Home > Work > Kings of the Wyld (The Band, #1)
41 " For a while no one spoke, because in the roundaboutcourse of thirty-some years they had said just aboutall there was to say to one another, until finally Claycould 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. "
― Nicholas Eames , Kings of the Wyld (The Band, #1)
42 " 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. "
43 " 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. "
44 " A man needs food, beer, and a pot to piss in. "
45 " Clay smiled like a man who’d won first place in a “Whose Life Sucks the Most” contest. "
46 " 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. "
47 " Because even a misspent life, he reasoned, was worth remembering. "
48 " It was a kobold’s hovel, and that meant shithole. "
49 " 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. "
50 " Who didn’t enjoy the glassy stare of a severed animal’s head gazing down at them as they ate supper? "
51 " 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. "
52 " Lucky,” said Gabriel. Clay glanced at him sidelong. “I’m not sure that word means what you think it means.” “We "
53 " 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. "
54 " 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 "
55 " 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. "
56 " 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. "
57 " 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. "
58 " 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. "
59 " 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. "
60 " In reality, a giant died much the same way anything else did: screaming and shitting itself. "