I am not a fate worse than death, dammit! - Lois McMaster Bujold

Surely she was mad. She didn’t feel anything, no grief or remorse, though her heart was racing and her breath came in gasps. A shocky combat-high, that immortal rush that made men charge machine guns. So this was what the war-addicts came for.

“Five gods avert,” said Rede. And then, after a pensive moment, “Do They?”
“Not that I can tell,” said Pen. “I’ve sometimes wondered if the gods regard death not as a dreaded ending, but as a welcome beginning.”
“Of what?”
“I am deeply not sure. Which doesn’t stop people from making up a thousand tales.”

“Do you know what this is, Lord Vorkosigan?” Giaja asked.
Miles eyed the medallion of the Order of Merit on its colored ribbon, glittering on a bed of velvet. “Yes, sir. It is a lead weight, suitable for sinking small enemies. Are you going to sew me into a silk sack with it, before you throw me overboard?”