gabriel looked at him askance. “Big bastards, one huge eye right here on their head?” Clay leveled a glare of his own. “I know what a cyclops is, asshole.” “Then why did you ask?” “I didn’t …” Clay faltered. “Never mind. What about the cyclops?” Gabriel

I suppose I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs,” said Kit, then favoured Gabriel with a grisly smile. “Also, I feel it necessary to point out that I am what is known as a revenant—or a ghoul, if you’d prefer. Either will suffice. But I am most certainly not a zombie.” “Ghoul, zombie … what’s the difference?” asked Matrick. “There are several, in fact. Most notable, however, is that zombies eat people.” “And what do you eat?” Kit sipped his wine, looking thoughtful. “Anything but people,” he said.

(...) stämmig wie der Baum, der sein Alter in Äonen zählt, und beständig wie der Stern, der den wahren Norden markiert und in den dunkelsten Nächten am hellsten strahlt.

Nine hearts shared a scale with the leaden weight of fear, and even the stoutest watched the balance tip against them.