The Burning Bridge characters

Appears from the start

The exiled rebel lord who has spent fifteen years in the Mountains of Rain and Night, and who is now openly preparing to invade Araluen. His attempt to murder the kingdom's senior commanders was stopped, but he is patient and thinks in terms of traps rather than pitched battles. He controls his Wargal army directly with his mind, so it fights with no will of its own.

Appears from the start

Morgarath's soldiers: heavy, black-furred, brutish creatures who fight in silence under his mental control and have no independent will of their own. They are strong and tireless but have one weakness that Araluen has exploited before, an instinctive terror of horses.

Appears from the start

A Ranger's apprentice at Redmont, a year further into his training and steadier for it. He is a competent shot, hard to see when he does not want to be seen, and still the smallest person in most rooms he enters. His part in the killing of the Kalkara has given him a reputation he is not entirely comfortable with.

Appears from the start

The King's Ranger for Redmont Fief and Will's teacher: grey, terse, and trusted by the King on matters of war. With Morgarath mobilising, his work turns from watching the fief to advising the kingdom's commanders.

Appears from the start

A Battleschool apprentice at Redmont and Will's friend, already taller and heavier than most of the boys ahead of him and marked out by his instructors as exceptional with a sword. He is straightforward, literal-minded and steady under pressure.

Appears from the start

Will's Ranger horse: small, shaggy, barrel-chested and much faster and more intelligent than his appearance suggests.

First appears in chapter 2

Lord of Redmont Fief, now raising and equipping his fighting men for the war everyone expects.

First appears in chapter 3

Redmont's Battlemaster, responsible for the fief's knights and apprentices and for readying them to march.

First appears in chapter 6

Halt's former apprentice and now the Ranger of a southern fief, cheerful, quick and an accomplished swordsman as well as a Ranger. He is given command of a small mission and treats Will and Horace as junior colleagues rather than children.

First appears in chapter 7

The King of Araluen, who defeated Morgarath's rebellion fifteen years earlier and is now assembling the fiefs' armies to meet him again. He is capable, direct, and willing to listen to his Rangers.

First appears in chapter 13

A fair-haired Araluen girl found alone in a deserted Celtican village, the only member of her travelling party to escape when it was attacked. She says she is a maid in the service of Princess Cassandra. She is composed, quick-witted, unwilling to be left behind, and noticeably harder to place than a servant should be.

First appears in chapter 29

A Skandian jarl, captain of a wolfship and leader of a raiding crew hired as mercenaries. Skandians are northern sea raiders who fight for pay and plunder, and Erak is a big, loud, practical man who treats prisoners as property to be sold rather than as enemies to be killed.