How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Pin was bored with Lords and war. She took a hank of Cam's long hair in each hand. "Giddap!" She snapped the hair-reins. (1.91)
Too bad for Cam his little sis doesn't share everyone else's interest in war. Pin's reaction might seem a little out of place, given that everyone is pushing Cam for war stories, but we totally get it—she wants to move on with their lives already.
Quote #2
They had a look to them, the same look… Was it war that gave them that look, or was it being set adrift by their Lord to find their way home, having left it in the first place to fight for him? (2.56)
Check out how the soldiers are described here. Even the "winners" of a war lose a great deal going off to fight—freedom, family, peace, and lots more. It's important for us to realize that it's not just the Downlanders who are suffering.
Quote #3
"I don't know about the war changing things." It was Mam Coverlast speaking. "But with your gamekeeper setting borders that never used to be, it's hurting our livelihood." (2.79)
Even though people don't want to admit it, the war changed a lot. For starters, Downlanders can't make as much money now that the Uplanders rule and changed up the system.
Quote #4
Cam had lifted a shoulder. That he would not want to talk about it… Ban thought he could understand: To talk about it was to think about it, when all Cam wanted, it seemed, was to forget. (4.28)
That's irony for you. Everyone wants Cam to remember all the gory details, while he just wants to make it the furthest thing from his mind. Except war keeps taking over his memories and life—so he can't escape, no matter what he does.
Quote #5
He could see Cam, running, not slowing even to shove the branches aside, as if Fenister's farmhand had become an Uplander soldier, as if the war was still being fought. (4.56)
Ban realizes that you can take Cam out of a war, but you can't take the war out of Cam. Now that he's fought, it's part of him whether he likes it or not.
Quote #6
His sword did swing and the blood, it did just… jump from my arm and hit him, face and chest and hands, and he… he staggered back and fell over a body, so he was kneeling there, righting himself, using his sword as a prop, and I was looking at him, and his eyes met mine and it wasn't. (4.103)
There are so few descriptions of the fighting in the novel that we had to highlight this one from Cam. We'd like to point out how he doesn't play the blame game here, making his enemy seem larger or more vicious than he actually is. For the most part, he seems to give us a pretty straightforward account.
Quote #7
War. The hungering in him burst into excitement and a kind of fear. This is it, he thought. He wondered if he would see Smiling Women, in the north. Da dum da dum. This is it. (5.48)
When Cam first learns of war, he's psyched. There's definitely a heart-racing, adrenaline-pumping thrill coming out here before he sees any action on the battlefield. If only he knew the trauma and repercussions the war will actually have on him, perhaps he wouldn't be so excited to go.
Quote #8
The war went on and on and on. The two great armies did not meet again in numbers until the Battle for Dorn-Lannet, but dodged and jinked about each other. Cam's war was ambush and sniping, a war of nerves and secret, stalking slaughter, moving back and forth over the same territory, but slowly, slowly, Cam's own side always losing ground. (7.85)
We get several clues that the Uplanders and Downlanders are pretty equally matched in the novel, and this is a pretty significant one. It's important that the Uplanders slowly overtake the Downlanders, because it gives us a sense that the war is between two similar sides—and that means both lose in the end.
Quote #9
Watching her, Diido hurt: for the little girl she herself had been before the soldiers had come; for the angry grieving look on the child's face. Even here, in this place of peace and plenty, so far, far from the soldiers, why that look? (8.46)
Diido's war isn't what Cam experienced on the battlefield, but it's just as real and just as horrific. She's used by the soldiers simply because there's a war and people behave differently when in battle—to her, the war represents the loss of herself.
Quote #10
Gyodan had told him, "War is art: strategy, sword-work, archery." But to Gyaar, it was grass churned to mud, the mud red. It was Father's men bowed, all the same, knee and fist to the ground, heads bent. War was Father, in his blood-colored armor, running up the avenue they made. (10.28)
Gyodan thinks war is much more artful than Gyaar, which makes it easier for him to rush into battle. But all that strategy can only get you so far—in fact, Gyodan dies very quickly in the war. Perhaps his advice isn't worth taking then and Gyaar's understanding of war is more accurate.