TOMAS PIETY: An army priest, a veteran, and a businessman. Leader of the Pious Men. Your narrator.
JOCHAN PIETY: His younger brother, a very disturbed man.
ENAID PIETY: Their loving aunt, sister to their da. A spinster of some sixty years. She had been a soldier in the last war, and she took no shit from anyone.
BLOODY ANNE: A sergeant, a good soldier, and a loyal friend. Anne always had preferred the close work; that was how she got her name in the first place.
SIR ELAND: A false knight with the eyes of a weasel. Not a man you’d trust.
KANT: A corporal and a psychopath. Kant the Cunt, the crew called him, but never to his face.
BRAK: Kant’s second, a young thug of some twenty years. He was only tough when he had the big man in front of him.
COOKPOT: A cook, a forager, and a thief. Cookpot had grown up in Ellinburg, but he didn’t know how business was done any more than Simple Sam did.
FAT LUKA: Another Ellinburg man. If he had managed to stay fat on army rations then it was just his natural shape and he’d be fat for life.
SIMPLE SAM: A slow lad but a faithful one, and he certainly had a good size to him.
BLACK BILLY: Black Billy was proud of his arms, and rightly so. Good with his fists too.
BILLY THE BOY: An orphan of twelve years, touched by the goddess. A very strange young man.
GRIEG: A conscript with some unpleasant habits.
NIK THE KNIFE: Not such a bad fellow, despite his name. Nik was well liked in the crew.
STEFAN: A soldier. There was little more to be said about Stefan.
BORYS: A thoughtful, older man who said little. He could move quiet when he wanted to, for a big man.
ERIK: He was good at the close work, was Erik.
Three other ruffians whose names are not recorded here
WILL THE WOMAN: We called him that because every time Will kills a man he weeps afterward, but he’s killed so many men it ain’t funny no more.
HARI: Not a natural soldier, but a man of hidden talents.
MIKA: He could think for himself, could Mika, which is more than some of the lads could.
CUTTER: A professional murderer with a mysterious past.
GANNA: A shithead.
GOVERNOR HAUER: The city governor of Ellinburg. A frugal man, or so he let it be thought. Overly fond of wine.
CAPTAIN ROGAN: Captain of the City Guard. A hard man and a ruthless bully, but he was greedy and he had his vices.
AILSA: An Alarian barmaid. Among other things.
ROSIE: A whore with a heart of secrets.
DOC CORDIN: A barber-surgeon. He had always been a better surgeon than he was a barber.
THE MOTHER SUPERIOR: Head of the convent of the Mother of Blessed Redemption. Can’t take a joke.
SISTER JESSICA: A nun at the convent. Good with a halberd.
OLD KURT: People called Old Kurt a cunning man, and that had two meanings.
ERNST: A barber.
PAWL: A tailor.
GEORG: A baker.
DESH: An Alarian lad from Hull Patcher’s Row. As far back as he could remember, he always wanted to be a Pious Man.
CAPTAIN LARN: A career army officer and a pain in the arse.
MA ADITI: A gangster and an enemy, the head of the Gutcutters down in the Wheels.
GREGOR: A gangster who sits at Ma Aditi’s left hand.
BLOODHANDS: A very, very scary man.