Lieutenant Avery
Rank: Lieutenant, Grand Rislandian Army Command: Lead scouting platoon on the Greenhorne–Loveridge road Appears in: The Neverending War
Lt. Avery had a gruff voice, and his eyes carried "the same weariness of war" as his men. He wore the army's grays with officer rank stripes.
Role in The Neverending War
Avery apologized to the wounded narrator in the medical tent ("I'm sorry to do this to you... But we need every man we can get") and returned him to duty for the advance on Loveridge, in which the army would converge with the 18th and 47th battalions. His platoon marched first as scouts, sending runners back from each checkpoint.
He was a strict disciplinarian. When Private du Skillet broke ranks at a noise in the bushes, Avery shouted in his face: "When you're ordered to march, you march until you're told not to march." Moments later, were-rats attacked. Avery dropped prone, and the narrator shot the beast that was about to maul him. Afterward he admitted, "Right near pissed myself. I might have been more scared than your buddy Private du Skillet there."
Avery identified the creatures as were-rats, which "in theory, they'd been eradicated since Malaky XIV's reign, but we've focused on the Wyranth, and they've likely returned. This is bad." He sent the narrator back to warn the next platoon.