The place reminded him of his own town, a long time ago. He was surprised this place had lasted as long as it had. You couldn’t live close to war and not have it grab you eventually. His own family had always been sure that war was going to stay down in the Drowned Cities, where all the fools were, but war was like the sea. It just kept rising, until one day the tide rolled in and you were up to your neck in it.

The wind shifted and smoke poured over them. Was that this boy’s name? Smoke?

Ocho scanned the blackened place, considering. The trees guttered with flame, some of them half-burned, twisted into spooky shapes by the fires. Stones sizzled with heat. Ocho thought he smelled meat burning. Pig or human. One or the other.

He considered names as he studied the kid. You were dead, Ocho thought. And now you’re not.

Raised up from the dead. Got a mission, still. Yeah. That was all right.

Ocho smacked the kid on the back of the head again. “Your name’s Ghost.”

He crouched down with the brand. “This is gonna hurt, little buddy. You better not cry. You cry, Tweek here will chop your head off. UPF’s tough, right? We don’t flinch, we never surrender. You’re Ghost. And you’re UPF, forever, warboy. Forever.”

He stared into the face of the sniveling war maggot, all pale and sooty with his wide scared eyes. “You ain’t going to thank me, maggot. But it’s better than dead.” And then he pressed the brand into the little war maggot’s face, three horizontal lines.

The cooking smell of pig curled up from the brand. The boy shook and fought, but he held on and rode through the pain, just like they all had.

When Ocho straightened, the warboy was gasping, but he hadn’t cried and he hadn’t begged.

He slapped the kid on the back. “Good job, soldier.” He waved at Tweek and Gutty. “Go get our brother drunk.”

“You going soft on me, Sergeant?”

Ocho stiffened. The lieutenant’s voice was soft, but there was a warning there. Like the movement of a cottonmouth in the swamp, coming at you, and then you were bit and poisoned and dying.

Ocho turned. The boys had found a bunch of antique furniture that they’d hacked up and piled into a bonfire, and everyone who wasn’t standing patrol against civvies coming back and looking for revenge was drunk off their asses. One of the soldiers had put the head of an old civvy lady on a stick and was running around saying, “But I don’t even like castoffs!” while everybody laughed.

And now Sayle was standing beside him. “You going soft?”