There was plenty of anger among the Tiste, swirling and on occasion rising up to drown sorrow, to overwhelm what was needed to just get along. Or maybe it was a force that existed in everyone, like a treasure hoard of every humiliation suffered in a lifetime of broken dreams and disappointments, a treasure hoard, a chest, with a flimsy lock.

Narad was an ugly man now, and he would think like an ugly man, but one still strong enough to keep sorrow’s head down, beneath the surface, and find satisfaction each and every time he drowned it. He wasn’t interested in a soft world any more, a world where tenderness and warmth were possible, rising like bright flowers from beds of skeletal lichen and sun-burnt moss. He needed to keep reminding himself of all of that.

He sat listening to the conversations in the camp around him, the words coming from those gathered round the fire, or outside the tents. Jests and complaints about the damp ground, the fire’s wayward but vengeful smoke. And he could hear, in rasping susurration, iron blades sliding on whetstones, as nicks were worked out and blunt edges honed sharp once again. Narad was among soldiers, true soldiers, and their work was hard and unpleasant, and he now counted himself one of them.

The troop awaited the return of their captain, Scara Bandaris, who along with a half-dozen soldiers had gone on to Kharkanas, to deliver the Jheleck hostages. Left behind by the caravan, still rib-cracked, still face-swollen, still half-blind, Narad had stumbled upon this troop and they had taken him in, cared for him, given him weapons and a horse, and now he rode with them.

The war against the Deniers had begun, here in this ancient forest. Narad had not known such a war was even threatening; he had never been impressed by the forest people. They were ignorant, most likely inbred, and meek as lambs. They weren’t much of an enemy, and it didn’t seem to be much of a war. The few huts they had come upon yesterday had been what Narad would have expected. One middle-aged man with a bad knee, a woman who called him husband, and the children they’d begotten. The girl who’d been hiding in the hut might have been pretty before the fire, but she was barely human after it, crawling out like she did. The killing had been straightforward. It had been professional. There had been no rapes, no torture. Every death delivered had been delivered quickly. Narad told himself that even necessity could be balanced with mercy.

The problem was: he was having trouble finding the necessity.

Corporal Bursa told him that he and his troop had cleaned out most of the Deniers in this section of forest – a day’s walk in any direction. He said it had been easy as there didn’t seem to be too many warriors among them, just the old and mothers and the young. Bursa reminded Narad of Haral, and already he had felt his instinctive response to a man bad at hiding hurts, but this time he kept quiet. He had learned his lesson and he wanted to stay with these men and women, these soldiers of the Legion. He wanted to be one of them.