The gunslingers' teacher-at-arms in Gilead, who trained generations of young men of the line of Eld in the art of war. Strict as a sergeant, wielding his ironwood staff as both weapon and teaching tool, Cort instructed his apprentices in combat, weapons, navigation, and mental discipline. He called them 'the very eye of syphilis' yet hoped each would earn his guns. Every apprentice's final test was to defeat Cort in single combat in the Square Yard - Roland accomplished this at a younger age than any before him, using his hawk David as his weapon.