You're not one to take lightly, to love of for an evening and leave of a dawn.

Then what difference does human striving make: mortal struggle, valor, pain? If you live, then live for the test of spirit, for the celebration of the heart. Live to fight on other days. Lose your beloveds one by one. And remember. Exalt the kiss of friend and horse and wind and sun, which venality cannot cheapen nor stupidity belittle.

If the gods sent you to fight here, then the gods are fools.

"Godling? Demigod?" Lysis nearly howled. "You'd be beaten black and blue in Thebes, and staked out overnight for claims like that. In Sparta, the secret police would ambush you, violate you, skin you alive and use your skull for a drinking cup."

You three have done quite enough today: all of you and your feckless, treacherous god.

Ask yourselves if the gods are angry, you who have seen Harmony come among us, walk among us, touch us, look kindly upon us. We are the Sacred Band of Thebes. We fight in the forefront, therefore we bleed first. We live, therefore we die.

Fury from the heavens; fury at the gods - inseparable.