Ceorl


 * avoids prosecution because of having  analogous to the French Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS. He makes corporal during brutal fighting in which he  His (relatively) saving grace is his

Ceorl was a Forthwegian robber and collaborator with the Algarvian occupiers.

He was a brutally frank outlaw, lacking in the slightest hint of hypocrisy or apology for his banditry and having no loyalty outside himself. Ceorl had avoided capture while Forthweg was independnet. Being caught by the Algarvianand given choice of either going to the gallows or joining King Plegmund's Brigade, a Forthwegian-manned unit of the Algarvian army, he naturally chose the second.

After undergoing intensive training he takes part in fighting guerrillas in the eastern Unkerlant, briefly facing Garivald (though they were not introduced to each other). He felt no compucntion about taking part in such atrocities as raping peasant women and massacring Unkerlanter and Yaninan villagers. Though basically an outlaw loyal to none but himself, he did befriend some of his fellow soldiers, particularly Sidroc, and felt that for his own survival he needed to act in loyalty to his roguish comrades and help ensure the unit's success.

Among the ruins of burning Trapani he consolated, in a highly uncharacteristic warm gesture, the shaken Sidroc - to whom fell the duty of killing King Mezentio at the King's own request, so as to deprive the Unkerlanter King Swemmel of the chance to kill Mezentio by slow torture.

Sidroc was killed soon afterwards in the Algarvian last stand against the Unkerlanter troops breaking into the royal palace. Sidroc survived but was captured and sent to slave labour at the Unkerlanter Mamming Hills. With a considerable previous prison experience, Ceorl made himself a gang leader among the slave labourers, which ensured him such small vital privileges as a place near the stove in the bitterly cold Unkerlanter winter nights. Nevertheless, he realized that even so, the mines were a slow but certain death sentence.

Staking all on the slim chance of escape, he chose Garivald - their former bitter fight in the guerilla wars forging a paradoxical link between them - as his mate in this desperate enterprise. Pursued by guards with dogs, the two of them separated. Having hoped that the guards would pursue Garivald, Ceorl found himself trapped but managed to kill several of his pursuers before being blazed down, dying as he had lived.