Melaine

“What?” The question seemed to explode out of him, with a greater degree of violence than he had intended. Taken by surprise, Horace’s bay shied in fright and danced several paces sideways. Horace turned an aggrieved look on his mentor as he calmed the horse and brought it back under control. “What?” he asked Halt, and the smaller man made a gesture of exasperation. “That’s what I want to know,” he said irritably. “What?” Horace peered at him. The look was all too obviously the sort of look that you give to someone who seems to have taken leave of his senses. It did little to improve Halt’s rapidly rising temper. “What?” said Horace, now totally puzzled. “Don’t keep parroting at me!” Halt fumed. “Stop repeating what I say! I asked you ‘what,’ so don’t ask me ‘what’ back, understand?” Horace considered the question for a second or two, then, in his deliberate way, he replied: “No.” Halt took a deep breath, his eyebrows contracted into a deep V, and beneath them his eyes sparked with anger. But before he could speak, Horace forestalled him. “What ‘what’ are you asking me?” he said. Then, thinking how to make his question clearer, he added, “Or to put it another way, why are you asking ‘what’?”
― John Flanagan, The Battle for Skandia