Joe Abercrombie The First Law Trilogy -

Ferro stopped sharpening. “Whose face?”

The mud had a name, but Logen Ninefingers couldn’t remember it. Didn’t matter. Mud was mud. It sucked at his boots, it splattered his coat, and if you fell in it face-first, it drowned you just the same as any other.

“You do.” Now she looked up. Her eyes were yellow slits, the color of old hatred. “Like a pig with a stone in its throat.”

He’d fallen twice already.

“Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers,” said the crippled torturer, biting into the raw rabbit. “Say he’s a sentimental fool.”

“Admiring gets your throat cut while you sleep.”

“Better to do a thing,” he whispered to no one, “than to live with the fear of it.” joe abercrombie the first law trilogy

But he said it with a sliver of respect. In the Circle of the World, that was as close to love as you ever got.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

The Debt of a Failed Knife

Out of the treeline came a man. Tall, cloaked, rain-slick. He walked like he owned the mud and everyone in it.

“So does snoring. And I don’t snore.”