'They might have to grow without us, for now. Listen, Dogman, I never looked for a fight, you know that, but you have to be—'

'Don't. Even. Bother.'

'I'm trying to be a better man, here, Dogman.'

'That so? I don't see you trying that hard. Did you kill Tul?'

Logen's eyes went narrow. 'Dow been talking, has he?'

'Never mind who said what. Did you kill the Thunderhead or did you not? Ain't a hard one to come at. It's just a yes or a no.'

Logen made a kind of snort, like he was about to start laughing, or about to start crying, but didn't do either one. 'I don't know what I did.'

'Don't know? What use is don't know? Is that what you'll say after you've stabbed me through the back, while I'm trying to save your worthless life?'

Logen winced down at the wet grass. 'Maybe it will be. I don't know.' His eyes slid back up to the Dogman's, and stuck there, hard. 'But that's the price, ain't it? You know what I am. You could have picked a different man to follow.'

Dogman watched him go, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to think even. Just standing there, in the midst of the graves, getting wetter. He felt someone come up beside him. Red Hat, looking off into the rain, watching after Logen's black shape growing fainter and fainter. He shook his head, mouth pursed up tight.

'I never believed the stories they told about him. About the Bloody-Nine. All bluster, I thought. But I believe 'em now. I heard he killed Crummock's boy, in that fight in the mountains. Carved him careless as you'd crush a beetle, no reason. That's a man there cares for nothing. No man worse, I reckon, ever, in all the North. Not even Bethod. That's an evil bastard, if ever there was one.'

'That so?' Dogman found he was right up in Red Hat's face, and shouting. 'Well piss on you, arsehole! Who made you the fucking judge?'

'Just saying, is all.' Red Hat stared at him. 'I mean… I thought we had the same thing in mind.'

'Well, we don't! You need a mind bigger'n a pea to hold something in it and you're lacking the equipment, idiot! You wouldn't know a good man from an evil if he pissed on you!'

Red Hat blinked. 'Right y'are. I see I got the wrong notion.' He backed off a stride, then walked away through the drizzle, shaking his head.

Dogman watched him go, teeth gritted, thinking how he wanted to hit someone, but not sure who. There was no one here but him, now, anyway. Him and the dead. But maybe that's what happens once the fighting stops, to a man who knows nothing but fighting. He fights himself.