"Keep your own counsel—and use your head for something besides a battering ram, that is my advice to you. Keep up your chess; it stretches the mind a… - S. M. Stirling

They rode armed for war, curved swords at their side and the thick horn-and-sinew bows of mounted archers in cases at their knees.

Trust is the lubricant that enables men to work together, and they've thrown a handful of corundum grit into ours.

[...] Anyone who might think of attacking them would also probably recognize that they were armed. She smiled slightly; all three of them actually had valid concealed-carry permits for the Belgian FiveseveN specials under their jackets. Although not for the P90 machine pistols in the attaché cases, and some of the stuff in the vehicle would be right out of it. Semtex, timers, detonators, cans of gasoline and thermite bombs, for example. Even if the invoice reads "Cleaning supplies" back at HQ.