“ Bazhell: You’re after being a good man, Tothas. Don’t be shaking your head at...

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Bazhell: You’re after being a good man, Tothas. Don’t be shaking your head at me—and don’t think it’s in my mind to flatter you. You’re no saint, and a dead pain in the arse a saint would be in the field, I’m thinking! But you’ve guts, and loyalty, and a readiness to understand, and those are things even a murdering hradani can value. But I’m knowing how sick you are, what it is that loyalty’s costing you. So tell me, Tothas—what god is it you serve, and why?

Tothas: I serve the Gods of Light. Oh, I’m sure others serve them better, but I do the best I can—when I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I thank Orr for wisdom, when it can get through my thick skull, and Silendros for beauty, when I have the eyes to see it. When I’ve time for it, I sit on a hill somewhere out in the plains of the South Weald and look at the trees and grass and the summer sky and thank Toragan for them. But I’m a warrior, Bahzell. It’s my trade, the thing I do best, and its Tomanāk I follow. The Sword God can be hard, but He’s just, and He stands for the things I’d like to stand for. For skill in battle, for honor and courage in defeat, for decency in victory, and loyalty.

Bazhell: But why? Oh, aye, I can respect those things, but why turn to a god for them? Why thank a god for wisdom when it comes out of your own head? Or for beauty, when it’s your own eyes that have the seeing of it? Or for guts and loyalty, when those things come from in here [his huge hand brushed Tothas’ chest] and not from out there? [the same hand rose and gestured at the skies] You follow them, yet not one of them’s reached down to you and said, ‘This is a good man, who’s been after doing all I ask of him, and I take his illness from him.’ Not one of them, Tothas, and still you follow! That’s a thing no hradani would be understanding. It’s not my folk’s way to ask others for aught. We’ve learned the hard way that it won’t be given, that there’s no one and naught to count on but our own selves when all’s said and done. What we have, we build or take for ourselves, and spit on 'gods’ who’ve no time for such as us. A man looks after his own in this world, Tothas, and it’s lucky he is if he can do it, for no one else will.

Tothas: That sounds to me like a man who’s angry at what he hears himself saying.
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