Niko's angular face caught a flicker of firelight and Tempus saw his future there: sharp purpose, discipline, and power in perfect balance; love of man and gods, and mercy transcending all. If war ever wore a more humane face, this one would make it so.

Generosity is never out of season.

Sometimes a man does what he'd most like to avoid.

In every age he had ever studied, doomsayers abounded. No millennium is attractive to the man immured in it; enough prophecies have been made in antiquity that one who desires, in any age, to take the position that apocalypse is at hand can easily defend it. He would not join that dour order; he would not worry about anything but Tempus, and the matter awaiting his attention.

There must be a corps that will battle for righteousness, for there are endless battalions who serve unrighteousness.

The heavens listen to what is said on these cobbles. Laws of man and nature come together here. Here you must be firm. Here you must be true.

Look to the souls of Your own soldiers, God, who labor in Thine awful cause.