Sergeant Veld of the Cold Ford

House Vandahl's last man at Karth Bridge — two seasons unrelieved, still holding, and long past expecting anyone is coming.

Veld is exactly the person the post deserves and exactly what the post has done to him: methodical, frost-steady, and quietly furious at a House that has forgotten he is up here. He keeps the watch, clears the ford debris, trades a fire and honest road-information for help with the stalkers that come down to the road. What he doesn't know is that the den's real danger is human, and he has a rule about what he does when he finds out a thing he'd rather not know — which is to follow it to the end regardless of what it costs him.