A young Northman who comes to the battle at the Heroes seeking glory and a name. Beck's arc is the series' clearest articulation of the gap between the stories men tell about war and what war actually is - by the end of three days he has his answer, and it is not the one he wanted.

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.

The First of the Magi, one of the most powerful practitioners of the Art in the world, who arrives in Adua claiming to be the legendary founder of the Union and demanding access to the royal library. He is old, irritable, occasionally charming, and completely accustomed to getting what he wants. Bayaz announces himself as a figure out of legend, but a thousand-year absence has left even those closest to the crown uncertain how much of the wizard's history is true and how much has accreted around the name.

A Named Man from the North and one of Bethod's most feared warriors, Black Dow is everything the North respects - brutal, honest about what he is, and capable of surviving anything. His arc extends through the standalones and Age of Madness, where he becomes a significant power in his own right. The North's opinion of him is complicated: he is hated and followed in roughly equal measure.

Bethod's younger son, with none of his father's reputation for violence and all of his father's appetite for power. Calder survives by scheming where other Northmen survive by fighting - he is contemptuous of the heroic ideal and considerably more effective for it. His arc across The Heroes and into the Age of Madness is one of the series' more satisfying long games.

A Northman who tries to go south and be a better man - to leave the violence of the North behind and become something else. He fails, but the manner of his failure and what it costs him make him one of the most interesting characters in the series. Shivers appears first in Best Served Cold as Monza's hired muscle and grows into a recurring presence across the standalones and Age of Madness, each appearance showing him further from who he wanted to be. His arc is the purest expression of the series' central theme: people do not change, and the things that happen to them tend to make them more themselves rather than less.

A Named Man from the North and one of Black Dow's chiefs, Curnden Craw is a veteran of more battles than he can count and has been trying to do the right thing in them for longer than most men live. His chapters in The Heroes are the moral centre of the book - a man who has spent a lifetime in violence asking whether it has amounted to anything, surrounded by younger men who haven't yet asked the question.

The daughter of Marshal Kroy and wife of Hal dan Brock, Finree is the Union's political POV in The Heroes - a woman of considerable intelligence navigating a military culture that has no place for her. Her arc is about the distance between the Union's self-image and what it actually does, and about what it costs to be competent in a system that will not acknowledge your competence. Leo dan Brock's mother.

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.

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

King of the Northmen in name and Black Calder's elder brother. A great, fat, boisterous man with an iron hand, he serves largely as a figurehead while Calder governs from the shadows.

One of Logen's Named Men - the best scout in the North, a man who can track anything across any terrain and who has survived longer than most by knowing when to run. The Dogman is quieter and more thoughtful than most Northern warriors, less interested in reputation than in keeping himself and the people he cares about alive. He becomes a POV character in the later books and proves to be one of Abercrombie's most sympathetic perspectives on the North - someone who has seen what the endless fighting produces and has clear-eyed views about its value.

A mysterious servant of Bayaz with mismatched eyes - one blue, one green. He heralds Bayaz's return to the Agriont and serves as his advance agent.