They watched as the squad members emerged from the square doorway, each wearing a raincape and burdened with a heavy pack. Fiddler and Hedge were engaged in a whispering argument, the latter casting a glare back at Trotts who'd trodden on his heel. The Barghast had attached his entire collection of charms, trinkets and trophies to various parts of his burly body, looking like a bedecked leadwood tree during the Kanese Fete of the Scorpions. Barghast were known for their odd sense of humour. Quick Ben and Kalam flanked Sorry, both men glowering and on edge, while Sorry, ignoring everyone, slowly made her way to the waiting Quorls. Her satchel was no bigger than a bedroll, and the raincape she wore was more like a cloak – not standard issue – reaching down to her ankles. She'd raised the hood. Despite the dawn's burgeoning light her face remained in shadow. This is all I have left. Whiskeyjack sighed.

Dujek asked quietly, 'How is she doing, Sergeant?'

'Still breathing,' Whiskeyjack replied stonily.

The High Fist slowly shook his head. 'So damn young these days ...'

A memory returned to Whiskeyjack as he considered Dujek's words. On a brief attachment to the 5th, away from the siege at Pale, in the midst of the Mott Campaign, Sorry had joined them from the new troops arriving at Nathilog. He'd watched her put a knife to three local mercenaries they'd taken prisoner in Greydog – ostensibly to glean information but, he recalled with a shudder, it had been nothing like that. Not an act of expedience. He had stared aghast, horrified, as Sorry set to work on their loins. He remembered meeting Kalam's gaze, and the desperate gesture that sent the black man surging forward, knives bared. Kalam had pushed past Sorry and with three quick motions had laid open the men's throats. And then came the moment that still twisted Whiskeyjack's heart. In their last, frothing words, the mercenaries had blessed Kalam.

Sorry had merely sheathed her weapon, then walked away.

Though the woman had been with the squad for two years, still his men called her a recruit, and they would probably do so until the day they died. There was a meaning there, and Whiskeyjack understood it well. Recruits were not Bridge-burners. The stripping away of that label was an earned thing, a recognition brought by deeds. Sorry was a recruit because the thought of having her inextricably enfolded within the Bridgeburners burned like a hot knife in the throat of everyone in his squad. And that was something to which the sergeant himself was not immune.

As all of this flashed through Whiskeyjack's thoughts, his usually impassive expression failed him. In his head, he replied: Young? No, you can forgive the young, you can answer their simple needs, and you can look in their eyes and find enough there that is recognizable. But her? No. Best to avoid those eyes, in which there was nothing that was young – nothing at all.