"I've fought in three campaigns. In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of any kind. I've fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I've been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I've known little else. I've seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that's far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper. I've fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I've been ruthless, brutal, and a coward. I've stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I've run away myself more than once. I've pissed myself with fear. I've begged for my life. I've been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tits away. I've no doubt the world would be a better place if I'd been killed years ago, but I haven't been, and I don't know why. There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there's a lot of 'em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I've earned it. I've deserved it. I've sought it out. Such is my punishment."
Logen Ninefingers, The Blade Itself
"You could not even guess at the things that I have done. Awful, evil, obscene. The telling of them alone could make you puke...They nag at me from time to time, but I tell myself I had good reasons. The years pass, the unimaginable becomes everyday, the hideous becomes tedious, the unbearable becomes routine. I push it all into the dark corners of my mind. And it's incredible; the room back there. Amazing. What one can live with."
Sand dan Glokta, Before They Are Hanged
Crummock-i-Phail: Don’t you worry your beautiful self about nothing, Bloody-Nine. My fortress could be better built, I’ll grant you, but the ground is with us, and the mountains, and the moon, all smiling on our bold endeavour. This is a strong place, with a strong history. Do you not know the story of Laffa the Brave?
Logen Ninefingers: Can’t say that I do.
Crummock-i-Phail: Laffa was a great bandit chief of the hillmen, a long time ago. He raided all the clans around for years, him and his brothers. One hot summer the clans had enough, so they banded together and hunted him in the mountains. Here’s where he made his last stand. Right here in this fortress. Laffa and his brothers and all his people.
Dogman: What happened?
Crummock-i-Phail: They all got killed, and their heads cut off and put in a sack, and the sack was buried in the pit they used to shit in. Guess that’s why they call it a last stand, eh?
Dogman: That’s it? That’s the story?
Crummock-i-Phail: That’s all of it that I know, but I’m not right sure what else there could be. That was pretty much the end for Laffa, I’d say.
Dogman: Thanks for the encouragement.
—Last Argument of Kings
