A man stood in the midst of all this. He had white armour on, speckled and dusted with red. A wind had blown up in the gardens, and his black hair flicked around his face, dark skin smooth and flawless as a baby's. He was frowning down at a body near his feet, but he looked up at Logen as he came through the gate. Without hatred or fear, without happiness or sadness. Without anything much.

'You are a long way from home,' he said, in Northern.

'You too.' Logen looked into that empty face. 'You an Eater?'

'To that crime I must confess.'

'We're all guilty o' something.' Logen hefted his sword in one hand. 'Shall we get to it, then?'

'I came here to kill Bayaz. No one else.'

Logen glanced round at the ruined corpses scattered across the gardens. 'How's that working out for you?'

'Once you set your mind on killing, it is hard to choose the number of the dead.'

'That is a fact. Blood gets you nothing but more blood, my father used to tell me.'

'A wise man.'

'If only I'd listened.'

'It is hard, sometimes, to know what is… the truth.' The Eater lifted up his bloody right hand and frowned at it. 'It is fitting that a righteous man should have… doubts.'

'You tell me. Can't say I know too many righteous men.'

'I once thought I did. Now I am not sure. We must fight?'

Logen took a long breath. 'Looks that way.'

'So be it.'

He came so fast there was hardly time to lift a sword, let alone swing it. Logen threw himself out of the way but still got caught in the ribs with something—elbow, knee, shoulder. It can be hard to tell when you're flopping over and over on the grass, everything tumbling around you. He tried to get up, found that he couldn't. Raising his head an inch was almost more than he could manage. Every breath was painful. He dropped back, staring up at the white sky. Maybe he should've stayed outside the walls. Maybe he should've just let the lads rest in the trees, until after it was all settled.

The tall shape of the Eater swam into his blurry vision, black against the clouds. 'I am sorry for this. I will pray for you. I will pray for us both.' He lifted up his armoured foot.