"Each day a battle of the soul," said Rooster. "It's been rough, on Mercy especially. But we're pulling through. We're hard folk." The old commander sat across from Jinx in a dim booth lit by rustic lanterns. Both Reapers were in civilian garb. Ascension Boulevard's lamplights twinkled in the canals outside through the uneven glass of the windows. The Hunt House was Rooster's favorite haunt in Camshire for such meetings. Heads and busts of various strange beasts that had been slain across the realm were mounted on the walls and in the dividers between the booths and in the latrines to stare at the eaters and pissers in grim silence. To Jinx, the taxidermic trophies only served as reminders of the profound horrors of the wild. He'd seen many fellow men fall to such kinds of beast. Still saw it, for such things never left the mind once branded into its labyrinthine folds. Yet Jinx understood that his peers need fear little here for the Hunt House was by design a secure place for ranked officials and their guests. It had been used in past times as a bunker, with its thick fortified walls and stores of food and wine in its cellars, when the Diluvians urged popular revolt against the ruling monarchy and war raged in the streets. The servers and cooks were trained and armed and sworn to the Nation to protect the patrons with their lives. Still, Jinx knew men could be swayed by coin or creed, and so he kept wary even here.

Both Reapers had journeyed to the great and pandemonic city after the Battle of Fort Nothing's close. Jinx had come first with the captive necromancer Skelen in tow. The criminal was to be delivered to the Diluvian Inquisitors and finally meet judgment for his unthinkable misdeeds against Marrow and the greater humanity. Rooster came to Camshire later, with twofold purpose—to bury his son who'd died on the eastern front, and to help defend the Reapers against Ogerius' mounting legal charges. Ogerius himself had accompanied Jinx and Skelen on their journey to this City of Uneasy Winds (called so more for its shifting political and social landscapes and architectures and economies than the chicanerous winds themselves), along with his entourage of lackeys, all of whom kept close eyes on the two runists for any hint of talk or witchery.

"We've lost many children and so we are weathered," Rooster continued, "but they had all been very young when they died. Dreu's passing was... different. He was about your age."

"Yes, I met him once," said Jinx, noticing the unfamiliar tenderness in his commander's voice. "A good man. Smart and honorable. He died well. I hear he gave the Erumanir hell in the push to retake Fort Holdt."

"The stars cup his glory now," said Rooster. "I'll tell Mercy you asked."

"Please do," said Jinx as the waiter brought out their steaks. "Have you seen Halo's family yet since your return?"

"Indeed I have," said Rooster. "But not under the fortune of pleasure, to my sincere displeasure. Mulia's been dragged by Ogerius into this mockery of a trial, to testify on the subject of Donric's character."

Jinx frowned. Donric, codenamed Halo, had vanished from Fort Nothing, along with the slain Justicar's haunted sword, leaving no trace. Jinx himself had planned to bring the weapon with him as well for further study of its ancient runes. "Do they suspect Halo of deserting?"

"Perhaps," said Rooster, "but it is not Donric who is on trial. They want to bring down the entire Reaper program. The events surrounding Fort Nothing, including Halo's role, is but one arrow in Ogerius' quiver. There have unfortunately been enough botched missions and disasters to fill years of nonsense quibbling in that circus of a courthouse." Rooster shook his head, resolute. "But Ogerius and Hortecrus and the others don't understand the greater picture, that the good we do ultimately outweighs the bad."

Jinx nodded and wondered if perhaps Rooster was only assuring himself so he may avoid the awful truth, that the Reaper program did have too much reach, took matters too far, was too poorly managed. He gave no voice to such thoughts.

"To the pits with talk of that trial," Rooster said, "it consumes enough of my life. You had asked about Donric's family. I was able to speak with Mulia privately, briefly. The woman's strong as a Fafnir anvil. A better pairing to Donric than my steak to this wine and that is something mythic indeed. It was hard enough for Mercy and me to lose our boy. But for Mulia to still not know Donric's fate at all... whether he is dead or, perhaps worse, alive and suffering at the hands of the piss-drinkers—her spirits must be crushed. But she does not show it."

Jinx nodded grimly. "She has to be strong for their poor girls." The rune man picked up his fork and hefty knife and began to cut his food. "But enough with such grim talk." Jinx preferred that the mood not sour any further; it would not suit his agenda well. "We need to stay strong. And keep busy, focus our minds not on our losses, but what can be gained. Keep busy with our work—which brings me to a favor I'd like to ask of you, sir. And with your permission I'd rather just get it out of the way now so we can relax and enjoy the rest of the evening."

"Go on." Rooster forked a hunk of rare steak into his mouth. The tone had noticeably shifted upon Jinx's uttering of that loaded word 'favor.'

"I was just hoping to get a recommendation from you."

Rooster chewed. "For?"

"It regards the mage Skelen," Jinx said. "I did as you ordered and brought him here to Camshire and immediately handed him over to the Diluvians."

"Yes, I'm kept aware." Rooster dabbed at his lip with a napkin.

"They've denied me access to him ever since."

"I see. And why do you think you need it?"

"I want to question him."

"About?" Rooster swished his wine.

"The codex. The book he learned from. It was burned to ashes at Fort Nothing." Jinx's heart fluttered with the knowledge there might be runic ears nearby, outlawed or no, ones that could even discern truth from lie. "I want to know where he found it, so we can secure the site, destroy any other lingering artifacts or runery. And I want to interrogate him about the golem he created. That thing had a mind of its own. Some form of intelligence—but artificial, emergent from the sorcery itself, or so it seemed. It's our job to uncover everything we can about these dangers so we can be prepared for them in the field. We must understand this so we can fight it."

"And exploit it ourselves?" said Rooster.

"Not at all," said Jinx. "I fully support the ban. I've seen firsthand the horrors sorcery can bring. More than you, possibly."

"Doubtful," Rooster said. "My career has been long and full of snuffing witchery. Your new superiors can't help you with this?"

"They have me break waster runery in a Triad basement all through the day and design new codes for our own chatter through the night. They don't know my value. But with a recommendation from you—"

"If I were to put in a word, I'm not sure it would help much," Rooster raked his tongue along the back edge of his steak knife, lapping up gravy. "I do happen to know what the Diluvians have done with Skelen. I'm kept abreast of such matters. And I could possibly get you access to him. But I'm afraid he won't be saying much."

"I just want the opportunity to try, sir," Jinx said. "That's all. I honored my agreement not to pry Skelen on our journey—"

"You misunderstand," said Rooster. "I say Skelen won't be speaking because the Diluvians have relieved him of his tongue."

Jinx's own tongue caught in his throat. He found himself unable to speak or swallow. His cheeks flushed with warm blood. His discomfort was surely obvious to such a perceptive man as Rooster.

"They severed both his hands as well," Rooster casually said as he sawed at his steak. "And cauterized the stumps." He took another bite and delighted in its seared juices.

"Bitter stars," said Jinx. "Why not just kill the poor man?"

Rooster leveled his gaze on Jinx. "You know how your kind love to study so much, to poke and prod. The Diluvians took him away. To be analyzed. Dissected. Who knows what else. Their thaumaturgists are documenting the effects of entropy on the human body and mind and Skelen is a prime specimen for such efforts. Your so-called 'Stitcher' has been steeped in the cursed arts for some time now." He pointed at Jinx with his fork. "Understand, what I've told you is sensitive information. Keep it to yourself... lest you lose your own tongue."

"Of course," said Jinx. "Reaper's oath."

"I don't believe you," Rooster said. Jinx tensed at the accusation and waited for clarity. The commander's eyes went to Jinx's dish. "That slice of game getting cold on your plate is the most succulent piece of ass you'll find on this side of the Julian Wall. And you haven't even touched it." Besides its heightened security and shadowed private booths, Rooster favored this establishment because its meat was true game caught from the wild and brought into the city, not farmed and butchered wholesale like the pigs of Marrow had been. Not to dismiss the swinesmiths—Garmund the Rooster had personally sampled their fare while stationed in those regions and lamented the loss of culinary genius thanks to the deathmage they spoke of. Rooster thought Skelen should be burned alive for that one sin alone, depriving the world of those savory secrets.

"I'm just not feeling well," muttered Jinx as he picked up his utensils and began to cut his meat. He thought of Skelen's severed hands and tongue as he did so. It was true, Jinx felt not well at all. This was in part due to some degree of sympathy he felt for Skelen, given his poor treatment as a young child, and a general empathy for any man who suffered such harsh abuses. But Skelen had given no such thought or mercy to those he tortured and killed in Marrow. The true source of Jinx's discomfort came from the fact that he was himself now a practitioner of the forbidden arts. In the confusion of the events around Fort Nothing, the Reaper had taken for himself the damned book from which Skelen had learned his magecraft, claiming it had been destroyed. The only man who knew otherwise was Rancent—who had died in the blast of a runic bomb. The only one who now knew the tome had survived was Jinx alone. Every night he fell headfirst into its cryptic pages in search of knowledge that ran as deep as the darkest oceans, frustratingly forgotten in large part again the next day. Skelen had paid the price for such hubris with his tongue and hands and surely many other things. Jinx would have to be careful. He would face an equally brutal fate if his clandestine studies were ever to be unveiled—and eyes were everywhere.

— • —

Undead beasts that did not tire or thirst pulled a hissing and steaming machine across the low desert on great wheels of ossein and petrified seawood. Hobgoblin laborers worked in the abomination's dusty wake and left behind them a stretch of baked mudbrick that cut through the desert's floor like the spear of a fallen titan. The path was strung over its long course with the bodies of those peons who had expired in the relentless march toward the elusive horizon. Team 3 watched in patient and stalking silence as those spent souls fell in the trail of the road-forge. A shimmering cloud lingered over the sweaty procession. It took the Reapers a moment to determine what the pother was. Insects, swarms of them. Vulture identified the kinds and they were frightful. The countless desert locusts and scarabs and wasps were controlled by the hobgoblin overseer's sorcery to help gather mud and pack the baking roadway as they normally would do with their own great nests if left to nature's own devices. Eerie hums issued from the head coach. These shrill sounds were borne, Riddle explained, from the runed set of pipes the plague-master used to dominate and control the enslaved colonies and force them to lay mud. The piss-drinkers were constructing yet another inexplicable road to add to the legion of highways that now crisscrossed these vast sandscapes.

Nail and his scouts roosted atop a cragged hill and looked down at the lean and sweaty road-builders. The hobgoblin caravan was now about twenty strong. Half were there to guard and supervise. The other half there to work until their bodies forbade it and then work some more. Nail relied on the other men to discern and relate the details of the scene. Damn his own eyes, of all things to fail him. Even with the spyglass Nail struggled at times. Too much straining in his long life of sharpshooting and the hard glare of the sun.

"Enough eyeballin'," Nail whispered to his boys. "We strike tonight." The Reapers crawled back down the hill and returned to camp. Waiting there were the other members of 'Three. Their rune man Riddle scoured over the sketches they had drawn of the network of arteries the company had traced thus far in their trek through the weird wastes. He looked vainly for some clue as to what would compel the sandmen to invest their energy and time into building a sprawling series of roads to nowhere. Many of the avenues ended abruptly and others shot off into new directions seemingly at random. Their purpose was sheer mystery. Surely it was nothing wholesome.

The Reapers readied for the coming night's raid. They had been outfitted with an array of new gear for this operation. The Nation engineers constantly worked to build more effective and lethal equipment to give their soldiers every attainable edge over nightmarish enemies that boasted such enviable boons as black sorcery and unflinching zealotry and untold count. The Nation's machine never tired, and the sudden escalation of war on multiple fronts only further galvanized their craftsmen. The Reapers were the first to get their hands on razor-edge weaponry. Their newly-issued crossbows were now more accurate and powerful. They had greater range and were fitted with seats into which the soldiers could easily insert bayonets rather than having to tie them on with lashes. The weapons' bow-arms could be folded back to make them more compact and slender for ease of transport and a streamlined profile. The commandos were supplied with latest-issue spyglasses featuring improved range and clarity. And there were the gliders that flew like piceous bats and doubled as tents. These had been coated with some alchemical formulation that reflected away the sun's heat but not its light. The Reapers had also been issued intricate little bronze timepieces with which to coordinate their movements. On the backs of these devices were housed compasses to help them find their way—though sometimes these irradiated wastes did strange things to the instruments' needles and so they could not be trusted above the stars when the sky was clear enough to read them. The oldest ways were still often the surest ways.

The Reapers crouched together and made their plans. There would be two teams, one attacking from each side of the roadway. Nail would lead Vulture and Thirteen. Jasha would lead Blacwin and Riddle. They were to fire from the darkness, taking out as many of the armed guards as possible before infiltrating further to finish off the laborers.

"We giving the non-combatants any opportunity to surrender?" asked Blacwin.

"And do what with them?" asked Nail. "Carry them on our backs? We can't burden ourselves with prisoners."

"We could simply release them into the desert," Blacwin said. "They're just laborers. Possibly slaves. Let the stars decide their fate."

"Can there even be such a thing as a hobgoblin slave?" asked Thirteen as he oiled his riflebow. "They enjoy suffering. To them being a slave must be like being a king."

"It is more kind to simply slay them on the spot," said Nail. "And less risky for us. But keep the overseer alive, if you can. I want to interrogate him about the roadways."

"Leave no bit of your skin bare," Vulture warned as the Reapers checked their gear and put ashblood on their faces. "Lest you want a taste of what those swarms have to offer in the way of bite and sting."

Night fell like a dead god. The commandos went as one with the shadows and descended upon the road-builders. Together they were Father Death's outstretched black hand.

— • —