Captain Ruthgardt has spent his life doing as he is told, and it has brought him to a forest clearing at night, listening to men from his own side do something unspeakable to a prisoner. When the bear comes, he is the only one it leaves alive. What follows is a man learning to eat, to burn, to bury, and to ask the one question the army never had time for. The forest takes no side. It never did. It simply goes on being a forest while men bleed into it. This one is a departure for me. My other work moves between people and places, and there is usually someone to talk to. Here there is one man, one forest, and almost nobody to hear him. It seemed the honest way to tell it. Readers of The Forest Asks already know how his story ends. This is how it began. Part One of three, unless Ruthgardt has other ideas. He usually does. Part Three follows in a fortnight. Sign up and it will come to you.