Category: Book Excerpt

The army that took to the field against [King Philip II of France] at the battle of Bouvines [1214 C.E.] was a typical medieval affair—loud, violent, and disorganized. Each leader had his own men and his own standard, and such grand strategy as existed was fairly rudimentary. Cavalry charges were the main weapon used by either side. At times the battle would have resembled the melee of the tournament field, but with added intent. Men carried heavy lances and pounds of chain mail, which could suffocate its wearer to death if he fell awkwardly in the churned mud of the field. Bloodcurdling screams and the sickening crunch of heavy metal piercing into human flesh, grunts of effort and the thick, gurgling breath of the dying, would have raged all around, as hand-to-hand fighting left the plain at Bouvines gouged and bloodstained.

The English troops rallied around the earl of Salisbury’s blue banners with yellow lions rampant emblazoned upon them. They fought bravely on the right flank. The leaders from both sides were at the center; both [Emperor] Otto IV and Philip were unhorsed during the fighting. The battle raged for three long hours, first in favor of the imperial troops and then, as the fighting wore on, tipping toward the French.

The French were victorious in the end. Their cavalry charges, led by some of the finest knights in Europe, gradually overwhelmed the patchwork of coalition forces arraigned against them. Otto and Philip led their knights in a melee, which was settled decisively in the French favor. Otto was protected manfully by a group of Saxon knights, but eventually he had no choice but to flee the battlefield, narrowly escaping capture as he galloped off. The counts of Flanders and Boulogne and the earl of Salisbury were less fortunate. They were all taken prisoner and escorted back to Paris, where the citizens and students of the university danced and sang in the streets for a week to celebrate the famous victory.

— The Plantagenets, to Bouvines

…[The] king’s household was a cavalcade of carts and packhorses, stretching out for hundreds of yards as the court rumbled through the countryside. Everything was portable: finely dressed servants carried bed linen and precious plate, heavy pouches of coin, the valuable books [the king] enjoyed reading, and well-guarded caches of precious jewels. [The king]’s chapel could be unpacked by the roadside, as could his dining room. The great snaking caravan train moved twenty or so miles every day, churning up muddy roads and drawing openmouthed spectators as [the king] called on his subjects and enjoyed their generous hospitality.

— The Plantagenets, Salvaging the Wreck

Perhaps one in six Englishmen in the late twelfth century [C.E.] was technically a clergyman. While most were not and never would be priests, there were plenty in minor orders or who had entered the Church for an education and left to work for lay masters. Many parish priests were poorly educated and barely literate. Their lives would not have differed much from those of ordinary peasants. But clerical status bestowed great advantage if one fell foul of the law. The Church demanded the right to discipline criminous clerks but punishments were considerably lighter under canon law than under the secular criminal code. The Church would neither inflict trial by ordeal nor mutilate or execute the guilty….

— The Plantagenets, Unholy War

Twelfth-century France was divided into loose and shifting territories that owed little or no allegiance to any central authority, ruled across large swaths by noblemen who were little more than warlords. As he watched his tenacious and cunning father grind his way through the conquest of Normandy, Henry would have learned that political survival was a game of forestalling shifts of power, managing volatile relations between one’s friends and enemies, and appealing to the right allies at the right time in order to further one’s territorial objectives. In such a bewildering business, only the most devious and adept players survived.

— The Plantagenets, Ambition

With the practical disappearance of the [Japanese] central government went disintegration of the old social order, a process that had long been accelerating as the Ashikaga shogun grew weaker and weaker. In the Age of the Country at War many ancient families were reduced to poverty or exterminated. Those that took their place were often headed by upstart soldiers with little or no aristocratic background. They did not owe allegiance to any great spreading clan like the Taira or Hojo of an earlier day; their families were families in the modern sense, groups of people closely related by blood or marriage, and the ambition of every man was to increase his immediate family’s wealth and prestige as much as possible.

This preoccupation forced many social innovations, one of which was a kind of primogeniture. During the stable Hojo regime in the 13th and 14th Centuries a landowner had dared to make a will dividing his land among all his children—including the daughters. Even if each received only a little land and therefore had few retainers, the firm power of the Hojo government would protect him in its enjoyment. But under the now-powerless Ashikaga shogunate such evenhandedness was no longer prudent. If there were too many inheritors, they might not be strong enough to defend themselves individually from greedy aggressors. They might lose their land, and the family as a whole might sink to a lower social level. This was to be avoided at all cost.

So a new custom developed. A father willed the bulk of his property to one of his sons, not necessarily to the first-born but to the most promising, or even to an adopted son if none of his own sons seemed likely to maintain the family prestige. Daughters were left out almost entirely because they were not considered able to keep land in the family. By the start of the Age of the Country at War the subordination of Japanese women, which went to such extremes in later ages, was already well advanced.

Along with these new inheritance customs, a new and more mature kind of feudalism developed. The rules and relationships were no longer imposed from above as they had been in Hojo times. The ghost of a central government in Kyoto had no power to impose anything. Instead, each daimyo in possession of a self-governing territory made his own laws, which usually combined traditional customs with new regulations to fit the times. Most of these family codes were rigidly autocratic, permitting few rights to anyone except the daimyo, but their regulations were seldom obeyed literally, and the picture of life they present does not give an altogether accurate view of Japanese society as it really was.

Actually, the Age of the Country at War was something of an age of freedom for Japan’s lower classes. In some provinces the small landholders banded together, swept aside the laws of the daimyo and got full control of the local government; in others the ji-samurai (rural landholders of warrior descent) were so numerous, well armed and belligerent that their wishes, not the daimyo’s, had to be respected. Artisans, too, were often better off than they had been; in spite of drastic laws intended to keep them at home, many of them fled their native fiefs for the growing towns, where their skills were better paid.

As the new feudal system took shape, growing from below, Japan came to be divided into many compact, independent domains with well-defined though sometimes shifting boundaries. At the head of each was a warrior daimyo, who may have inherited his position, or won it or increased it in war. Since there was no central power to back him, as in Hojo times, his strength and security now depended altogether on the support of the lesser families holding land in his domain. He defended them and watched over them carefully to see that they did not combine against him or fall under the influence of another lord. In some fiefs the daimyo managed to reinforce the power and prestige of his own family by keeping control of every sale or division of property and every marriage, not only of samurai but also of lower ranks. Lesser families did the same; every smallest decision was made by the head of the family, always trying to keep the family’s position as high as possible at the cost of its individual members. Thus, while the Age of the Country at War brought some measure of class freedom, it took away individual freedom; within a family little initiative was possible for anyone but the leader.

For most young men such a system would have been unbearably oppressive except for the outlet of war. Most of the great landholders, and many of the lesser ones too, were forever on the prowl, hoping to catch some neighbor at a disadvantage and swallow his territory. And the predatory enterpriser, a chieftain with a reputation for successful aggression, never lacked adventurous young supporters. Not all such recruits were of samurai rank; the gorgeous mounted knights of ancient tradition had given way to larger units that included many foot soldiers armed with spears or other comparatively inexpensive weapons. The warrior barons who led these armies no longer exposed themselves recklessly, as the knights had done, in romantic single combat. The best of them learned to marshal their forces and take advantage of terrain. When they noticed a soldier among their lowborn followers who showed talent for this kind of fighting, they might raise him to officer status or even to high social rank. This would have been almost unthinkable in earlier ages, but now there was no power in Japan to tell an independent daimyo what he could or could not do.

When there was no war on land to occupy them, the young fighting men of Japan could find an outlet for their energies in piracy, which was now thriving once more. In the second half of the 15th Century fleets of hundreds of pirate vessels were crossing the East China Sea and attacking the whole coast of China. The marauders not only pillaged seaside towns but also penetrated far inland to raid the country around Nanking, 150 miles from the sea.

— Early Japan, pp. 104-105

This first civilization came to be known as Sumer. By about the year 3000 [B.C.E.], a city called Uruk near the mouth of the Euphrates River, just inland of the head of the Persian Gulf, had eighty thousand residents. A thousand years later Iraq, the land along the Euphrates and its sister stream, the Tigris, would be named for this early metropolis of Uruk. Sharing the land of Sumer, about the size of [modern] Belgium, with a dozen other city-states, Uruk was not always the foremost among its rivals in the land. But for most of its existence, spanning the two millennia of the Sumerian world, Uruk was the greatest city on earth.

— Land Between The Rivers, Prologue

A dozen (small) cities in such a small area. Every square meter of arable land was claimed and constantly fought over. I do not see much of this in fantasy roleplaying campaigns.

“What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked [the mysterious old stranger beside him], completely surprised.

“It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”

— The Alchemist, Part One

One part of mental training is anticipation—that is, expecting a situation and acting upon it. This part of training occurs as much—if not more—outside the dojo as inside. For example, take the scenario of a person walking toward you on the street. Train by looking at his hands. Are they swinging normally at his sides, or is one hand hidden, or are both? If the latter, then something may be amiss and you need to be prepared to act. Train by looking at his belt, his wallet pocket (if he lias turned so that you can see it), his wrist with a watch, or the shoulder over which, his workout bag is slung; these can offer clues as to whether the person is right- or left-handed, information that can be useful in self-defense. Then look at his eyes, for they are the windows to the mind. If you feel safe with an approaching person, let your concentration go to the next person, but always keep a comfortable and safe personal distance from people. Above all, such observations serve to keep you mentally alert to the people and things around you.

— Japan’s Ultimate Martial Art, Chapter 1

[King] Jean II [of France], who succeeded his father, Philip VI, in August 1350 [C.E.], could have served Machiavelli as model for Anti-Prince. Impolitic and impetuous, he never made a wise choice between alternatives and seemed incapable of considering consequences of an action in advance. Though brave in battle, he was anything but a great captain. Without evil intent, he was to foster disaffection to the point of revolt and lose half his kingdom and his person to the enemy, thereby leaving his country leaderless to meet its darkest hour of the age. His subjects with surprising forbearance named him Jean le Bon (John the Good), using the surname, it has been supposed, in the sense of “prodigal” or “careless” or being a good fellow. Or it may have referred to Jean’s devotion to chivalric honor or to his alleged generosity to the poor, as illustrated by his once giving a purse to a servingmaid whose milk pails were knocked over by his greyhounds.

He came to the throne bent on taking the field to erase his father’s defeats of the past decade, and on the first day of his reign notified all the principal lords of the realm to hold themselves ready to appear at his summons when “the time should come.” The truce arranged after the fall of Calais and renewed during the Black Death was due to expire in April 1351. Inheriting an empty treasury, Jean had no money with which to pay an army, and could not move without first replenishing his funds and adapting his military resources. The need to learn something from the failures of Crecy and Calais was not lost on him, and he was groping with certain ideas for military reform.

His first act, however, within three months of becoming King, was to execute the Constable of France, Comte d’Eu, and sixteenth Comte de Guines, a second cousin of Enguerrand VII, a man of powerful connections and “so courteous and amiable in every way that he was beloved and admired by great lords, knights, ladies and damsels.” Captured by the English at Caen in 1345, D’Eu had been unable to raise the ransom fixed by King Edward. When it came to important captives, Edward never let himself be limited by the principle of chivalry that a knight’s ransom should not be placed at a figure that would ruin him or exceed his revenue for one year. After four years of captivity, Comte d’Eu regained his liberty, supposedly in exchange for ceding to Edward his strategic castle and county of Guines, adjoining Calais. On this suspicion, Jean had him beheaded upon his return to France without trial or public procedure of any kind. The King listened in silence to the pleas of D’Eu’s friends for his life, offering no reply except to swear that “he would never sleep so long as the Comte de Guines lived”; or according to another version replying in tears, “You shall have his body and we his head.”

Jean could have chosen no better way to alienate the nobility whose support he needed than to execute a noble of D’Eu’s rank and many friends without public explanation or trial by his peers. If D’Eu had indeed acted treasonably (the truth remains obscure), the King had every need to make plain the reasons for his act, but Jean was either too willful or too wooden-headed to understand the advisability of good public relations.

His next act made matters worse. He gave the office of Constable to his relative and favorite, Charles d’Espagne, who was said to be the object of the King’s “dishonest affection,” and to have persuaded Jean to murder Comte d’Eu so that he himself might have his office. Besides the prestige of military command second to the King, the Constableship had lucrative perquisites attached to the business of assembling the armed forces. Bestowal of the post on Charles d’Espagne, who was unpopular in the usual way of kings’ favorites, added fury to the nobles’ dismay at a time when the King had reason enough to fear their separatist tendencies. The episode was a divisive opening of the reign at a time when it most needed unity.

Jean’s father, too, had been “ung bien hastif horns” (a very hasty man), and intermarriage for centuries with first cousins had left the Valois unstable. Jean retained Philip’s uneasiness about the legitimacy of his claim to the crown and Philip’s readiness, not without cause, to suspect treachery. In his capacity for sudden vindictiveness, he took after his mother, the lame Queen, who, despite her piety and good works, was called “a very cruel lady, for whomever she held in hate, he was dead without mercy.” She was credited with having prodded her husband to the act that so appalled his time—the execution in 1343 of fifteen Breton lords who were his prisoners.

— A Distant Mirror, Chapter 6

[Commander Melody Sawyer] meanwhile was scanning the body readings on the infrared, memorising where they were inside the buildings. She took [the Captain’s] as-yet-unfired laser rifle from him without resistance.

“Time we put a stop to this!” she declared, bolting the stairs to the tower with eight generations of Alabama marksmen behind her.

Laser rifles make very little sound. Melody picked off three of Racher’s [terrorist] dozen before they knew what hit them. One was the lieutenant who had pleaded for retreat. He fell inches from his leader, who never turned to look. The others, recognising futility at last, wheeled and ran….

— Strangers From The Sky, Chapter 9

In another tale from the Shahnameh, an Indian ambassador to Iran brings a puzzle to test the shah’s vizier, Bozorgmehr, famed for his wisdom. It consists of a cloth painted with alternate black and white squares, and two sets of tiny figurines, carved in ivory and teak. Bozorgmehr is given one day to study the components and explain the puzzle’s significance in the presence of the shah and the Indian emissaries. After a long, studious night, he confidently declares that the Indian puzzle is, in fact, a board game, one that imitates the battlefield. The figurines represent opposing armies, each comprising a king, a vizier, elephants, cavalrymen, charioteers, and foot soldiers.

The game was, of course, chess, and the movements of each piece reflected their counterparts in the world of warfare. Foot soldiers, today’s pawns, plodded forward. Charioteers, today’s rooks (from the Sanskrit ratha, “chariot,” via Persian), were posted on either flank and galloped rapidly in a straight line. Horses, or knights, attacked with flanking maneuvers. Elephants, the bishops of Western chess (once called fools, from the Persian fil, elephant), stood close to the king and the vizier (now the queen) and careened wildly at an angle. The vizier could use a chariot or an elephant, and so move in all directions….

— Raiders, Rulers, and Traders, Chapter 3

Once the sun set, Angira could become bitterly cold. [Lord Bhima] noticed, however, that the dozen sinha [warriors] made a point of ignoring the cold as they waited for his orders. He studied his young charges and decided that they really thought they were the same stuff as the heroes of the old legends.

They were young, he told himself, and allowed such madnesses. But try as he might, he could not remember a time when he had been quite that mad. Still, they had performed superbly, running through the badlands like so many lean hunting hounds. Even now, despite a night and a day of double-timing, they seemed ready and even eager to push on.

The young lieutenant slipped through the rocks, followed by a second warrior. “I have great news,” he announced proudly. “The offworlders are in the valley. And the prince must be posing as their bodyguard.”

Lord Bhima stood up, trying to stamp the circulation back into his legs. “How do you know they are down there?”

“We caught a peasant. The fool was supposed to be mounting sentry duty against bandits.” The lieutenant gave a contemptuous chuckle. “But we had no trouble sneaking up on him. He almost died of fright.”

Lord Bhima frowned. “Did he say what village they were in?”

“Yes”—the lieutenant was a bit slow to add the last word—”Lord. It wasn’t his village, but he’d heard it was Guh.”

That had been Bibil’s old village. Lord Bhima gave a contented grunt. “Then the prince probably is with them, but in disguise. Were the offworlders treated as captives or as guests?”

The lieutenant hesitated as if slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know, Lord.”

“Didn’t you think to ask the peasant?” Lord Bhima glared.

“We were trying to persuade him to tell us that, but he died at that point.” The lieutenant drew himself up to attention. “I take full responsibility, Lord.”

Lord Bhima drew his heavy eyebrows together angrily. “Just how were you persuading this peasant, Lieutenant? At dagger point?”

The lieutenant looked at Lord Bhima defiantly. “It is against the law for a peasant to take up arms. This whole valley must be a nest of rebels.”

“There are bandits all around.” Lord Bhima found himself shouting in outrage. “They might just be defending their homes, you fool.”

“Lord!” The lieutenant stiffened indignantly.

Lord Bhima curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. “There are over four thousand peasants down in that valley. If they are only protecting themselves, we do not want to turn that many peaceful, honest folk against us and our cause. That is your first mistake.”

The officer swallowed, not liking the look in Lord Bhima’s eyes. “Yes, Lord.”

Lord Bhima decided with a certain smugness that his skill with a sword was enough to intimidate even a brash young sinha. “But even if they are organizing for a rebellion, our prime objective is to capture the prince, not exterminate rebels. That is your second mistake.”

“Lord, I will make amends.” The young officer started to pull out his dagger to plunge it into himself.

Lord Bhima knew that the lieutenant had been working himself up to this moment. The sinha were not only as strong and healthy as fine hunting dogs, but they were also just as predictable. However low the officer might hold Lord Bhima, his sense of duty would drive him on to one final conclusion. And so Lord Bhima’s own hand was ready to draw his own sword from its sheath.

It was as simple and fluid a motion as it was deadly. Years of practice had compensated for his loss in youthful reaction time so that no one in all of his years had ever been quite as fast as Lord Bhima.

And yet, despite all those unbeaten years, there had always been a certain doubt tightening his stomach that perhaps this time he would find himself overmatched. It lent a certain fear and excitement to the moment when he reached for his sword.

It was almost as if he was matched not against some real opponent, but the Lord of the Shadows himself in some fleshy disguise. The Lord had come to claim him many times and there had always been that fraction of a second when he had felt his own life balanced on the edge of his sword, ready to tip one way or the other. And his confidence had not been helped any by the ease with which Rahu had knocked him out. Was it a fluke or was Lord Bhima truly slowing down?

But then, when he knew he was going to win again, he had felt an immense relief rushing through him and a sense of release that he had beaten the Shadow Lord once more.

And though the stakes were not nearly as high this time, it was still interesting to watch the young officer’s eyes widen in surprise and fear as Lord Bhima whipped out his sword and brought it down in a quick slash, halting the edge just above the lieutenant’s wrist.

Lord Bhima was still the swordmaster. The lesson had not been lost on either the lieutenant or his men.

Lord Bhima could not help smiling in satisfaction as he raised his sword. “You will die when I say so. Not before. This is neither the time nor the place for me to find a new second-in-command. That is your third mistake.”

The lieutenant bowed his head with genuine respect now. “My life is in your hands, Lord.”

Lord Bhima sheathed his sword. “Well, it can’t be helped. Make his death look like the work of Lord Tayu’s men out for revenge. Strip the corpse and mutilate it. Then we’ll move on.”

— Shadow Lord, Chapter 7

…More hoofbeats as the prince and Sir Manfred came up, and the attendants. Several of them were swearing in amazement [at the scene where Princess Sita—not part of the hunting party—had just killed a wild boar from horseback]; one gave an involuntary shout of “Shabash!” and then they were all crying it.

All but the prince. “Sita, what the devil do you think you’re doing here?” he began.

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” Henri said. “It appears that your sister is here saving my life. A thousand thanks,” he continued, with a sweeping bow made less graceful as he winced and rubbed his elbow.

Sita looked down at him from the saddle, her eyebrows raised against a smile gone cool and considering. “You are welcome, Monsieur le Vicomte,” she said. “My apologies also, if I have shocked you.”

Henri grinned. “Au contraire, Princess Sita. Let me say at once that my prince will not be in the least shocked. In fact, I think I may say that he would heartily approve.”

“Good spear,” Sir Manfred said quietly. “And a very fortunate one, Your Highness.”

The party all looked up as the file of Bikaner Horse troopers pulled up on lathered horses. Their commander saluted and took a long look at the little tableau. When he nodded to Sita again, the iron mask of control over anger had turned to wary respect.

“Good spear, Kunwari,” he said. “And I would pay thirty gold mohurs for that horse! Kunwar,” he added to Charles. “If there is fault, it is mine—I took my men in the wrong direction when the princess’s horse…bolted.”

Charles snorted, and Sita looked offended at the notion any horse could run away with her. Henri bent to check the legs of his own mount; uninjured, except for a bad fright and some bruises, he thought. That gave him an unobtrusive chance to study Prince Charles’s face, which was scowling as the heir to the Lion Throne saw one of the troopers gray-faced and cradling an arm.

“You, sowar,” he said. “Are you injured?”

The trooper looked as though the attention from on high was more painful than the arm. “It is nothing, Kunwar, ” he murmured. “A clean break—my horse shied—it will heal.”

Charles turned to his sister. “It might have been his neck!” he snapped.

Sita flushed. “I am sorry,” she said; then repeated it in Hindi to the horse-soldier.

“It is nothing, Kunwari,” the trooper demurred. He looked at the dead boar, and at the spot where the royal family’s guest had lain. “Good spear! And the arm is nothing; I have eaten your salt; it is my karman to shed blood for your House.”

“And rajadharma not to make men risk their lives without need!” Charles said crisply, and called over his shoulder for a surgeon.

Sir Manfred had dismounted; he murmured in [Henri’s] ear: “Rajadharma; ruler’s duty.”

The prince went on: “What is your name, sowar?”

The man drew himself erect: “Burubu Ram, Kunwar.”

“Where did you break that?”

He nodded when the officer described the location; he knew this hunting park as well as most knew their front gardens.

“Miles, at a gallop, with a broken arm?”

The Rajput officer coughed discreetly: “He would not return, Kunwar. Please forgive the indiscipline.” The words were apologetic, but the tone rang with pride.

“Very well,” Charles said, and looked at the trooper again. “You are given six months sick leave, with pay. Before you return to your home…your family hold land?”

“Han, Kunwa.” Yes, Imperial Prince. “Thirty acres, northwest of Bikaner on the new Essmeet Canal—a grant to my father for twenty-five years’ service. I am heir to the holding.”

“The Smith Canal…Good. Surgeon, see to this man’s arm.”

His comrades helped him dismount, and the doctor began to probe it gently, then to prepare a splint. That sort of medicine was always available on the hunting field.

“Sowar Burubu Ram, before you go on sick leave, you may select one horse and its tack from the Imperial stud; that is my sister’s gift to you.” He looked up and shifted to English for a moment: “You’re paying for it out of your allowance, by the way, Sita.” In Hindi once more: “Also, if you have a younger brother who would care to enlist in the Guards, I will furnish his mount.”

The trooper grinned despite his pain. Imperial cavalry regiments were raised on the sillidar system; the Raj provided weapons and ammunition, but the trooper found his own horse and its fodder and gear out of his stipend, replacing the mount as needed unless it was lost in battle. It ensured the cavalry a better class of recruit than the infantry units, but the initial expense could be heavy for a middling-prosperous yeoman, and prohibitive for more than one son.

Sita swung down out of the saddle. She unfastened the long jewel-hilted hunting knife from her belt and tucked it into the injured man’s sash.

“A keepsake from your princess, sowar,” she said. “And if you have a sister who wishes a position in the household, it will be given.”

The trooper started to salute, winced, and gave a dignified salaam as he spoke his thanks. Then he walked off, accompanied by comrades who helped him toward the roadway and damned him for a lucky dog in genial whispers, swearing that they’d gladly break both arms for the favor he’d been given….

— The Peshawar Lancers, Chapter5

The carriage came around a bend in the road and approached the spot where [Sir] Sparhawk and [his Styric teacher] Sephrenia waited. [Queen] Ehlana was talking animatedly to Oscagne and Emban, but she broke off suddenly, her eyes wide. “Sephrenia?” she gasped. “It is! It’s Sephrenia.” Royal dignity went out the window as she scrambled down from the carriage.

“Brace yourself,” Sparhawk cautioned with a gentle smile. Ehlana ran to them, threw her arms around Sephrenia’s neck and kissed her, weeping for joy.

The queen’s tears were not the only ones shed that afternoon. Even the hard-bitten Church Knights were misty-eyed for the most part. [Sir] Kalten went even further and wept openly as he knelt to receive Sephrenia’s blessing.

“The Styric woman has a special significance, Sparhawk-Knight?” Engessa asked curiously.

“A very special significance, Atan Engessa,” Sparhawk replied, watching his friends clustered around the small woman. “She touches our hearts in a profound way. We’d probably take the world apart if she asked us to.”

“That’s a very great authority, Sparhawk-Knight.” Engessa said it with some approval. Engessa respected authority.

“It is indeed, my friend,” Sparhawk agreed….

— Domes of Fire, Chapter16

…When his feet touched the floor, however, it was no longer Feldegast the juggler who stood there. In place of the roguish entertainer stood the gnarled, hunchbacked shape of the sorcerer Beldin. With a sudden evil laugh, he began to hurt his fireballs at the startled [Grolim priests] and their warriors.

His aim was unerring, and the deadly fireballs pierced Grolim robes, Guardsmen’s mail coats, and Karandese fur vests with equal facility. Smoking holes appeared in the chests of his victims, and he felled them by the dozen. The throne room filled with smoke and the reek of burning flesh as the grinning, ugly little sorcerer continued his deadly barrage.

“You!” [King] Urvon shrieked in terror, the sudden appearance of the man he had feared for so many thousands of years shocking him into some semblance of sanity, even as the terrified Chandim [man-hounds] and their cohorts broke and fled, howling in tight.

“So good to see you again, Urvon,” the hunchback said to him pleasantly. “Our conversation was interrupted the last time we were talking, but as I recall, I’d just promised to sink a white-hot hook into your belly and yank out all your guts.” He held out his gnarled right hand, snapped his fingers, and there was a sudden flash. A cruel hook, smoking and glowing, appeared in his fist. “Why don’t we continue with that line of thought?” he suggested, advancing on the splotchy-faced man cowering on the throne.

Then the shadow which had lurked behind the madman’s shoulder came out from behind the throne.

“Stop,” it said in a voice that was no more than a crackling whisper. No human throat could have produced that sound. “I need this thing,” it said, pointing a shadowy hand in the direction of the gibbering Disciple of Torak. “It serves my purposes, and I will not let you kill it.”

“You would be Nahaz, then,” Beldin said in an ominous voice.

“I am,” the figure whispered. “Nahaz, Lord of Demons and Master of Darkness.”

“Go find yourself another plaything, Demon Lord,” the hunchback grated. “This one is mine.”

“Will you pit your will against mine, sorcerer?”

“If need be.”

“Look upon my face, then, and prepare for death.” The demon pushed back its hood of darkness, and Garion recoiled with a sharp intake of his breath. The face of Nahaz was hideous, but it was not the misshapen features alone which were so terrifying. There emanated from its burning eyes a malevolent evil so gross that it froze the blood. Brighter and brighter those eyes burned with evil green fire until their beams shot forth toward Beldin. The gnarled sorcerer clenched himself and raised one hand. The hand suddenly glowed an intense blue, a light that seemed to cascade down over his body to form a shield against the demon’s power.

“Your will is strong,” Nahaz hissed. “But mine is stronger.”

Then Polgara [the Sorceress] came down the littered aisle, the white lock at her brow gleaming. On one side of her strode Belgarath [the Sorcerer] and on the other Durnik. As they reached him, Garion joined them. They advanced slowly to take up positions flanking Beldin, and Garion became aware that Eriond had also joined them, standing slightly off to one side.

“Well, Demon,” Polgara said in a deadly voice, “will you face us all?”

Garion raised [the Sword of the Rivan King] and unleashed its [blue] fire. “And this as well?” he added, releasing all restraints on the Orb [of Aldur].

The Demon flinched momentarily, then drew itself erect again, its horrid face bathed in that awful green fire. From beneath its robe of shadow, it took what appeared to be a scepter or a wand of some kind that blazed an intense green. As it raised that wand, however, it seemed to see something that had previously escaped its notice. An expression of sudden fear crossed its hideous face, and the fire of the wand died, even as the intense green light bathing its face flickered and grew wan and weak. Then it raised its face toward the vaulted ceiling and howled—a dreadful, shocking sound. It spun quickly, moving toward the terrified Urvon. It reached out with shadowy hands, seized the gold-robed madman, and lifted him easily from the throne. Then it fled, its fire pushing out before it like a great battering ram, blasting out the walls of the House of Torak as it went….

— Demon Lord of Karanda, Chapter 18

In all this [Tokugawa Ieyasu] revealed the attitude to which he ever afterwards adhered through life. He wielded two weapons of reasonableness and force. And when he could use the former he did, for he gained his point with less expenditure and effort. But he knew this would be useless unless backed by force, and none had it readier at all times than he. Tokutomi observes that “his militarism was diplomatic, and his diplomacy was militaristic.” Nobody in the Empire valued armaments more or took more care of them. He took so much care of them that he never used them rashly, and unless driven to it by unavoidable necessity. Others in this age, of course, used these two methods also. But perhaps none made so few failures as he did, and that owing to his extraordinary patience and self-control.

— Shogun, Chapter 3

…The Thousand Son [Space Marine] intoned words of power and an ellipsis of light burned into the deck plate. The Prosperine hieroglyphics on his staff flared bright vermillion. Spinning the staff around, Mhotep drove the scimitar into it pommel first and it became a spear.

— Battle for the Abyss, Chapter 7

My…tutelage with the mist began, in earnest, only after I loosened my soul and softened my piercing gaze. Until then my eyes did not allow me to see the magic of life around me. In time, however, I slowly came to understand that when approaching nature and spirit, one must enter these realms with a gentle openness of heart. We cannot make demands when encountering the sacred world. It is the overly analytical perception of reality, as well as the belief that we are somehow owed an experience, that immediately exiles us from the richness of the numinous power around us, within us, and within the earth. We have to be open. We must be, as the eloquent Zen tradition tells us, “empty cups,” ready to be filled, without preconceived notions of what awaits us.

In time I experienced a gradual settling in my evolving…mysticism. It was a settling of my striving. This settling informed me that the sacred was all around me, and that, in addition to developing the proper eyes with which to see, I must also cultivate the proper feet with which to walk the path. One gains the proper eyes and proper feet, I have found, by slowing down….

— The Mist-Filled Path, p. 8

Nothing more clearly illustrates the power of war as a culture-shaping force than the eerie parallels between feudal Japan and feudal Europe. Both societies rested on the labor of relatively unfree peasants, and both were ruled by hereditary warrior classes—knights in Europe and bushi, or samurai, in Japan—representing, or at least serving, the landed aristocracy. If, through some magical transposition, a medieval knight and a samurai had met on the same road, they would have immediately recognized each other as kin. Both wore helmets and armor, fought on horseback, rallied to flags emblazoned with dynastic symbols or totems, invested their swords with mystic power, and subscribed to a special warrior ethic—chivalry in Europe, bushido in Japan—which codified, for its adherents, a kind of religion of war.

In her study of the bushi tradition, Catharina Blomberg lists these parallels, only to dismiss them as “entirely fortuitous” since, after all, there had been no contact between medieval Europe and Japan. What she misses is the entirely unfortuitous effect of the means of destruction which these two cultures shared: Both employed metal blades to cut human flesh and horses to transport warriors to and about the battlefield. This technology leads to, and even seems to require, the kind of social arrangement we know as feudalism, which has been defined as an “essentially military…type of social organization designed to produce and support cavalry.” A very similar pattern emerged in precolonial western Africa: a social and economic elite of mounted, knightlike warriors, subscribing to a quasi-religious warrior ethic.

The knight and the samurai are in some ways special cases, preferring, as they did, to fight at close range with their cherished swords. Other warriors of the pre-gun era, no less proud and individualistic, fought from a distance with metal-tipped arrows propelled by compound bows. The European knight was again and again shocked to encounter, during the Crusades and the various incursions of nomadic Asian “hordes,” highly skilled mounted warriors who announced their attacks with a hail of arrows and used their bladed weapons primarily to dispatch the wounded. But all—swordsmen and archers alike—were part of a system of warfare that depended on the synergy of metal and muscle. The metal could be worked to a point as an arrow tip or pounded to a cutting edge as a sword. The muscle could be that of the human arm alone or that of the arm reinforced by the speed and strength of the horse. Either way, the metal-and-muscle approach to warfare imposed certain common themes on the cultures that engaged in it, whether they did so reluctantly or with zest.

— Blood Rites, pp. 144-45

Fighting on horseback with lance, sword, and heavy armor did not necessarily make a knight out of a soldier, even during the early period. Other mounted and nonmounted soldiers coexisted in the immediate retinue of the knight (the “lance”) or as independent or semi-independent units of mounted sergeants, or routiers. The retinue of a knight changed with time and location. In 1100 [C.E.] Robert II, Count of Flanders, promised to provide 1,000 knights, each with three horses, to King Henry I of England, suggesting that the knights were accompanied by other men who may have fought with them besides taking care of the horses. The religious Order of the Knights Templar listed three horses for each member. In 1268, when Charles, Count of Anjou, moved into Italy to take the southern peninsula from the successors of the Normans, he ordered each knight to bring four horses, suitable armor and weapons, as well as a squire (armiger) and two other retainers (gardiones). Each member of the “lance” performed different functions on the battlefield. The squire, who was not necessarily a young man, acted as a light cavalryman, the others as footmen with bows or crossbows and spears. Later on, larger retinues became common.

Sergeants were also common in the armies of the middle period of medieval warfare. In 1187 the count of Hainault sent Philip Augustus 110 of his best knights together with eighty sergeants equipped like the knights. In 1194 the king of France could count on the recruitment of 240 sergeants from St-Denis, 300 from Sens, Laon, and Tournai, 500 from Beauvais, and 1,000 from Arras. Generally their wages were between three and four sous a day, well below the five to seven sous given to knights. When the loot taken at Constantinople in 1204 was divided, their share was double the share of foot sergeants but half that of knights. Mounted sergeants were not identical to squires but of mixed social origins. Some came from the lower ranks of nobility, holders of small fiefs who could boast neither prestige nor financial means. Others may have originated from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, or even the peasantry, who had training in arms, become supporters of a lord, and learned how to fight on horseback. Their role on the battlefield varied. At times they lined up with the knights; sometimes they fought as a separate unit; sometimes they were given instructions to carry out a specific mission. At the Battle of Bouvines [(1214)] they were grouped as a light cavalry to soften up the enemy for the knights. Toward the end of the battle, 3,000 were given the task of crushing any remaining resistance. However, by the second half of the thirteenth century sergeants on horseback disappeared from the French armies; the mounted men were usually divided between knights and squires. The term knight was replaced by the generic term man-at-arms.

The routiers fought from horseback but were different from knights and mounted sergeants. The term routiers, probably originating from the Latin rumpere and meaning “members of a detachment,” constituted groups of adventurers, men known for their wild behavior and not constrained by the ethical rules of knighthood….

— Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels, pp. 175-76