They once fought with their backs to each other in solidarity. Now Rooster and Ogerius had their shoulderblades touched again—but this time only to take their twenty strides apart for the coming duel. The opponents positioned themselves in the streets below the everburning scales that blazed on the arms of the Hall of the Shield's front stairway. The surrounding behemoth buildings and sculptures of black marble watched like amused sentinels or deathworld titans come for sport as crowds of lawmakers and servicemen and vendors gathered to witness the bitter match. Most kept clear for their own safety save a few daredevils and clowns who toed the danger zones. The bailiffs dragged off a solitary soul, wiry and agitated, who had challenged this crude way of settling differences and suggested a debate over steins of ale instead. All these men save that lone dissident—and those who perhaps agreed with the banished speaker but knew better than to add their own voices now—honored the old customs. The Diluvians swore oaths to the early laws. Lived and died by them.

The opponents swung their arms and loosened their old bodies. As challenged, Ogerius had first throw. His steward brought his belt of stones and with the help of his other men held the leather strap aloft for him. Each rock was in its own pouch, arranged from best to last, judged by their weight and accuracy. Two of the stones had killed before. Ogerius always went with them first, for why ever give your opponent the chance to throw more? He reached into the closest pouch and brought forth his first murderous rock. The Ogre gazed down the open path, past the divided throng of onlookers (to include the advocates and judges themselves) and positioned himself and breathed in a lungful of cool air and readied his practiced arm.

— • —

Rooster had a name for each of his ten stones: Ferrth, Edu, Brask, Pittantho, Bad Kisser, Logrus (after his father, rest his soul in the stars above), Kirst, Dumu's Scrotum, Herndop, and Goodnight. He now held Ferrth in his hand. Enjoyed its heft and coolness. He knew Ferrth's spin and range well, had pitched it at the gob-baby doll on the hay bales and fence posts of his family's farm a thousand times and more. It had been named for the uncle who taught him how to throw dice and swing a scythe. He had that one the longest. Knew it like Mercy herself, whose honor he now defended.

Rooster watched his old friend stride forward a number of paces and lob his first stone. Ogerius was surprisingly athletic for his age. The rock catapulted from his hand with polish and rushed toward Rooster in a speeding arc. Before he knew it the thing was there, a rocketing blur. Rooster misjudged its vector and the dense projectile struck him in the shoulder with incredible force. Like a snap from the jaw of a pissed hellshark. The Commander grunted and spun and dropped dear Ferrth. The stone knocked the cobblestones and now Rooster was already down a rock for another rule was that once a stone struck earth it was forfeit. He rubbed the tender joint and cursed Fate and Father. Rooster's throwing arm had already been struck numb on the opening shot and he'd lost his best stone. A hell of a start and now it was his turn to throw. He cursed the Trickster's Coin and straightened himself, determined not to broadcast the extent of his injury to his foe as he drew forth his second stone. This was Edu, a bit of ore that had been cut from the glumrock mined under the site of Fort Nothing, a souvenir to remember the dismantled garrison by. Dismantled, just as Ogerius now wished to do with the Reaper program as a whole. General Grattus, who now watched from the sidelines, gave Rooster a subtle and reassuring nod. Surely the General and his comrades would not mind seeing the original architect of this campaign against the illegalities of the secretive force die in this match. It would save them the trouble of someday handling the cauldron-stirrer themselves.

Rooster took aim and threw and his arm raged with fire. The rock went embarrassingly wayward and off into the crowd. Struck a bystander in the back as he recoiled and then it ricocheted into the chin of another. A few bystanders went to their aid but most only laughed. They laughed and Rooster swore. It had been a long time since he had thrown. To the pits with that now-repurposed desk and its endless layering of writs and maps and missives that kept him on his rump so long in his later years. He was not the man he once was.

It was already Ogerius' turn again. Down one stone, with Rooster down two. Ogerius spared no time. Fired his second rock at Rooster with the meanness of a spurned god. Rooster focused on the object and nothing else. Shut out the crowd and the pressures of his duty. It was him and the stone and he judged it well. Stepped aside as the hunk of rock hurtled past. The Ogre's first miss. Compared to a Reaper bolt or a thrust of a waster spear or the tridents favored by the Ifravi, this manner of death felt no less brutal and perhaps more so to Rooster. These stones they hurled at one another were cut from the densest veins of the hardest minerals and struck like the fists of golems.

Rooster drew his third rock Brask—named for the herbalist who saved his life in the Bay of Hotosh—and wondered how it had it come to this. He barely remembered the insult that had angered him so. A stain of his marriage, already seen as illegitimate by many of the Threeists surrounding them for he and Mercy still went unsanctioned by the Diluvian authority for reasons Rooster dare not share with any ear. They blamed a fire for the loss of Mercy's early family records, and sickness and old bones and old modesty and custom for her avoidance of a physical inspection. Rooster was already sensitive to such matrimonial matters when the Ogre fired his verbal salvo in that chamber of trial. This was a matter of honor. No man can be allowed to speak such words and go uncontested. But was it worth either man's life or limb? To have all of Brask's work undone here in this heated match of stonehard pride? Rooster made his throw and again it went astray and scampered across the cobblestones and into the propped shield of a Diluvian guard (for many of the protectors had gathered to protect the crowd from the wayward throws). Rooster's mood darkened. The space between him and Ogerius was like a vast canyon. Rooster's arm thrummed as if it had been worked by a master painsmith. Dare he throw with his off-hand next turn? The Commander was alarmingly frail even to himself. No longer had the invulnerability of youth. He felt every year in his old bones. He must have had a death wish to issue this challenge, but he'd expected Ogerius to be weak and soft as well. Though the Ogre was longer in years than Rooster he still lived up to his mythic name in constitution and ferocity after all these decades. Could sorcery be to blame? Unlikely... not one like Ogerius. Just grit and practice was all it took that man. And good blood, for he came from a long line of proven warsmiths. The Ogre threw his next stone and Rooster wondered if it would be the last thing he ever saw as it closed in on him like an Ifravi cannonball.

— • —

"Nice shooting out there," said Nail as he sipped from his coffee. The bitter drink was his only remaining pleasure, the most sober of vices, outside of a well-executed mission. He and his men were at camp, seated around the fire, taking satisfaction in how perfectly their raid against the wasters went and of their success in freeing Addison from that wicked pit. The man had been badly tortured by his keepers, his nose broken and skin lacerated, but he wore those injuries like badges of honor.

"Thanks, sir," said Jasha. "Means a lot from a deadeye of your stature."

"Aye, my eyes are dead all right." Nail looked off into the blurring landscape. "Vision is cooked. Won't be sniping any gobs from across a long valley anymore."

"A shame," said Jasha. "I had hoped we'd someday find the time to hunt the White Raven Plains together."

"My shooting days are done." Nail put his hand on Contessa's trunk which lay to his side. "Can't do her justice no more. And so I want you to have 'Tess, friend. Couldn't imagine anyone more fitting."

"Well..." Jasha was touched. "It would be an honor to take her off your hands, brother."

Nail nodded. "Good, then." Whatever became of him, it would be comforting to know his old companion weapon would still be out there driving coffin nails into the enemy even if it were no longer him pulling the trigger. Nail could not go on for much longer, but Contessa had many solid years left in her for she was made well. Better than him, it seemed. The old sniper felt a tear brimming in the corner of his eye at the thought. He was getting softer by the day.

Jasha looked off and held his hands up, imagining a picture. "To have the great Contessa on my mantle among my medals and honors and war trophies. I can tell my grandchildren stories of the legendary Reaper Nail and his trusty crossbow. I'll have it shipped home next chance we get."

Nail squinted. "You mean you ain't gonna use her?"

"That is a lovely weapon, sir. A thing of beauty and unrivaled history. But when it comes down to the razor's edge of life and death? All due respect... but I'll take the Nation Class III Gryphon rifle-bow with a mounted spyglass and a widowmaker hairtrigger over Contessa any day."

"Scissors," Nail said with a snarl. "They can just bury me with her, then. Two old, useless relics. Bride and groom."

"Sir, come on..." Jasha tried. "Meant no offense."

But it was no use. Nail hauled his cherished case back to his spot and ruminated on the dire thoughts that had been dominating his mind of late. Fantasies of walking off to some lonely hill and firing a coffin-nail through his own skull. A last kiss between lovers. But his men needed him. And he, them. They were slowly becoming reforged into a team that might match the old crew's prowess. In that last raid they had moved together as one. It reminded him of how good they really were. And Barda was right, the Nation would need every 'swingin' dick' available in the coming trials. It would be an immense betrayal for an asset such as himself to snuff his own candle at such a crucial hour. The hard world certainly tried earnestly enough to murder him already on its own. He needed not lend it any help.

— • —

Tusk sailed through the night and when the sky began to brighten with dawn there was no uneven land in any direction, just flat unbroken silt for as far as the eye could see. Staring and all-powerful Xul rose at his back and warmed his shoulders, an unholy relentless pursuer that slowly and tirelessly overtook him in a death-chase that only ever saw one true victor. Tusk watched the sky itself tilt and engulf the unbroken flatland beneath his feet in pink hues, the glory of which, the tribesmen had explained to him, was all the proof they ever would need of Xul's greatness. Thus far Tusk had a friend in luck. The winds were in a favorable direction and there hadn't been a hint of a wave or an obstacle. Sailing at indescribable speed through what felt like infinity and surrounded by such extraterrestrial beauty, the Reaper remembered the orchid petal in his pocket and smiled at the mad prospect of eating it now out in this weird nothingland. He never seriously considered it—the act would be a death sentence, in truth—but he appreciated the mental image of himself hallucinating and gesticulating like a lunar out in this lifeless abyss.

Alone and exposed in that endless space, Tusk was the only blemish in an otherwise perfect plane. His original paradigm of forests and creekbeds and cliffs and caves and even in hindsight the wastelands themselves were in such contrast to this stark and abstract setting. The wild was chaotic and beyond understanding. Ugly and beautiful. Out here there could be no life or death. It was outside such things. It just was. A pocket of true peace and absolute solace from a world hysterical. Tusk himself was an example of how violence forced itself on every unlikely soul in the harsh arithmetic that divided living from dead. He had begun a man of science and somehow become a man of the axe. Tusk's enrollment in the army had been partly inspired by the notion that serving the Nation as a soldier until he was no longer fit for duty would earn him the right—and pension—to pursue more studious aims later in life. The only way to support philosophical pursuits as a society was to first carve a sanctuary for such liberties by force. Such was the world. But Tusk had done his part. It was perhaps time to trade in for higher aims.

The wind grew weak and the sail slackened and the skiff greatly slowed. Tusk cursed the stars. A terrible time to lose momentum—though a respite was perhaps a good idea. His skin was chapped and his body tingled from the hours of wind and vibration. Within an hour of daybreak the temperature skyrocketed and Tusk felt compelled to strip off his clothing but knew he dared not for his skin would become irradiated in short time by the solar monster rising at his back. With trembling hands he applied more of the salve he'd prepared from the blended stocks of plants and animals as taught to him by the Kashto. He ate from his dwindling rations of seed and cactus rusk and several forms of desert vegetation Tusk had never known such uses for. He had much new lore to pass on to his countrymen when he finally reached them. He kept a bag of preserved flora and fauna for later study and a roughly bound book of new discoveries pressed into and sketched upon its hide pages.

Finally more wind rolled in, brisk and choppy, and Tusk fattened his sail. It took some strength now to hold the path he'd been advised to take, to simply travel in the same direction as the sun, westward toward Xul's Fall. His muscles began to tire from fighting the resistance. Unlike the first steady gale, this wind was a prankster and no friend.

The pyramid first revealed itself as a slight disturbance on the razored horizon and then, yes, Tusk could allow himself to believe it was real. The Kashto told him that if he kept his course true he would find a ruined complex in this stretch. It was not there until it was. Some forgotten emperor's ancient tomb. The tribesfolk advised to leave its doors undisturbed for there were wards cast upon the place that would stop an intruder's heart. There was nothing for Tusk there but he steered toward it because he simply wanted something other than sand and sky.

The structure was smaller than he expected and half-buried in silt and worn to a lump by the wind. Tusk chose this spot to fish for some food. He spooled a weighted line into the sand and dragged it to give its bait—tiny little crabs he'd been given by the nomads—the appearance of motion. He thought 'fishing' not to be the right term for what he was hoping to catch were instead silt worms. He supposed a better translation into his own tongue would be 'worming' but that was not in the least appetizing. After some time of waiting the Reaper felt a tug and reeled in a thick and meaty beige worm. He withdrew his blade and finished the animal and removed the hook from its jagged mouth and understood clearly why the indigenous here warned him not to run his fingers through these sands. Tusk caught a few more of the worms (one a mottled white color that made him wonder if it was diseased—he would keep it for last and decide later whether he was hungry enough to dare eat it) and placed the flayed siltworms on a plank to allow them to dry in the hard sun as he sailed and then he set out again for Xul's Fall.

— • —