Janet Morris - The Sacred Band (2010)

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And Tempus thought then that nothing was more worthwhile than what was growing in this whitewashed barracks, where he has come to build a force such as men or gods have never seen - a force worth reckoning with, if you were of a mind. And something was of that mind. And something else opposed it. He should have expected that. Battle in the heavens, battle on the earth.

Janet Morris
Why is it we are always the targets of the angry Fates? Twice as many men of ours met harm as did theirs, since we've come here.

Janet Morris
Fight for life itself and everlasting freedom of the human spirit.

Janet Morris
Be polite to all, friendly to none. Be professional. Be ready to kill everyone and everything.

Janet Morris
Gods colliding, ethos and mythos trying to combine. The Sacred Band caught up in a whirlwind not of any god's devising: he and Niko had wanted to save twenty-three pairs of fated Theban fighters. Now everything feels fated and fighting oversweeps its boundaries of time and place and plane.

Janet Morris
Listen close and you can hear, Please, bless us and forgive us, and make us good here and strong here. Let us get along here. Let those we love and left behind be blessed. Let us find the proper path and keep to it. Help us act harmoniously, and find work pleasing in the sight of god and man.

Janet Morris
He loves the world so much. I agree it would be a shame to take that love away from meadow and tree, stream and sky, and all that lives in nature, and leave them lonely.

Janet Morris
Keep your enemies at a distance, your partners close at hand.

Janet Morris
What we hold sacred is honor, justice, and glory. You need not swear allegiance to our storm god, to serve with us. Fighters are among us from many lands, with many gods and many beliefs. Believe as you will. What is between a man and his god is theirs alone to say.

Janet Morris
Revenge is never the best driver for a battle, but a common one.

Janet Morris
Men may not believe you, my son. But you must always say the truth, when the truth holds no danger for you or your loved ones.

Janet Morris
If cities have souls, Sanctuary's was troubled long before Tempus got here, and will be troubled long after he and his are gone.

Janet Morris
Strife brings all things into being on her battlefield. This I know. I have been there many times," says Vashanka, lord of sack and pillage. "I have died before.

Janet Morris
Only from chaos does order come. The angry Fates bring death where they will, when war is king, says Enlil, storm god of the armies, and the tip of his crown rends the clouds above their heads. "Wheresoever I rule, death comes shambling after. So it has always been, is, and will be."

Janet Morris
Stop grieving. Start giving thanks to me. You live to fight on other days.

Janet Morris
The Fates are here because of supernal anger, celestial imbalance, and arrogance of men and gods that must be curbed.

Janet Morris
This was what men fought for, what men died for: a chance at life, and to fight on other days - the battle of your choice, of the body, or the heart, or the soul.

Janet Morris
The two stallions, the silver and the black, represent the equine god (whomsoever horses pray to) in this ritual so ancient that no one knows what god to thank.

Janet Morris
We fouled up. I did. He got hurt. Badly, maybe. And the god...is not helping him today.

Janet Morris
The city guardsmen were like the keres, doom-bringers of merciless vengeance.

Janet Morris
There is no mercy in trading life for life. And certainly no righteousness. Mercy, once given, cannot be taken back.

Janet Morris
If, as you teach, the universe has no beginning and no end, why should we?

Janet Morris
You three have done quite enough today: all of you and your feckless, treacherous god.

Janet Morris
Each soul has its appointed doom. How is it you dare to raise a mortal boy so high - high enough to flout the gods? Bring godhead where a man may reach out and take it? growls Enlil, and lightning splits a clear blue sky.

Janet Morris
Tempus would be protected, better shielded from whatever the Stepson thought threatening, if love could heal and save.

Janet Morris