Tall, gaunt, hard Union general with close-cropped grey hair. Meticulous and dour, his feud with Poulder is one of the campaign's greatest liabilities.

Round-faced, ruddy Union general with tremendous moustaches. Vain and boastful, his bitter rivalry with Kroy hampers the war effort.

Union general commanding the garrison at Dagoska. Plump, sweaty, and professionally insecure, he struggles under the pressure of the Gurkish siege.

The foppish Crown Prince of the Union, surrounded by flatterers and caring only for gambling and clothes. His incompetence has consequences in the war to come.

A brawny, quick-tempered officer and friend to Jezal. He later rises to prominence in the Union military.

A good-humoured but dim young officer from an extremely wealthy family. One of Jezal's regular card-playing companions.

The youngest and poorest of Jezal's officer friends. He accompanies West's column in Angland.

A grizzled old soldier and Crown Prince Orso's disreputable drinking companion. Cynical, shameless, and expert at avoiding responsibility while appearing indispensable.

An experienced, earthy career soldier who rose through the ranks on merit. He serves as Crown Prince Orso's second-in-command with a cool head and honest manner.

A Union army officer of common birth who has risen through the ranks on merit, which the nobility around him find faintly embarrassing. West is competent, decent, and perpetually caught between the realities of military command and the political nonsense that surrounds it. He is Jezal's friend and effectively his keeper in the early books - the person who covers for him and quietly despairs of him. His own arc, largely set in the military campaigns of the second and third books, is quieter than the other POV characters but accumulates genuine weight. West is the closest thing the trilogy has to a straightforwardly good man, and Abercrombie treats that with appropriate caution.

A disgraced royal duelist reassigned to the humiliating role of royal observer at the battle in The Heroes, which means he watches the fighting rather than participating in it. Gorst is the finest swordsman in the Union - possibly in the world - and is entirely aware that his skills are wasted in his current role. His interior monologue, bitter and self-lacerating, is one of Abercrombie's funniest and most uncomfortable achievements: a man consumed by violent fantasies who applies to them the same sardonic intelligence he applies to everything else. In combat he becomes something else entirely.