'I've seen, and done, as much as one man should be permitted. I've cut my way through battlefields where the blood lapped around my horse's fetlocks. I've loved well twice, and been betrayed once. Both those I loved are dead now, as is the part of me that loved them. I've sat at the head of an army, a thousand thousand men who cheered and charged into certain death on my command. I've seen the greatest cities of Maisir and Numantia, from Kallio to the jungle borderlands, roar up in flames, flames I ordered to be set.
I've seen battlegrounds torn by demons called by the most evil and powerful wizards, demons who broke a column of charging cavalry when they appeared, ripped a company of spearmen apart, or sent them screaming away in madness. I have eaten from gold plates, surrounded by silk and gentle music.
That is one side
There is the other:
I've stumbled, bleeding, from the field of war, gut-sick as I saw our banners trampled and torn by the enemy triumphant. I've snatched a half-burned potato from a low fire and gnawed at it, the best and only meal I'd had for close on a week. I've screamed on a witch's pallet, while she muttered words and taped dressings around my wonds, and then spent weeks wishing for the softness of death in a recovery tent.
Yet I am not old. I am not yet forty.'
Damastes a Cimabue, 'Seer King'
I thought it was an excellent character introduction, and I've remembered it since I first read it.
