Shrike

	Obediently, the children came to her. Ruan was carrying a big bundle, wrapped up in a very dirty cloth. The little girl held Noodle Poodle tight and kept looking back at the Stalker, who turned to watch her go past him. "Why did he look like
Daddy if he isn't Daddy?" she asked loudly.

	"People do look like other people sometimes," said Fever, picking her up and turning away, listening all the time for the sound of the Stalker coming after her.

	But the Stalker just stood there watching as Fever, with the girl in her arms and
the boy beside her, went down the steep slope of the garden and walked into the
mist like someone walking into a white sea. He was going to live a long time,
that Stalker. The Movement would send him north, where he would become one
of the fiercest warriors of the Lazarus Brigade, and in later years he would serve
many other masters, until his battered armor was a palimpsest of stencilled
insignia. And always there would be this flaw in him, this softness when it came
to small children, and he would never understand why.

	So he stood and watched them walk away from him into the mist, and just before
it hid them from him the little girl raised her hand and waved good-by

Chapter 38: We are the Dead, Fever Crumb, pg 217/232