I have a lot of friends who served in the regular army for a long time. Quite a few of my friends from that time went on to become full-time soldiers. But you live in a world that is entirely army. Your whole world is pretty much that military service, and it's very hard to do other things and to break out of that environment.

All of us recruits are equal in the eyes of the Army: low as you can go.

Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.

Just like the Perimeter! It never rains but it pours," declared the Major.

Clearly the Old One had the capacity to kill - or easily deliver some sort of final ending that sounded remarkably like death.

A hundred hundred heartbeats..." whispered Sabriel, tears falling down her face.

Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon.