REAPERS - Book Two: The Hunger and the Sickness

15

STAVE 10

All was touched by war. Women and children fled to safer reaches deeper within the Nation's territory as men prepared to go the other way headstrong into the gauntlet of their lives. From her transport wagon Dimia saw the corpses of hobgoblin warriors hanging from Fort Stowerling's front gates and ramparts. The fortsmen had skinned the runes from the creatures' bodies before putting the cadavers on display. The girl realized how easily she could now look upon death unmoved. Shock came nonetheless, for Dimia found that she recognized a number of the strung dead. Among the grisly trophies were a smattering of the wasters who'd fatefully visited the church in Marrow in their pursuit of the Reapers. Those very monsters who murdered Dimia's fellow orphans. Even the toothfaced leader was there, still in his bone armor but now relieved of his glyphed sword, alongside his freakish sorceress who had carved the runes into the church's floor that burned alive the children trapped below. Dimia cursed the souls of her enemies as her vessel went through those widening gates, glad to see them dead. But she did not catch among the slain the hobgoblin that stood out most in her memory. The one called 'Tecneli,' who'd sniffed for her in that steeple in his robe of stitched faces. Perhaps he still lived. For her to kill.

— • —

Tecneli did indeed still live. And always in the service of others. His ultimate master was his god, Xul the Everburning. But his own ears were denied the honor of hearing the creator's true voice. That pleasure and burden went to those who claimed to speak for the sun lord—the Prophets. And now, Emissaries spoke for them. One such holy ambassador, Phus, had come to Thajh with orders he claimed had from the Blind Prophet himself. Kill the Reaper, he instructed Tecneli. Then you will have the honor of leading our own company of Dark Reapers. Killing the captive would be easy. A moment alone in his cell was all he needed. But first... Tecneli had questions. If he enjoyed access to powers such as those contained in Yanhamu's sword, the painsmith could simply ask them after the Reaper was dead. But the secrets to such divinatory enchantments were lost to the ages. Only a handful of Justicars and Templars had access to those artifacts anymore, aside from legends of a few monks and liches who lived alone out in the wastes. To allow one of those holy relics to be lost meant a severe dishonor to Yanhamu's name. Knowing the fabled sword that held the souls of the August Emperor and so many others had now fallen into human hands chafed at Tecneli. And to think he once served Justicar Yanhamu so blindly. Even the most vaulted individual could be flawed, it seemed. Xul truly was the one and only perfect being. Tecneli's heart ached with love for his god's purity and strength. This, too, he struggled with, for that swimming devotion was itself a pleasurable feeling—and thus a forbidden thing.

For good measure Tecneli bit the inside of his cheek as he strode along a high catwalk connecting two mudspires. He was greeted with a burst of high gusty air and a dizzying view of Thajh's spires. At the bridge's end was a doorway that led inside an adjacent tower. The robed painsmith passed a pair of guards and all bit their calloused wrists in salute. As Tecneli entered the building he could already hear the satisfying pitches of agony afforded by this unique ward of the Painworks complex. The screams and pleas that carried through these halls came at a notably higher register and purity—for here were kept the human children. How the painsmith delighted in their fear of his quilted faces.

— • —

Blacwin pulled a mask over his face to shield his sensitive nose from the onslaught of odors that permeated the zone through which he scouted. The odious gases of putrefying death that rose like spirits from the dead. The burning and the rotting of it. He shuddered at the thought that by smelling these awful corpses and puddles of curdling gore he must be taking some small and invisible particulates of those matters into himself. The half-ylf moved ahead of his team, charged with scouting the outskirts of a smoldering town that according to their maps had the prophetic name of Vacancy. It was as if the gutted township had been decorated in preparation for some macabre festival in honor of ogreish gods. The town's walls were freshly painted with blood. Banners of penetralia hung in the noxious breeze. Innards were draped along the eaves of the ruined saloon and post office and general store like strands of garland. Scavenger birds sang hellish carols into the night.