Mark

“I sat on one of the sofas, pretending I wasn’t disconcerted by the music, which paused long enough for a new, more sorrowful tune to play out. I twiddled my thumbs. I stared at the fish and named it “Sparky.”
― K.S. Villoso, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro

“I swear to be your man," I said, looking into his pale eyes, "until your family is safe."
He hesitated. I had given him the oath, but I had qualified it.
I had let him know that I would not remain his man for ever, but he accepted my terms. He should have kissed me on both cheeks, but that would have disturbed Æthelflaed and so he raised my right hand and kissed the knuckles, then kissed the crucifix.
"Thank you," he said.
The truth, of course, was that Alfred was finished, but, with the perversity and arrogance of foolish youth, I had just given him my oath and promised to fight for him.
And all, I think, because a six-year-old stared at me. And she had hair of gold.”
― Bernard Cornwell, The Pale Horseman

“Oh the madness of battle! We fear it, we celebrate it, the poets sing of it, and when it fills the blood like fire it is a real madness. It is joy! All the terror is swept away, a man feels he could live for ever, he sees the enemy retreating, knows he himself is invincible, that even the gods would shrink from his blade and his bloodied shield. And I was still keening that mad song, the battle song of slaughter, the sound that blotted out the screams of dying men and the crying of the wounded. It is fear, of course, that feeds the battle madness, the release of fear into savagery. You win in the shield wall by being more savage than your enemy, by turning his savagery back into fear.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Warriors of the Storm

“I stood on the dead horse and spread my arms. I held the shield high to my left and the sword to my right, and my mail coat was spattered with blood and the snow fell about my wolf-crested helmet and all I knew was the young man's joy of slaughter. "I killed Ubba Lothbrokson!" I shouted at them. "I killed him! So come and join him! Taste his death! My sword wants you!”
― Bernard Cornwell, The Pale Horseman