The Hinterlands, known officially as the Kekort Territory, was a collection of loose provinces where hardscrabble human settlers had carved defiant homesteads on windswept plains. These folk had been hit hard by increasing sandman hostility of late. While the Nation's greater crescent was protected from the hobgoblins and other outer threats by a rugged range of mountains and untamed wilderness, the Hinterlands people had nothing but a vast barren distance between themselves and the damned hordes. That vast lifeless stretch had provided enough solace for a generation of settlers to live in uneasy peace. Now their sons and daughters faced hell. Some inner stirring drove the ancient goblin empire to reunite and delve into the human territories in the name of conquest and honor and god. The Hinterlands people considered themselves independent of the Nation and would not come asking for help unless the situation was most grave. And now they had done so with blood on their faces. Many had already fled the warfare as refugees, moving deeper into the Nation and further burdening her coffers and tolerance.

Along with this dire news from the Hinterlands, a promising claim had emerged—reports of human war captives held in a distant sandman stronghold. The report held that at least one of these prisoners bore a Reaper tattoo. With Team 9 and others in better position to deal with the hobgoblin rune-builders, Team 3 was dispatched to a town called Catatonia to meet with their contact and investigate the rumor—and, if possible, conduct an operation to free the captives at their discretion. After completing their mission as they deemed fit they were then to head north into the wastes to assist the other teams in deeper enemy territory. Ideally they would rendezvous with Castle and Team 9, who had originally been charged with building a force of hobgoblin rebels to fight the inner empire and were now to be tasked with dismantling the enemy network of runery. They would need all the help they could get. But first, Team 3 would see to these rumored prisoners. The hope, of course, was that they included one or more of their own missing men. Getting any of them home would be a triumph. They could perhaps even rejoin the fight if they were to ever recover.

Camp Nothing's high position on that mountain ridge afforded the Reapers an ideal launch point for gliders. Team 3's members constructed and triple-checked their black wings and waited for favorable winds as they told stories of their missing comrades. They spoke of Halo, his strong spirit and fair code. Tusk's vulnerable nature and articulate mind. Risper's quick wit and physicality. Grumpy old Adamore and his incredible brewmanship. The herbalist had trained Shroomer in more than just mixing health elixirs. "I'd give my left knucker for a warm mug of his spiced shine right now," Jasha said.

"Soon, brother," said Nail. "We'll get our boys home."

The winds auspiciously shifted as if in agreement. The commandos helped each other fit the gliders onto their backs. Went from that ledge one at a time and sailed into the sky. Thirteen hooted in the wind. Vulture cackled with exhilaration. Blacwin had gained mastery over the controls and reveled in the sensation of flight. He found the new glider designs far superior to the prototype he'd personally test piloted under stark conditions on his mission into the wastes for a hobgoblin head. Poor Osred had died while piloting one of those crafts. And the other three—Addison, Barnibus, and Merek—had never returned after Blacwin left them under the cover of night. Blacwin's own path since deserting his fellow trainees had been eventful indeed. He'd come upon a secret escape tunnel that led directly to the Blind Prophet's cave and killed the hobgoblin leader as he meditated alone. Completed the objective of his final training mission by turning in the head of that most wanted sandman. Saw the gathering enemy forces from his high vantage and reached Fort Nothing—again thanks to that glider—in time to warn them. Helped his fellow Reapers reclaim the garrison from the overconfident wasters.

Blacwin wished he could soar for longer in the heavens but the ground grew closer and forced itself to be reckoned with. The twin moons cast a silver pall on the badlands. He and his companions shifted their angles of descent as they had been trained, creating drag and slowing their speed. Moved their legs in time with the blurred earth.

Blacwin watched those before him touch down. Saw with alarm that Nail's glider jerked to the side upon landing. It violently rolled and collapsed and came to a stop.

Finally Blacwin's own feet hit the ground. He threw off his glider and joined Jasha and Riddle in a race for Nail's fallen craft. Pulled the broken wings aside and found Nail lying there, breathing raggedly but alive. They found his bones intact. Scrapes and purplings. His ego had taken the worst hit. Nail refused Vulture's salves.

"Help me to my feet," Nail ordered. They did. He took a few steps and heaved his breakfast into the grass. Wiped his mouth and muttered that his feet were never leaving the ground again.

The Reapers broke down their gliders. Nail's issue was beyond repair and so they further dismantled the craft and destroyed it with fire. The gliders gained Team 3 much ground but there was still much more to cover before they would reach Catatonia. Onward they went. The commandos traveled by night and rested by day and that meant little meaningful sleep. Such was the curse of being on so-called 'vampire time.' The desert sun made for a poor bedfellow and there were no lullabies in the lashing daywinds.

The Reapers made their way through ruined frontier towns and those soon to be ruined. Much was buried in soot and ash. War had drained the world of its color. They came upon a region where some previous ungodly battle had raged. There were coils and strands of thornvine stretched across the fields to the north and foxholes and trenches dug into the ravaged earth. Those pits that had not collapsed upon themselves had now become small lagoons in the rain. These lands rivaled the stories of the many hells the ancient cults spoke of. The dead far outnumbered the living in that disfigured stretch.

The Reapers rounded a lake in which drifted the bloated and bleached corpses of livestock and men and gobs. Never before had they seen such waste laid to a land after a battle. The hobgoblins had grown into a fearsome horde seemingly overnight. Some engine deep within their lands had forged an aggregation of their disparate and warring tribes into a relentless force with dark runery at their command. There were wide tracks and ruts in the earth that prognosticated war machines of a scale the Reapers never knew the enemy had access to. The great spoked wheelmarks and strange prints that belied leviathans so heavy they could not possibly be hauled by known beasts, bringing the next distressing question as to what gave the monstrosities locomotion. A race between nations to outmurder one another was taking on new and profound shape before the eyes of the world.

Riddle brought voice to their worries. "The plagues they summon. The undead beasts they ride. The runed explosives. Used to be we could count on the piss-drinkers killing each other off. Now something's uniting them. They're cooperating, instead of infighting."

"If so," said Blacwin, "do we even have a hope of stopping them?"

"Not with that treaty in place," answered Jasha.

"The Grandfathers were wise to draft and sign that armistice," said Riddle. "Sorcery's claimed every society in known history that has dared practice it. It's only because of the Covenant that any civilized nations still stand today."

"And fightin' your battles with witchery is pure chickenshit anyway," said Thirteen. He mock-cocked his riflebow and took aim at an imaginary target in the smoking rumble. "Fight like a fuckin' man or go home." He pretended to pull his trigger and another phantasm met its end.

Home. Nail reflected on that word as he and his men trudged onward through the war-torn lands. It meant a different thing for every man. For him it once described a frontier farm town and all the goods and bads of it. There were murderous winters in Crowpass and mean drunks and hungry folk but there had also been glorious days of hunting and he was the best marksman he knew. He and his brothers would sit on the edges of the fields and eat feycorn. You would find all kinds of cobs. Ones that looked like goblins, ones with genitalia. Then they would shovel the husks into a cart and drag them to the animal paths and set traps for the game. There had been fishing, too, and great husking bees and feasts at harvest and the burning of wicker ylfs and dancing by the fire but in this last thing he did not partake. Only watched. He was a shy boy, awkwardly tall, and had already been in too many fights for his young life. Dances were not for him. Nor the kisses. His bark was by that season already too thick for love. He looked elsewhere for some future life and found purpose in the Nation's clarion call for able-bodied men. The deadeye drove himself into the army like a nail. Then with Contessa at his cheek he drove nails into the skulls of his country's enemies. And the man himself was as hard as one. So that was the name he took on when he became a Reaper. 'Nail.' He was right for the work, an experienced outdoorsman of grit and skill. Could hit a moving target right in the eye and had the patience of a dead man. Nail found home not to be that place of drunks and cattle and bonfire-dancing and lethal boredom into which he'd been born. For him home was not a place. It was a feeling. It was the transcendent zone his mind went into when it was suddenly time to pull Contessa's trigger after days of waiting like a statue in the bush for a target to present itself. It was living on the razor's edge and the pride and brotherhood of Reaperdom. That was home.

But things were souring on this front. Team 3 had been ripped apart and patched together again. Krakenbone. Marrow. A litany of bad choices top to bottom. This was true of the Nation and it was true of him. All those merits that had qualified Nail for the role of Reaper were now abandoning him. The most damning affliction he bore was was in his deteriorating vision. But he had others. A heel that never stopped aching no matter Vulture's salves. A soreness and twitching in his crossbow elbow. A failing memory. A deep fatigue. It was his twilight hour. Nail would soon be at a nexus. He would have to go the way of Barda and Rooster and seek to climb and politic himself into a position that did not require the unforgiving fortitude demanded of an active Reaper, or find some other way of life. Or perhaps choose no life at all.

— • —

Gagged by her captors and tied up like a Marrow hog, Dimia was thrown into the gaol of a town named Hwren. A pig trapped in her filthy pen. The cell across from her own was occupied by a frightened and desperate teenage girl who bore scratch marks all over her body. She too had been gagged. It occurred to Dimia that perhaps the muzzles were not merely to keep them from complaining or pleading. They were to prevent sorcery from being done. Shortly after her admission Dimia had been inspected by a moustached man the others called 'Inquisitor.' He looked over her entire body in a detached and methodical fashion, searching for runes and telltale signs of sorcerous decay. She worried her time with Bramble or even perhaps Skelen's undead might have tainted her somehow. Doomed her to burn as a witch. The Inquisitor said nothing when done. Just brushed off his hands and left her to wonder in silence what was in store.

A wary guard now patrolled the hall, ensuring obedience. He sometimes raked his club across the bars and sang lewd songs and told Dimia she would burn for her unholy crimes. Bound in that cell as the hours crawled by, the orphan girl concluded that she would need to seek more than revenge if she was ever to hold her own in this world, to control her own fate rather than be shuttled through life at the whims of others. For that she would need power. Sorcery was perhaps the only tool the weak had against their oppressors. Though Dimia never would resort to the cruel methods employed by Skelen, she began to dimly understand the hatred and helplessness and sense of persecution that led him down that dark road.

Finally a bailiff came for Dimia and brought her before a trio of old robed magistrates in a sober courtroom. The appointment of three such judges was common across the Nation towns, in the spirit of the triumvirate of Ministers seated at the very top of government in the capital of Camshire. With three equal votes there was always a guaranteed tie-breaker. A simple and effective system—but surely as susceptible to corruption and graft and error as any office occupied by man. Dimia noticed that the judges and officials were always male, of course. It seemed men ran everything in the world. But why? Dimia thought herself and her mother and her sharp Aunt Nimwa just as capable of making rational choices and fair judgements as these arbiters three. Perhaps more so. Was it because men were more aggressive and could simply outmuscle the fairer sex? Dimia had heard stories of ylfish societies in which the women governed society and even led their men into battle. Perhaps she could run to those fabled wickeds if she found a way out of this mess. She had certainly grown tired enough of her own kind.

The bailiff removed Dimia's gag and held a knife to her neck. It was clear the brute was ready to cut her down without hesitation if she spoke a lick of sorcery. Dimia was ordered to recount her story to the frowning men seated at the bench. In the recounting she realized how strange a path her life had already been. She told of the horrors Skelen had inflicted upon her people. The necromancer and his minions from the grave had murdered nearly everyone and replaced their heads with those of the same pigs whose meat the town had been famous for. Skelen had spared only the children, to include Dimia. The younglings were holed up in an old church and there they waited until a team of Reapers came. But Halo and his soldiers could not take the children with them. They promised to send help immediately, or return themselves. But the hobgoblins arrived first. Slaughtered everyone but Dimia who had been lucky enough to hide within the hollow of the church's bell. Finally she escaped and fled into the forest, she explained. Hid in a farmhouse. Found the golem there. Or it found her. Bramble had been kind. Saved her life, even. Dimia begged that the court let her see her friend and that they bring him no more harm. The plea was ignored.

"How can we be certain you had nothing to do with the runery found on that abomination?" asked one of the judges. He glared at Dimia under thick eyebrows with the gaze of a predatory owl.

"I am just a child," Dimia answered. "I know nothing of those things."

"Or you lie about your age," old Owl Eyes said. "Witches have been said to reverse the flow of the hourglass." His next words were for the ears of his peers. "We cannot be sure she has not been corrupted by the runes on that miscreation. We should put her down and move on to the next case. It is the safest thing. That is my vote."

"Nonsense," said another voice, this one more kind. "Inquisitor Graeme cleared her. And I trust his methods. We three are the one bastion against the unbridled hysteria of lesser men. I see my own granddaughter there—only dealt an unlucky and dire hand. She is but a lost little foundling, orphaned and abducted. My vote is to send her on to Stowerling as if she were any child displaced by war. Let their stewards decide her course."

All heads went to the third magistrate, the man at the middle. He was the oldest, a face unreadable. "My niece married a swinesmith in Marrow. Died along with her kin in that fiend's attack. Their bodies wretchedly mutilated and debased. This girl may be the town's only survivor. The last witness to its fall. After all that, I could not put her to the stake without better proof of any wrongdoing. I vote that we let her live. She is Fort Stowerling's problem, now." He rapped his ring on the bench and the bailiff took Dimia by the arm.

"Little one," the chief judge said as the strongman dragged her off. "Wherever your course leads, tell the world of Marrow's fate. Speak of what you have seen thanks to Skelen 'the Stitcher.' Remind them of the dangers that sorcery brings."

— • —