REAPERS - Book Two: The Hunger and the Sickness

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It came, another meteor from the Ogre's arm. Rooster dove to the ground, careful not to drop his fifth stone Bad Kisser or let it touch the earth. Ogerius' rock hissed above like a Reaper bolt. Rooster got to his feet and aimed. This throw must count. Pittantho had also gone to waste, Rooster's fourth rock, whose name was borne from his son's favorite puppet when Dreu was just a boy. Now Dreu lay in a grave, taken by the war gods as so many others Rooster had loved and cherished. He once thought those deities of combat favored him but now questioned that notion. Perhaps this duel would tell.

At the thought of his slain issue Rooster's stomach heaved. He held down the bile. Could not lose face and puke in front of all those eyes. He would not give his enemies the pleasure or his allies the dishonor. Garmund drew in a breath and stilled himself. Felt the wind on his reddened face and shut out the murmurs from the crowd. He raised Bad Kisser and took careful aim. A lover had bought that stone for Rooster in a Bleatmoor shop while he was on shore leave. The Ypsi seductress claimed the flecked piece of starstone would be good luck on his campaigns. Blessed it and said it would never miss. Rooster would now see. He kept his focus, his discipline. Attentive to every muscle and every moment. He breathed in a lungful of air and strode forward and launched Bad Kisser at the Ogre. That Ypsi lover was made a liar by the throw. Another infernal miss. Ogerius even laughed at the attempt, as did others among the crowd. General Grattus did not.

Rooster shook at the wounds to his being and spirit. As soon as he drew his next stone—one of great meaning to him—Ogre's next confident throw was already cutting the air between the rivals. Rooster found his body unwilling to move. He'd felt fear before in the face of wasters and pirates and leviathans of the sea but had never been paralyzed by those confrontations. And now he stood like those statues of dead lawmakers and generals that lined this boulevard as the stone zoomed ever closer. Rooster knew not why. Perhaps it was simply the toll of age and blood. Finally he found the will to dislodge his frozen joints and moved to avoid the missile. As if guided by the Trickster's own malicious hand the stone's curvature compensated for Rooster's movement and spun upward and glanced off the front of his skull. The pain smacked him from his body. Rooster stumbled and—curse every god uttered by the lips of man—dropped the sacred stone named after his martyred father. And so he shamed Logrus and himself. He had picked that stone from the shores upon which his father had died. The Laughing Sea, so named for the mocking sound if its waves. Those white crests of raging foam had indeed mocked Garmund as he honored his father on that mournful pilgrimage and now they once again mocked him here so far from that gray strand.

— • —

The Commander collected himself as those waves withdrew from the shores of his mind. Realized he had lost time and was now lying on his back. People stood over him, speaking, prodding. One of Grattus' afterlings asked him if he was done. Rooster answered by ordering the man to help him to his feet. Once he stood again he touched his hand to his head and found there blood. His brainbasket reverberated like a waster drum. He was lucky he had moved that last moment for the stone had merely glanced from his brow and still he was devastated and spinning from the impact. A direct hit of such force and he would have been feeling nothing at all.

It was now his throw. Rooster's handsmen retrieved Logrus from the street as they had the other lost and hurled stones. The Commander whispered an apology to his father and drew the next rock. This one he did not linger on. He had carefully calculated and aimed his previous throws and they had been disasters. Perhaps he'd been overthinking things. Rooster had often found that the best approach was to simply do and not to ponder. The blow to his head had taken much out of him. But it had also put something back in. Shaken the old Admiral awake and alive. Resurrected the Reaper in him. Rooster decided in that moment as he drew Kirst (named for a city-state of gothic beauty in the cold north of which he had only seen haunting paintings) that he would not think. Just throw. This he did. Given more thrust and control from his raw spirit and refusal to lose than any muscle or skill, Rooster was astonished by the accuracy and power of the pitch. The Ogre's eyes shot wide with marvel at his opponent's ungodly throw from out of the nothings. He backpedaled and lost his step and stumbled and the stone was there. Ogerius kicked back and raised his arms to protect his head and waited for the rushing impact. It struck him hard in the side of his thick torso. The Ogre inhaled a sharp gasp and collapsed into the dust. He writhed in pain. Seemed unable to breathe. The crowd leered. Was the fight already decided? Rooster tried to see through the blood and sweat in his eyes and past the onlookers to determine whether his foe was truly down. The sweet rush of victory began to seep into his blood—but he could not be sure until he was. Rooster began to push his way forward. "Is he done?"