'Than to live with the fear of it.' Dogman nodded into the fire. 'You been missed, Logen, and that's a fact.'

'You too, Dogman. You too.'

He walked down through the darkness, smelly with smoke and meat and men, along behind the Carls sitting at the fire. He felt them hunching their shoulders, muttering as he passed. He knew what they were thinking. The Bloody-Nine, right behind me, and there's no worse man in theworld to have your back to. He could see Shivers watching him all the way, one eye cold through his long hair, lips pressed together in a hard line. He had a knife out for eating, but just as good for stabbing a man. Logen watched the firelight gleaming on its edge as he squatted down beside him.

'So you're the Bloody-Nine.'

Logen grimaced. 'Aye. I reckon.'

Shivers nodded, still staring at him. 'This is what the Bloody-Nine looks like.'

'Hope you're not disappointed.'

'Oh no. Not me. Good to have a face on you, after all this time.'

Logen looked down at the ground, trying to think of some way to come at it. Some way to move his hands, or set his face, some words that might start to make the tiniest part of it right. 'Those were hard times, back then,' he ended up saying.

'Harder'n now?'

Logen chewed at his lip. 'Well, maybe not.'

'Times are always hard, I reckon,' said Shivers between gritted teeth. 'That ain't an excuse for doing a runny shit.'

'You're right. There ain't any excuses for what I did. I'm not proud of it. Don't know what else I can say, except I hope you can put it out of the way, and we can fight side by side.'

'I'll be honest with you,' said Shivers, and his voice was strangled-sounding, like he was trying not to shout, or trying not to cry, or both at once, maybe. 'It's a hard thing to just put behind me. You killed my brother, when you'd promised him mercy, and you cut his arms and legs off, and you nailed his head on Bethod's standard.' His knuckles were trembling white round the grip of his knife, and Logen saw that it was taking all he had not to stab him in the face, and he didn't blame him. He didn't blame him one bit. 'My father never was the same after that. He'd nothing in him any more. I spent a lot of years dreaming of killing you, Bloody-Nine.'

Logen nodded, slowly. 'Well. You'll never be alone with that dream.'