" Have you ever fought in a battle? I know you burned down my barns, but that isn’t a battle, you stinking piece of rat-gristle. A battle is the shield wall. It’s smelling your enemy’s breath while he tries to disembowel you with an ax, it’s blood and shit and screams and pain and terror. It’s trampling in your friends’ guts as enemies butcher them. It’s men clenching their teeth so hard they shatter them. Have you ever been in a battle? "

― Bernard Cornwell , The Pagan Lord (The Saxon Stories, #7)