The sweeping bleached plains of the Hinterlands broke away under Team 3's feet and began to erupt into long natural gashes, as if these grassy flats in the forlorn stretch between Vacancy and Catatonia had been raked by titanic talons. The land further sawed at itself as they went into it. Soon the earth was a vast puzzle of shallow canyons and ravines. The Reapers were forced to find their way through the maze of rock and dirt. Riddle thought of the stone labyrinths in his home city of Casir, built by the ancients. Every year there would be festivals in which he and his family would "Go to the Mazes." People would come from all across Toloy for the events. There they would eat pitoyo seeds and watch slaves and brave gladiators be released into those zigzag channels along with all manner of deadly beasts captured from round the world. Then came confusion and tension and blood and cheers. It made for great sport when one could witness it all from safety of the stands. But Riddle did not appreciate being a participant in an impromptu version of the contest out in these ragged savannahs. Thinking on those times brought back memories painful and sweet. Life was a riddle to Riddle. Never did he fit. When his father left for war, little Rhilo had been so upset he would not look his sire in the eye. When the man returned from the campaign of bloodshed he in turn never allowed his son look at his face again. The conflict had broken his elder. Unfixed his soul. He was never there for his boy after coming home. Even when he was. And so Rhilo went to the books for guidance. They taught him everything of the world except how to be. They advised nothing of girls or making friends. Not a word of what a father teaches his son. Riddle's time spent with Team 4 had been a lifetime's worth of lessons when it came to how to be a comrade and friend. He missed those boys. But Barda and Rooster thought his skills would be best used on this mission, and Team 3 had recently lost their rune man Jinx to other duties. And so here Riddle was, again solving his own private riddle of where he really fit or belonged.

At points the ways through the earthen corridors were claustrophobic. The walls threatened to crumble and collapse upon the Reapers at any moment. Unexpected turns. Dead ends. Things chirped in the networks of roots that hung from the clay walls like the unwashed hair of hags. The team had chosen this path through the rough to avoid the heaviest enemy activity further north. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

Blacwin made a low hiss and held up his hand to gesture that a threat was nearby. Movement ahead, he signaled, and to the side. The scout listened more intently in the silence. Held up the symbol to indicate that there were multiple threats around them. At all sides.

Nail heard a low menacing snarl and instantly knew the sound. "Wolf wights," he quietly said. "They're stalking us." Thirteen drew out his riflebow and the other men followed suit. The blackmetal arms sprang outward and locked themselves in place with sure snaps.

The stillness was murdered by snarls and fangs. The savage hybrids leapt upon the soldiers in a furious onslaught. They had the teeth and faces and fur of canines but were hunched like apes and walked as readily on two feet as on four. The half-beasts likely waited for lost and parched animals to wander into these rambling fissures in search of mudwater to sip. Far easier prey than Reapers. The soldiers emptied their bows into the animal-men. Yet more came. So compelled by hunger to flaunt their own lives. The taste of flesh was worth risking their own.

The Reapers kept their backs together. There were two of the mongrels for every man. The fanged brutes took turns antagonizing them. The commandos' bolts were spent and they now resorted to blades. The wights were shrewd. They timed their attacks, waiting for openings. One by one the heckling beasts dropped. Vulture cackled and buried his hatchet in a skull. The animalist was animal. Intoxicated with blood. Face stained with death. The Reapers butchered the lycans with axe and sword.

The chorus of bestial snarls was met by a human one. A wolf wight caught Blacwin's forearm with a hot slash of its festering paw. This was one of last monsters that still stood. The Reapers hacked it into quivering sections.

"Ah, you're gonna wrestle with that one," Vulture said as he went to examine and treat Blacwin's wound. "Poison's already in your veins, I'm sure."

"What's it going to do to me?" Blacwin groaned as he collapsed to the earth. He was quickly growing dizzy. Was this his death? With this crag-faced stranger's hot breath on his cheek in this godforsaken land? He couldn't die here. He wanted to fade away under the leaves.

"Probably ain't gonna kill you," said Vulture, "but you probably have a lycanthropic fever to look forward to. Brings out the inner beast. No known cure. Will just have to let it run its course."

"How long?" asked Blacwin.

"Couple of days," answered Nail as he watched on. He apparently had experience with such things. "We'll have to restrain him. Keep a close eye on him." Blacwin did not appreciate the shift in the man's grammar. Now he was a problem to be dealt with.

Jasha helped Blacwin to his feet as Thirteen brought over some rope. Blacwin already felt a subtle turn deep within. The stirring of some inner primal beast. His pulse quickened. Much of this was likely anxiety, he knew, over what was truly to come. Blacwin had learned to steel and numb himself for battle or interrogation. But not this. Here was a slow and creeping paranoia that was much different from the tense highwire of combat or the physical pain of torture. Blacwin worried that his ylfblood might amplify the poison's effects. He already had the blood of the wild in him. Would this only serve to drive Blacwin over some frenzied edge there would be no returning from? Or would some known effect of the lycanthropy reveal his ylfish heritage to his fellows?

"No hard feelings," said Jasha as he began to help Thirteen bind Blacwin's arms and hands and feet.

"I got wolf fever before, myself," said Nail after Blacwin had been fully bound. "In a mission through these same parts long ago. Back in the days of civil war. Scratch was on that one, too."

"Did you howl at the moon?" joked Thirteen.

"My brothers already had me muzzled long before that," Nail replied.

"Let us know when you feel it come," said Jasha. "We will watch over you."

Vulture monitored Blacwin's condition. Held his wrist between his fingers. "You got a calm heart, I'll give you that. By now I'd expect it to be goin' like a jackabou. But it's easy as a timepiece."

"Nerves of fafnir steel," Blacwin muttered.

— • —

A shadow entered Tusk's cell in the cover of night. A glinting dagger in its grip. Was it Tecneli, here to finish the job that Aoh had before interrupted? No—it was Aoh herself. Tusk breathed in relief. She had crept here as the other hobgoblins were occupied with prayer as their god scorched the netherworld and left them wanting of his holy light. Aoh put the bone knife to Tusk's wrists. Not to cut him, but to cut away his bonds.

The bloodnurse helped Tusk to his feet. Put her finger to his lips. Silently they slipped out of the room together. Aoh led the weak and limping Reaper down halls and corridors that echoed with the chattering prayers of the devout and the moans of their despairing prisoners. Aoh clearly knew the path well, timing the movements of the guards. Tusk was sheathed in sweat, barely able to walk. He wouldn't make it far before he would collapse in pain and exhaustion. Aoh peeked around a corner and gasped and shoved Tusk back into an alcove. The ranger remained still as insects crept over his skin. He struggled to ignore them as he listened to Aoh converse with a passing patrol. The guards moved on after pinching Aoh's arms with their dirty nails in farewell—and Tusk felt this, too. When the sentinels were finally gone, Aoh pulled the Reaper back from the shadows and dusted the clambering bugs from him and they rushed down the winding passage.

The twists and turns they took had Tusk dizzy. They reached a window where Aoh already had a rope waiting. She'd fashioned it from the same thornvine that had bound Tusk's wrists and though she had removed many of its bristles she could not prune every last one. They descended the walls of the accursed tower that held such grinding and incalculable torment in its halls with pained and bloodied hands. Tusk should not have been able to make the descent in his weakened state but perhaps Aoh lend him strength through their runic bond. He did not let his mind dwell on such things for long, for he needed every reserve of concentration and will to keep from falling to his end. At long last they approached the bottom and Tusk judged the drop safe enough to release the rope.

He was free. Saved by a hobgoblin. Tusk stumbled and collapsed into the dirt of the narrow space behind the tower where other tall buildings rose, pocked with windows lit in ghastly light. There was activity beyond the alley's mouth, the nightmare street life of Thajh, a grinding orgy of pain and mad worship. Waiting there was a beast Tusk recognized as a hofru, one of the leathery and tusked steeds favored by the elite riders known as the Erumanir. It was blanketed in runery. Aoh had carved fresh modifications into the glyphs on its thick skin, releasing it from its master and making it her own.

Tusk was fevered now, shaking. He grasped Aoh's arms when she came close and gazed into her eyes. "Is this trick? Part of torment? Give me taste of hope then take away?"

"When you saw that little one in distress," Aoh said, putting her hand to his chest, "I felt what was in your heart. It woke something in me, something that was always there. I could no longer be part. If this is some sort of trick, it is you who plays it on me."

"That child," said Tusk. "Can we save it?"

"She is already gone," said Aoh, her expression darkening. Tusk knew her sorrow to be genuine. "And we must go. Quickly."

Aoh helped Tusk onto the beast's back and covered him in hides before climbing into its saddle. She jerked the reins and led the hofru into the wide avenue beyond the alley. Tusk could not see, but he could smell the hobgoblins' stinking offerings as they charred and he could hear the anguished sounds of torment and worship indistinguishable as they went through the throngs of sandmen that choked those bedlam streets. The Reaper was afraid, and his twin soul knew it. Aoh reached down and touched his shoulder. Tusk took her hand into his and gently squeezed it and then hers slipped away to return to the reins. In some time they passed through the gates of Thajh and went into the outer wastes.

— • —

Blacwin had a strong urge to plunge into the badlands and kill prey with his bare hands and teeth. He smelled everything. His companions' sweat and flesh. The stale wind. The dry, sparse rootworks and dead wood. He snarled, his eyes widened. The infected Reaper saw the pulsing veins in his brothers' throats and wanted to release their warm blood that fought under great pressure to break loose from their veins. Blacwin howled at the moon like a true wolf in mad savagery. Vulture blew a dust into his face, a compound made from a blend of the bone dust of morpheal bats and the ground carapaces of siltwalkers. Blacwin passed out under the alchemical stuff's spell and dreamt of the hunt and the chase and the catch. He went through fantasies of orgiastic feasts of blood and savage lust under the smiling moons. Spent a night with the celestial sisters. The lycan fever had brought out his inner ylf. He was one with the wild and it had been transcendent. It reminded him of godwater. A closeness to his baser self. No shred of doubt or conscience. All animal. As nature meant him to be.

Now it was over. Blacwin woke up from the hormonal storm his normal self again, fatigued and hollow. Already hungering for that feeling again of howling at the high twins. All was soon eclipsed by the pain from the physical wound the wight had given him, despite Vulture's treatments. The half-ylf had always been slow to heal—one of the drawbacks of his ylfish heritage—and foresaw a future grueling saga of tending to this injury before it was fully gone. He peered under his dressing and the horrid gash on his arm. It was going to leave a new scar.

— • —