My word is iron," Kublai said to the guards, as Meng Guang was led away. "Your people will come to know this, in time.
We are all fools with our sons. We wipe them and suckle them and all we expect is for them to be grateful to the end of their days.
There is no escape from me, not even in death.
You have a powerful army, Kublai, but the best force is one you do not have to use.
Sung Win smiled to himself, enjoying the tension across his shoulders and the way his pulse beat in his veins. All life involved risk.
It's all you can say, when the end comes: 'I did not waste my time.' I think that matters. I think it may be all that matters.
God had mercy, he knew. The Mongols had none.
Predators did not need mercy.
The man attempted to salute and Renius forced himself to smile, biting back his temper at the sloppy manners. He watched the fat figure run away into the buildings and wiped the first beads of sweat f...
The wisdom of age is bitter when those you have failed have gone.
I am the rightful khan of the nation. I am the gur-khan. My word is iron and my word is law.
Kublai went on as if he had not spoken.“Before you all, in the lands of my enemies, I declare myself great khan of the nation, of the khanates under my brothers, Hulegu and Arik-Boke, of the Chagatai...
As he prepared to ride on, he chuckled at the thought of the wolf entering the sheepfold. He would not ride with fire and destruction. The shepherd did not frighten his own pretty lambs.
If he had learned anything in manhood, it was that it didn’t matter what other people thought of him—even the ones he respected. In the end, he would patch together a life, with its sorry errors and i...
If he had learned anything from his father’s fate, it was to win, no matter how you did it. It was not important if someone else was hurt, or killed. If you won, you would be forgiven anything. You co...
I am not you and all my choices have already been made, good and bad.
A brave man could conquer fear, he had learned that, but perhaps only for a time. It was something the young did not understand, the way it could gnaw at a man, the way it came back stronger every tim...
A man needs to feel a little fear, Tolui, if only to have the pride of conquering it.
The nation of my father is too strong for a man who cannot command even his own body.
If a man has gold, he lives with the terror that someone will take it away from him, so he builds walls around it. Then everyone knows where the gold is, so they come and take it. That’s the way it al...
