The music is calmer than what some other people seem to like and play, but it's still loud and chaotic to Jon's ears, especially the wild horns that seem to form a great part of it.

The young man is a little younger than Jon, fair-haired but with the look of some of the other recruits. He's smoking, something Jon had done as little as possible in the trenches, not liking the taste of the air or the way it could make a target of a man at night. Why do it now? And his tone is bland and low in a way that doesn't suit the look in his eyes.

"Missing two what? And no, I've never heard of The Checkers. What are they checking?"

It's not a joke, or he would have followed it with Whether or not anyone can hear them? But maybe his bafflement won't come as a surprise: most of the clothes he's wearing are ones from home, including the heavy armored leather brigandine and the plate gorget, and a sword and dagger are belted at his waist. They don't know what they'll face out here; it seems stupid to go out less armed than he otherwise might, and he trusts Longclaw more than he trusts the guns they've been given, though he has that, too.