The veteran smiled and Isak smiled back. Carel didn't suffer fools or time-wasters. There had to be something to his words, or all the hours of drilling and sparring would have been for nothing. Isak knew he could best Carel with a weapon – even a weighted training stick against a sword – but that wasn't the problem. All white-eyes were preternaturally fast, and strong, but it was this very power that scared normal people. Isak had had that demonstrated to him almost every day of his life.

Carel insisted there were others like him in the Guard, but no one ever saw them. If it were true, clearly they were not trusted with keeping the peace on Tirah's streets; they were used only in the slaughter of battle.

'I suppose you're right,' Isak admitted. 'I just daren't allow myself to hope. But I'll take any chance to get away from this lot, even if I have to break Father in two to do it.'

This disrespect earned him a clip round the ear, one that would have been painful to anyone else, but Isak bore it without flinching. Every child in the train had felt the back of Carel's hand at one time or another, but it made no difference: they all loved him – and his stories. But no one else in the train understood Carel's obvious affection for the wild white-eye, and all Carel would say was that in Isak he recognised the angry young man he himself had been.

The wagoners were a community held together by blood ties as much as poverty. Most of the year was spent on the road and even in Parian territory they kept to themselves. The caravan was the only home Isak had ever known, but it was not where he was welcome; only in the wild places did he find some comfort of belonging. The presence of others always reminded him that he was blessed and cursed in equal measure – and that men feared both. White-eyes were bom to be protectors of the Seven Tribes, but jealousy and fear had demonised his kind and now many saw them as symbols of the Land's polluted soul.