Bernard Cornwell Quotes

Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.

We should know who they are," I said, "before we kill them. That's just being polite.

He has a mouth, lord," Gerbruht said."I envy him," I said."Envy him, lord?""Most of us have to lower our trews to shit.

If they saw men swarming up the wall, if they saw the axes chopping at our shields on the wall’s top, then they would join the battle. Men want to be on the winning side.

Serpent-Breath was famous...Wasp-Sting, short and lethal.

That joy. That madness. The gods must feel this way every moment of every day. It is as if the world slows. You see the attacker, you see him shouting, though you hear nothing, and you know what he will do, and all his movements are so slow and yours are so quick, and in that moment you can do no wrong and you will live forever and your name will be blazoned across the heavens in a glory of white fire because you are the god of battle.

Thirty paces, twenty, and you can see the eyes of the men who will try to kill you, and see the spear-blades, and the instinct is to stop, to straighten the shields. We cringe from battle, fear claws at us, time seems to stop, there is silence though a thousand men shout, and at that moment, when terror savages the heart like a trapped beast, you must hurl yourself into the horror.Because the enemy feels the same.And you have come to kill him. You are the beast from his nightmares.

Men do not relish the shield wall. They do not rush to death's embrace. You look ahead and see the overlapping shields, the helmets, the glint of axes and spears and swords, and you know you must go into the reach of those blades, into the place of death, and it takes time to summon the courage, to heat the blood, to let the madness overtake caution.