Camouflaged tents huddled on a high ridge against the painted beyond. The sky an ocean of bruises. The camp's view afforded sweeping vistas of the green lands to the west where humans called home and the gray lands to the east where the sandmen dwelt. After the battle of Fort Nothing, the brass had decided that it would be wiser to keep the Reaper base mobile rather than in a stationary locale and so the garrison was dismantled and its lumber used to build war machinery. From Fort Nothing's death, Camp Nothing was born. A headquarters that could nimbly relocate wherever needed most. The Nation's army and militias had to contend with the activity closer to home but the Reapers' missions took them deeper into enemy territory, far from the bloody fronts. And now Team 3 had returned with fearsome news indeed. The sandmen were not building roads. They were etching runes of abominable scale for who knew what diabolical purpose.

"Thunderous work, men," said Commander Barda. The bulldog instructor had replaced Rooster as regional special-operations commander in the reorganization following the events of Fort Nothing. He had the members of Team 3—Nail and Jasha and Blacwin and Riddle and Thirteen and Vulture—gathered in his tent, the camp's largest. "We'll send the plans you secured to the Triad for analysis. Hopefully they can make heads or tails. But we can't afford to wait for them to puzzle through this mess." Barda turned to Lieutenant Gossom, his second in command. "Team 9's still the furthest out in the Wastes. They'd be right in the thick of that witch's web, I'm guessing. Tell Castle and his boys to start scouting and crippling this 'doomsday rune' immediately. Send a body. It may be slower but I don't trust this one to a bird. And maybe our messenger can find out why they've been so quiet of late."

Gossom nodded and twice put his fist to his chest. He left to fulfill his orders and find a man to dispatch into that fierce wilderness to contact Team 9.

Barda looked Team 3 over. Disturbing how quickly a roster could shift. But this new makeup was already proving strong and capable despite the recent loss of key members. "This'll go a long way, boys. I don't need to tell you that things are sensitive when it comes to the Reaper program of late. 'Three's had its share of mishaps—through no fault of your own—and we've had debacles with our other teams as well. Tarnishings. Not everyone can appreciate that black operations are often ugly affairs. Rooster's in Camshire fighting the battle to clear our names and let us keep on doing what we do best. This victory will only make his job that much easier. Now go unwind, get some shuteye. I'll fill you bloods in on what's next at the cock's call tomorrow. Nail, stay a minute."

The Reapers filed out of Barda's tent. All but Nail. Barda poured them each a small measure of wolf wine once they were alone.

"How're the eyes, long-timer?" Barda asked, handing Nail his cup.

"Worse by the day," said Nail. He drank and it was good.

"Shame," said Barda. "I reckon what's behind them is sharp as ever, though."

"Negative," said Nail. "It's all goin' to shit. Brain and body. I'm gettin' old, brother. My bones ache. I'm tired. Won't be fit for this kind of duty much longer. Everythin's changed. Don't even recognize half my teammates anymore. Barely recognize myself. After this one, I'm out. Got no more fight." Another sip and a sigh. "Time to put me out to pasture."

Barda snorted. "You think the Nation'll just let you hang up your crossbow and walk off into the sunset now? Don't work like that anymore, soldier. We're at war. Every swingin' snake, you understand. And retire to do what, anyway? Become a farmer, work the fields? Trade in a war against sandmen and ferals for one against gophers and weeds? That don't happen anymore either, deadeye. The Nation's claiming all the farmland. Every crop and animal is to be put toward the effort. They took my own brother's land and forced him to keep workin' it for scraps. But I tell him to shut his whinin'. These are times of war, and that calls for extreme measures." Barda poured another splash into Nail's cup. "I know what it's like when your body begins to fail you, trust me. That curse is why I'm not in the field anymore, myself. But there's a life after active Reaperdom within the army. Look at Rooster, look at me. We each found new roles to play. You can be of service to your people and country till the day you die. I don't know about you, but that fills me with nothing but pride."

Nail took another swig of his wine. Those other paths were not for him. He was not one for politics and boot-kissing. Nor was he a man meant for leading. The Reaper did not fit either of those burdens. His future was uncertain. And yet all too certain.

— • —

The barking of dogs. Pitched screams. Dimia woke in the dead of night. Recognized the many shrieking voices of Bramble in the hellish chorus. The racket was just outside. There were sounds of others, too. Men. A mercurial orange glow on the outer stones. Dimia looked down from the crumbling ledge and her fears were confirmed in the seeing. Bramble was aflame in the plaza below, lassoed by several men who tugged at their ropes to keep the golem at their center. Dogs snapped at his flailing limbs as the poor creature burned and wailed.

Dimia said no true word. Just snarled a cry that was a congeries of unarticulated pleas and curses. Something an animal of this wilderness would utter. Or the golem himself. Torches swung as the mobbers looked up at her. A few came rushing up the stairs. She had nowhere to run. The tower was surrounded by torches and pikes and pitchforks. The assailants wrested the knife from her hand. A brute got her in his meaty arms. He smelled of musk and leather. Dimia bit and kicked but it was of no use. She was but a doll to these ogres. They gathered her things—her lute, her clothes—and brought Dimia squirming and gnashing out of the tower.

Upon exiting the door the girl's eyes fell again on Bramble. The mob finally stamped out his burning with hides. The golem was not yet finished but many of his glyphs had been singed away in the ambush. Who knew what that damage to his runery would do to his mind? Were the runes not in essence his very brain? Would breaking the instructions written into the construct's skin scramble his fragile psyche? Dimia feared for the golem's tender and confused soul. The men threw a net over the hulk's smoldering body and prodded him with pikes and pitchforks. The agglomeration of wildlife snarled and contorted in animal rage. The golem's eyes searched and blinked in panic and confusion. His mouths and beaks weakly snapped and sibilated. An appalling sight. These were the throes of pained animals and not a higher being. She feared that the damage to Bramble's runery had now reduced him to a nightmare collection of lesser things.

"Bramble!" Dimia screamed in misery. Why had she given him that cursed name?

"That your pet monster, little witch?!" said one of her captors. The same accusation Marrow's elders had levied against Skelen's kin had now been thrust on Dimia.

And these madmen had the same solution in mind. "Burn her! Use her lute as kindling!"

"We're to take her to town!" The voice that spoke these words was the sort that ended all debate. Dimia could not see the speaker but guessed him to be their leader judging by the obedient silence that followed his command. He came into view. "The Inquisitor will judge her fate."

Dimia sobbed as her captors pulled her into the woods and away from the blackened and writhing body of her one true friend. The twin moons blinked through the canopy as the men carried her like uncaring silvered eyes.

— • —

"I'd rather send another," Gossom said. He had come to a lone bivouac on the outskirts of Camp Nothing after departing Barda's tent. "But this is too sensitive a matter. You're the only man I'd trust this mission with. And you know those grimlands like few others outside of Team 9 themselves."

"I'll head out right away." Cricket rolled out of his hammock and stashed his book. He'd been reading a primer on the djinn language per the recommendations of the brass. This meant the Reapers might be getting further involved in sensitive matters involving the rakshasa, for who knew what purpose. "This message to be verbal only?"

"That's right," said Gossom. "For Castle's ears only. Team 9 is to change the focus of their mission from winning local 'minds and spirits' to using our newly acquired local assets toward taking out these gob roadways with severe prejudice. If Castle has been successful he should already have a respectable force of waster rebels trained and ready to fight. Maybe even some spies in place among the enemy. But we don't know Team 9's status. That's the wrinkle. Haven't heard from them for far too long. Their birds might be getting intercepted. Or worse has transpired. So we want you to check things out. Report on their status."

"Understood," said Cricket. "That the sum of it?"

Gossom put his hand on Cricket's arm. "Be careful, brother. I don't want to lose you."

Cricket nodded. The moment passed and Gossom left him to his grim preparations. Cricket needed no reminder, however grateful he was for his superior officer's concern. He was well acquainted with the perils that awaited him in his coming mission. The diminutive ranger had been the sole survivor of an attack by an elite sandman militia in the wastes. Team 6 had been lured and trapped in a craggy murder hole to be slain with a shower of spears and spellfire. Cricket himself had been scouting ahead when the slaughter occurred. He'd missed the signs of the impending ambush and watched his brothers die for the mistake. Now Cricket operated solo, a man without a team. Just him and Death, eye-to-eye. A Lone Reaper.

— • —

Tusk awoke again to agony. A cycle of tortures like the ancient cycloramas of hell. A smattering of sandmen in the room with him. Their pale, gangly frames and ghastly countenances and exotic costume. An exhibit of vile oddity. Some of the hobgoblins carried flickering torches in their arachnoid hands. The female witch who'd tattooed Tusk's skin and drank of his blood was among the wasters, watching on. Next to these other fiends, the bloodnurse seemed an angel come to deliver his soul to the stars. Her smooth cheeks unmarred by tusk or tooth. Her black eyes fountains of mystery. Tusk felt drawn into those enchanting wells. Perhaps it was the binding effect of their matching runes that drew him to her so.

Heat licked the Reaper's flank. It was Tecneli himself with a torch at his side. His musky and tattered robe of human skin. Tusk wondered if at the end of this ordeal his own face might be patched into that quilted robe. Perhaps to replace some old skinmask that had gone ragged with age, battle, abuse, and travel, and soon ready for retirement. What did the waster do with the replaced faces, Tusk wondered. Did he keep them locked up in some trunk, or pinned to a wall? If Tecneli discarded the old leathers, how did he dispose of them? Feed the tattered rags to wastehounds? Throw the faces into a fire and watch them curl and melt?

Such delirious thoughts ran through Tusk's mind as he tried to block out the pain of Tecneli's torch. And then he saw in the glow that there was indeed a familiar face in the menagerie on Tecneli's robe. It was the visage of Risper himself, bruised and distended, here to haunt and mock Tusk in the flesh unlike the incorporeal hobgoblins of his mind. He bristled at the sight of his brother-in-arms in such a state. They would pay. Tusk knew this was likely a wishful lie but it was a lie he needed now. And yet he could not help but laugh aloud at how absurd this horror was. Had he already died and been committed to pay penance in some twisted afterhell? Was that some angel in the corner, after all, who writhed in pain as he did? Felt his anguish as he did? Not here to comfort him, but to suffer with him?

As if to confirm this, Tecneli held the torch to the bloodnurse. Tusk felt himself cook as if the fire had been held to his own ribs. Snarled in concert with the woman and understood that their blood was now forever mingled with that twinning of souls brought on by the bloodnurse's ritual of bonding. They had become attuned through flesh and rune. She hissed something and Tusk thought the words were 'good' and 'more.' And more is what Tecneli gave him. More. More pain. More touches of the flame. With each hot lick the bloodnurse nodded and grimaced and confirmed she too shared the Reaper's agony. She was here to study his pain firsthand.

Tusk grit his teeth and defiantly began a joke as best he could in their tongue: "Woman... go to see medicine man..."

The hobgoblins paused, perplexed. Tusk went on, grinning through the hurt: "'Wise one,' say woman. 'I fear I am having baby. Please... look. Tell me.'"

Tecneli handed the torch to one of his afterlings.

"So the medicine man look inside woman," Tusk continued as Tecneli reached into that atrocious robe. "And see there is... no baby."

Tecneli stepped forward and held a knife to Tusk's face. A Reaper blade. Surely it was Tusk's own, which he had left behind in that nomad's camp called Edsohonet where Scratch died at the hands of these monsters, as had many innocent hobgoblins. Tusk's own knife, plucked from the ashes of Edsohonet and brought full-circle to its original owner in this place of holocaust. There to mock him along with Risper's dead face. And to be employed against him. Tecneli cut into Tusk's flank with the weapon. The female bloodnurse writhed in pain as if the knife had cut her own flesh as well.

Tusk fought through the torture and continued, determined to finish his joke. "But the woman... not go. 'Medicine man, please,' she say. Check other hole for baby... for my husband like that alley too!"

With this Tusk cackled like a lunar and to his great surprise the bloodnurse snorted a laugh as well. She stifled herself and no other sandmen took notice but Tusk knew at that moment pain wasn't the only sensation the two could now share. Pleasure was an infectious thing. That had to be the first time he had ever seen a hobgoblin smile.

The sandmen went on with their horrible experiments. Asked him questions he only answered with more punchlines. Risper had been right, it was a helpful way to fight the pain and defy your tormentor. From time to time the bloodnurse stepped in to apply medicines to keep him alive as her peers kept Tusk hovering over death's pit. Tusk felt what was in her heart. A dawning empathy, borrowed from his own.

— • —