The dry grass was still hot from the summer sun. It made Damon's skin itch all over. He thought the guard might try to kill him; he thought the guard might try to kill himself. Damon remembered the first time he'd caught a glimpse of the universe or more accurately his inconsequential place within it. For three weeks he lay in bed unable to say a word. The nurse at the hospital was sure he had suffered some permanent brain damage. They brought in an undertaker to snuff him out. The frail vulture tried to hold a pillow over his face and involuntarily Damon broke the man's jaw. The undertaker couldn't eat solid foods; he shriveled and died from dysentery trying to live off rancid beef broth. Damon watched him do it; the man was assigned to a bed only three rows away. There was some talk of kicking Damon out of the ward, but no one dared to try. In the end it was the smell that made him give up mourning for himself. The smell of death was what made him get back to the tooth and claw struggle of existence, although his notions of valor and his ambition never recovered.

The guard turned and stumbled away.

Damon got up and followed the shuffling stupefied being. The thing was drawn towards a fire and Damon sat down beside him surrounded by men bragging, lying and drinking.

"You poisoned me." The guard moaned.

"It was medicine that I gave you."

"It was a poison that takes away men's hope. It would have been kinder to kill me."

"Truth is more important than kindness."

"I was going to be a great swordsman. I was going to enter the games and become a great man."

"You are hopeless with a sword."

"I know that now, but that's because of the poison. Before I took it I was on my way to being great. Now I am just a piece of meat that is rotting into nothing."

"You would have been killed in the games."

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"It would have been better to die believing I was somebody than to live like this."

Damon snorted. "That is a child's reasoning, and just as worthless."

The guard didn't say anything more for a while, then he looked up. Damon could see the agony in his twisted face. "Couldn't you give me something else? Don't you have some antidote?"

Damon thought about his rucksack, the pit, the rice seed. "You could try to take some other medicine, but you can't ever forget what you know right now. The truth will always be there."

The guard came at Damon his arms flailing, he was crying," I am somebody, I am a man. To hell with your truth." The guard's mouth was lined with froth. Damon wanted to tell him to wipe the spittle away, but he didn't get the chance.

A great shadow filled the sky blocking out the stars. The talons were the size of barrels; they clamped down on the guard's shoulders and took him up into the night. The wind from the massive wings blew Damon's hair back. He had to shield his eyes from the flying sand. The guard didn't scream until the wiffle was way up into the dark. It was a thin distant shriek that soon died out.

Damon followed the man's flight in his mind's eye. He'd seen the aftermath. He'd found nests full of skeletons high in the jungle. There were crews of the home guard that were sent out each week to scour the roof tops of all the buildings, removing any new nest that they found. This was a duty that was performed in every city of the empire. The walls protected them from the creepers that crawled, but at night a man put his life at risk every time he stepped out from under his roof. There were archers, they manned the walls and took out some of the low flying vermin. Some wealthy districts had nets that covered their estates and streets. Still, there was never any certainty. Usually, the orchards were safe the flying creepers didn't eat fruit or grain. They only ever ate other creepers, or men, or livestock. Shepherds and cattlemen had a hard time of it. The stockyards were always under attack, but they had their nets and their archers. It was a rite of passage for a man in the Royal guard. The best place to learn to kill flying creepers was the stockyards.

Right now, the young guard was still alive. He wasn't in pain, just mental shock. No doubt there was a certain exhilaration in being killed, in being carried up into the sky all the systems of survival blaring their alarms. The body would be coursing with desperate urges, the mind reeling looking for hope in a thousand different futile solutions. It would take a long time for him to die. It wasn't that the creepers were cruel. They just didn't waste their time putting their meat out of its misery. Men were different in that respect. They often took satisfaction in someone else's suffering, someone else's death. The creepers weren't that way; they just ate you alive because there was nothing you could do about it. Maybe the guard would hit his head, or an important vein might be severed, then he'd bleed out quick. Maybe he wouldn't have to see the larval membrane. The swarming brood, the wormy gooey mass, they didn't consume you, they invaded and became a part of you and then you became a part of them.

The crowd around the fire all started to applaud and then they cheered. Damon looked at them while they made their dumb brutal gestures. They were all glad it hadn't been them. They were actually celebrating. He didn't know what was worse, the natural death of being eaten by a creeper or the spiritual death of being eaten by one's tribe.

He crawled into a tall stand of grass and laid by himself. He didn't feel at peace here. He felt like an alien. He was going to have to leave these people. He was going to have to enter the jungle. Not for glory, or honor, he was going to do it because there was no other place to go.