The beleaguered Reaper had no fire. No shelter. He ate not a thing. Nor slept a wink. Halo was half there and the other half not. The endless gale of dead voices surged in his skull like some lightless and subterranean river. Rattanak brooded quietly within the blade as the ancient emperor pored over the lore stolen from the scattered magi they had together slain. Halo was now etched from crown to heel in the runes and while the pain had been excruciating over the long course of his runebinding there was now no hurt at all. Although he had not eaten in a great while he felt no pangs of hunger nor stirrings of thirst. He noticed he had not been breathing for some time and his breast was absent of rhythm. He put his fingers to his wrist and felt no pulse and he now knew the source of the pervasive noxious smell that had saturated him as he coursed through the wastes. Halo had before thought the odor was perhaps poisoned fumes in the air of the wastes, or the stench of the dead that littered the earth. But no—it was him that reeked so. His own decaying and rotting guts, cooking and liquefying within. Halo reckoned with the thought that refused to coalesce and proclaim itself in his trance. He'd taken in his share of the newfound secrets pillaged from those felled grandmasters and knew that the majority of the runes carpeting the skin of his body were necromantic in nature, not unlike the ones that gave new and unholy life to the corpses under Mad Skelen the Stitcher's control. He had been made into a rotter. A fucking rotter, damn the Trickster god. Constructed from the lessons Rattanak pried from the scholars and sorcerers whose cursing souls they together subjugated.

"You are dead of body, Reaper," said the Emperor, "but your essence lives on in my cradle. Forget your mortal vessel—it is ephemeral, dust upon dust. When this old husk has worn out its use, we will seek out another."

Halo's body stood unmoved by the soulshocking revelation, as any lich or rotter's would. But his inner being was shattered by this awful turn. The Reaper had sleepwalked through his own death. And yet his mind lived on, outside of nature. Bound to this callous master. Cursed to kill in concert with him.

"You are blessed," the old emperor soothed. "Free to stand back and witness my Second Rise firsthand. Relax and share in my glories from behind the eyes I have wrested from you and be thankful for the privilege."

Halo had no choice. With the Reaper's physical death he had little remaining true claim over his body. Inch-by-inch the Emperor had etched the runic patterns he'd learned from his foul accumulation of secrets in this delirious journey across the wastelands and gained the reins of Halo's sun-cooked corpse. Donric feared he would never see Mulia or his daughters again. He was now as restlessly dead as Mouth and Narder and the sandmaster or anyone else slain by this nefarious blade and relegated to the same mad babbling pandemonium no-place as they.

— • —

Birds nested high in the arches of Fetterstone Prison's lobby where its gray columns met at dizzying heights. Banners and awnings had been draped across the airy space to protect those who sat and walked below from the drippings. In his long career as advocate of law, Noakes had seen the prison's inner confines more times than he could number, taking meetings with prisoners to discuss their cases—those lucky few who could afford him or whose cause he and his partners felt compelled to plead at no charge. This hall of the prison that sometimes greeted officials and ambassadors was like a palace, a cathedral. Silent and solemn and more opulent than any prison should be. No prisoner saw this hall. Only those who had business here. Officers of the court and Diluvian highmen and the Warden's shady conspirators. People like Noakes, who had been sent here by Ogerius and his team of lawdogs to investigate those Reapers who had landed in this house of the unfree. Fallen soldiers who'd been awarded with shackles rather than medals. Noakes had spoken to most such men in these halls, at least those who would cooperate, uncovering countless bolts for Ogerius' holster in his legal campaign to skewer those who would fight this war too dirty. The so-called Ogre detested the Reaper program, saw it rife with failures and missteps and clouded in impenetrable secrecy. The clandestine force gave too much power to those who commanded the blackguards, men like Spymaster Knott and General Grattus and Commander Rooster and their superiors higher still whose names had not yet been brought to light despite Ogerius and his cohorts' greatest efforts.

The accumulation of knowledge required to bring this case against the Reapers had come at great cost. A digger under Noakes' employ had died just two nights before, his body dredged from the canals. Strotham Yard ruled it a suicide for the digger had secretly been a practitioner and the Inquisitors—or more nefarious forces still, things borne of his secret craft—were closing in on the damned informer. Noakes did not know whether he should believe the verdict of Investigator Valen and his men. Yes, he himself had suspected the digger of runeplay thanks to his uncanny ability to produce leads and clues and divinations not easily pried, but Noakes suspected a hand other than the digger's own had snatched his soul... and that was the lethal hand of a Reaper.

Noakes had scheduled an audience with Warden Hotch himself after weeks and weeks of effort. Favors and threats. He'd been stonewalled by Hotch's thick web of underlings. Here came one now. Rollant, chief of the guard, grim and gray. Noakes stood.

"Hotch is ready to see you," said Rollant, his face a battered shield.

"At long last," said Noakes. "I had actually begun to wonder if R. L. Tolmkin would actually finish Volume Sixteen of the The Master's Long Sigh before I was finally called on. Is this man a Warden, or a King?"

"In these halls, there is no difference." Rollant turned and led Noakes up the long spiraling stairs that would take them to Hotch's office. Or throne room, take your pick.

— • —

Hotch's eyes scanned the list before him. Bothered to do so.

"Those are all inmates," Noakes explained from across the desk, "who at some point or another had been involved in the Reaper program. Dropouts turned to blackery, shame dogs, discharges busted on the streets. We've been interrogating them over the course of our trial."

"Yes, with my blessings," said Hotch. "Have I not given you free access?"

"Yes, we've been given time with every man on that list," Noakes said, "save one. Varga Skinner. I am told he's been in solitary for some time. Months, now."

"Skinner was only a dropout trainee," said Hotch. "Never earned his dagger. Hardly a true Reaper. You've already spoken at length with other men in here who were far more involved in the program. Those who had seen action, knew secrets. Skinner is a nobody, not worth your time. I won't repeat the terrible things he's done. Let him rot in that hole."

"Any small detail from the unlikeliest of sources can decide a case," said Noakes. "I must insist. Or I will be forced to escalate this matter with the Diluvian courts."

The Warden smoldered for an instant and then the flame was swiftly doused by a warm smile. "Of course. Rollant, show Mister Noakes the way."

— • —

Turns and turns. The moans and lamentations of prisoners down murky halls. Noakes was escorted by taciturn Rollant and his squad of armed minions deeper into Fetterstone's heinous bowels. "Is this truly the quickest way?" asked Noakes. "I was under the impression Skinner's cell would be in the opposite direction..."

The guards seized Noakes by the arms. Gagged him with a cloth that tasted of dirt and piss. Dragged him into a room of stone and splatter. Waiting for him at the room's center was a stone block cut with a half moon, seasoned with blood. An axe passed between hands and Rollant forced Noakes to his knees.

— • —

"The Reapers must be brought to heel." Ogerius' voice thundered through the court chambers as he waged his legal assault on the clandestine force so named. In that accusatory stance and tone of reckoning the aged veteran was indeed fitting of that moniker 'The Ogre' that he had first earned on the battlefield but was no less deserving of in this war of words and protocol. Proxy of justice whether it be by sword or law, he was backed by a team of somber advocates and their aides, a morgue's gallery of formal pale men (for there was meager sunlight within these halls to tone their ashen skin) who shuffled through reams of documents aimed at dissecting and dismantling the Reaper program like a cadaver on an animalist's slab. As a court martial of the most sensitive and secretive matters, the session was closed to all but a select few. A smattering of other lawmasters and officers were cloistered in the high stone room tucked within the Triad's halls of military justice, to include a triumvirate of judges—as was the way of the Diluvian threeists who ruled that day.

Ogerius continued his condemnation of what had now become of Reaperdom, a breed without honor, he claimed, unsanctioned assassins who used the tactics of cowards and rogues. "You have seen evidence and heard testimony damning and irrefutable—and Team 3's indiscretions at Fort Nothing and Krakenbone are merely a hint of the Reapers' tangled web of sins. I will produce witnesses—many currently in hiding as they fear for their lives due to the testimony they intend to give—who will attest that certain Reaper teams have even been permitted the use of forbidden sorcery in the conduct of their missions, in direct violation of the Maedrum Covenant... a fact kept secret even to the highest generals and strategists and senators above them. One of the units that is believed to employ thaumaturgy—Team 9—has recently gone dark, their whereabouts and intentions a spiraling mystery. I will, in due time, bring forth undeniable proof that unsanctioned Reapers operate within the walls of this very city, assassinating the enemies of the Spymasters and carving history with their knives. The Reapers and their chiefs are given too much autonomy, sirs. And too much power. The program is a dragon slumbering in the cellar, a snake in the babe's crib. Unchecked. Undisciplined."

"Never have I met more disciplined men," said Rooster from his seat. "This only speaks to your ignorance on the matter." He chafed at being in that box, judged by less tested men and pecked as if Ogerius were in fact the rooster strutting about this glorified coop. But Rooster believed strongly in the Reaper program, knew that to fight their wars strictly in The Ogre's antiquated fashion was to mean almost certain doom for the Nation. "Yes, in many ways the Reapers operate outside the rules, and therein lies their utility to us. They were never meant to serve by the protocols you so worship."

"Even if it means defying the direct orders of their superiors?" Ogerius challenged. "As Team 3 did in their mutiny at Fort Nothing? I will remind you that you are under oath to declare the unsullied truth, Garmund."

"I believe Team 3 was right to do what they did," answered Rooster. He now hated hearing his true name being uttered from those lips. The accuser, once a man he called friend, had become like a tenacious rash invulnerable to any herbalist's remedies. "Halo's men felt the course we were on was suicidal. And they were right. Thanks to the events you've insisted on focusing on ad nauseam, things turned out differently." Rooster straightened his uniform and squared his shoulders. "We won that battle. Slaughtered the piss-drinkers with those 'coward's tactics.' Had we gone my course—a strategy you helped draft, Ogerius, which I'm sure this tiresome crusade has much to do with—Fort Nothing would be a ruin, and you and I would be in our graves."

"That is not the issue here, Commander," said Ogerius. "Our concern is of far greater import than whether or not a few men live or die, even ourselves. A soldier cannot question or defy orders and expect to escape retribution. It is that simple. War is full of unpleasant realities and difficult choices. A subordinate must not be allowed to question his superiors. Never. Not once. Such lapses may win the occasional skirmish but it will lose us this war. Furthermore, the sins of the Reapers extend far beyond this one act of treason against their commander—"

"Who now defends them," said Rooster, his patience tested. "Does that not speak volumes? I have admitted I was wrong. These men don't deserve a trial. They deserve medals. If anyone should be challenged, it's me for forcing them to commit these acts instead of listening to reason. And perhaps let us try the fools in the brass who sent those boys to that gob camp with bad intelligence in the first place!" Rooster's face became the shade of deep red that had earned him his code name. "These soldiers put their lives and souls on the line every day with no motive other than to serve their country and keep humanity safe from the nightmares at our gates."

"Perhaps you're right," said Ogerius, "and it is you who should stand trial. You are unfit to serve as a leader of the Nation's armed forces. You are an embarrassment, undeserving of your station." The Ogre lowered his pitch to match the level of his next blow, delivering it with a derisive growl: "It is beyond me how your wife could bring herself to bed such a lamb as you."

Rooster rose from his seat. "Recant your words, dog."

The Ogre was unwavering. "I will not."

Rooster's face went red as the setting sun. "I may have watched on in grudging silence as you have questioned every move and decision made by me and my peers—but I will not stand by and allow you to stain the honor of my wife! I demand satisfaction!"

"Calm yourselves," warned a judge.

"The old way?" asked Ogerius, ignoring the magistrate's demand.

"Is there another?" said Rooster.

"How many throws?"

"Ten." The maximum allowed by the rules of yesteryear.

"How many paces?"

Rooster rose from his seat, his eyes fixed on the man he once called friend. "That I will let you decide."

— • —