To the Victors go the Spoils (Gagner la guerre)

After ten hours of fighting, when I saw the blaze of the Shah’s fleet from one end of the horizon to the other, I told myself: “Benvenuto, matey, you pulled your ole’ carcass from some huge kind of shitpile.”

Under the command of my boss, the podestà Leonide Ducatore, the galleys of the Republic of Ciudalia had just crushed the squadrons of the Sublime Sovereign of Ressina. Victory was in our clutches, and I thought the most part of the storm had gone by. Wrong, wrong move, Benvenuto. To win a war is a cute thing, but when you need to share the spoil among the victors, you realize the final blow to the opponent was only the appetizer. When those triumphant nobles are schemers rotten with ambition and pride, the sharing is the very moment when people scramble for the spoils. You come to regret the good old pitched battles, the neat and codified onslaught, the art of war. From now on, to nab the jackpot, the knives are drawn at the family dinner. That’s fortunate: knives are a thing I know rather well...

First chapters available in English translation

The n°1 best-seller of French fantasy