Chapter Seven: Riding for the Reaping

Tom marched into Tolsa’s Crop an hour before sundown. It had taken their unit nearly a full day of walking to reach it. Looking around, the first timers no longer looked scared, the fear in them having been replaced with exhaustion. The Idealists looked fresh as daisies, of course. The soldiers simply looked bored.

The non-Idealists Tom had marched with looked a little weary, but alert. They knew what the first timers hadn’t quite realised due to their tiredness: that although perhaps unlikely, they were well within range of a monster attack now.

Gad, although this was his first Reaping, had limited himself to the odd sneer. His older sister Ella, for whom the last Reaping had been her first, had obviously told him what to expect. He was peering at his surroundings suspiciously, as if he expected every rock or breeze to hide some attack. That is, until he got bored, and began making jibes with some of the other Idealists. He oscillated wildly between the two states, unable to give either his full attention for long.

Tolsa's Crop was a relatively nondescript little village, seeded some seventy years ago and having become relatively prosperous since. It owed its success to its main crop, a herb plant called fallowgrass used in alchemy that flourished here and sold for exorbitant prices abroad.

The people of Tolsa's looked weather worn and hardy, much the same as any villager, and seemed more than happy to have over a hundred trained fighters bolstering their usual Guards and soldiers. They put on a feast in their honour, as was tradition the night before a party ranged into the Deep Green.

Huge tables had been set out under colourful marquees in the village square, and the smells of roasting meat and spiced vegetables hung heavy in the air.

Red-cheeked villagers plied them with food and beer, and no one could turn them down after their first day's march. Many of the first timers had a decent head of steam up, and even a few of the soldiers looked wobbly.

After they'd ridden out of the great north gates of Wayrest their march had been uneventful. Tom remembered what it was like the first time he'd gone beyond the safety of the massive enchanted walls; expecting an entirely new world, and being both awed and disappointed in equal measure.

The first timers looked like drug addicts who hadn’t had their fix. As soon as they marched beyond the gates they huddled about themselves, wide-eyed, glancing every which way, starting at every sudden noise, as if some screaming creature would explode from the roadside and have them. While it was technically possible, outside the walls, it was only slightly more likely out here in their shadow than inside them.

The first village ring had been established for almost five centuries, and had lost any wildness one could call exciting. Vines and grains and more exotic crops stood in neatly kept rows, alternating with great pastures kept trimmed by massive herds of cows and sheep and horses. After a lifetime raised on the stories of the horrors waiting outside the walls it was ...tame. Mundane.

The second village ring had still been established for several hundred years, and was only marginally more interesting. Their route along the north trade road took them past Ren's Delve, a massive mine set into a gentle hillside. It was only notable so far as being a reprieve from the otherwise ubiquitous green fields.

The first timers had looked on with wide eyes, drinking in all the new sights, their fear forgotten. They hadn't seen, though. The odd shutter or door, newly repaired or recently replaced, were obvious if you were looking. A whole new world, completely at odds with the urban life within the walls, took precedence for those who'd never ventured beyond them, though.

By the time they'd reached the third village ring, and the afternoon sun hung low in the summer sky, the signs were much more prevalent. The march too though, had taken its toll. And so the unit found itself revelling in the village square of Tolsa's Crop, the first timers blissfully ignorant of the abundant clues for what was to come all around, and the soldiers and Guards and veterans taking what joy they could before the Deep.

Tom sat with a group of non-Idealists, those who, like him, had yet to manifest. They were deep in conversation about what they hoped to manifest, and what professions they'd join if they did.

"I can feel it!" a middle aged bald man drunkenly slurred. "It's the Hammer for me! The Guards will be begging me to sign up!" It perhaps wasn't so farfetched; the man looked like he could knock out a horse.

His neighbour guffawed loudly. "I hope you do, friend! Me, I'm gonna manifest Steel and Strength. Then I think I'll take a posting with a patrol. Marry a rich merchant's daughter and settle down in Safe Harbour. Always liked the sea…" the man fell into a drunken reverie. Clearly not the first time he'd thought about it.

The Great Cities all over the continent subsidised Idealists to accompany merchant caravans along the trade routes. Patrols, as they were commonly called, accompanied the flow of goods and services between cities. It was worth the exorbitant cost to ensure commerce continued uninterrupted. Mostly uninterrupted, anyway. You could never account for plain bad luck, and some monsters were known to eke out an existence preying on the caravans.

A small, wiry looking woman knocked over her cup in her rush to one up the men. "Those fuckers at School kicked me out right after my first Reaping. Well, we'll see what they say when I bring home a fall!"

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

A fall was slang for three Ideals, or an Idealist with three Ideals. Much the same as pick was for two. No one knew how it had started, some said it came from “windfall,” and others said it had mutated from “triple” to “trip,” and then further still. If some twenty percent of people manifested one Ideal, only fifty percent of them manifested two. Falls were fairly rare, with only half of those with a pick eventually gaining a third Ideal. The bald man took exception to the declaration.

"A fall!" he scoffed. "Keep dreaming. You'll be lucky to come home with your head attached!"

"I swear it! Shadow, Space, Sight, and the fast track to the Watch it is for me," the wiry woman bragged.

Tom smiled to himself. The combination would instantly make her one of the most famous Idealists in Wayrest. It was good to know he wasn't the only one dreaming for Ideals out of his reach though. Their good natured drunken banter was oddly reassuring.

"What's that grin for, you lout!" A man with a shock of brown curls shouted at Tom. "What're you lookin' to manifest there?"

"He's an Academy boy! Old at that though. Hmmmmm..." The bald man pawed at his chin, trying for philosopher in repose and looking the village fool. "Gonna manifest Pointiness with all them swords!" He roared with laughter, slapping his legs and nearly toppling from his chair.

"Gonna manifest Sexy the way he's going," said the wiry woman, waggling her eyebrows at him. The others all burst into laughter at that, and the bald man finally did lose his battle with gravity.

"Only havin' you on, friend," he said, clapping Tom on the shoulder as he righted himself. "Goddess knows we've all felt the struggle. Wouldn't be a sparrow's fart from the Deep, if we weren't all a bunch of fuck ups!"

There was a halfhearted cheer to that, but the man's slurred statement had hit a little close to the truth. The mood soured somewhat. The bald man began regaling them with a tale of a prostitute from Wayrest who claimed to hold the Ideal of Sex. It was unlikely. Anyone manifesting such an Ideal would be sent to the Hunters.

The Hunters were Wayrest's way of dealing with those who manifested undesirable Ideals. Hard men and women, they lived a kind of permanent Reaping. Basing themselves in one of the outer ring villages, they spent most of their lives in the Deep. Their sacrifice was noble, if involuntary. They ensured a constant trickle of valuable essences and monster parts, used in enchanting and alchemy, outside of the usual Reapings. No one envied them their work though. They didn’t tend to have long careers.

Tom lay atop his sleeping roll in the stifling heat. He'd retired a little earlier than the rest, hoping to clear his mind and catch some extra rest before the morning. Garth called for the night's first watch not long after. Tom could hear the rest of the unit finding their way to their tents and bedding down as the first group of soldiers began their slow rotation around the village. The sounds of the last villagers making their way to their homes drifted to him on the breeze.

For a brief few minutes there was silence. The light from the standing fires around the square threw flickering patterns across the canvas walls above Tom's head. He waited nervously. Soon, it would start. He strained, listening carefully, knowing most of the veterans would be doing the same.

A long, eerie howl sounded far off in the distance. Just as it trailed off, about to plunge the night back into silence, a second mournful howl joined the first. Then a third. And a fourth. Then a chorus of howls ringing from the Deep.

Tom lay there, tense as a bowstring, but the howls slowly faded off into the distance. Once again, silence reigned in the village. Tom knew that all the first timers were laying rigid in their tents, white knuckled, and wondering what the Goddess they'd got themselves into.

He'd been just the same on his first Reaping. Laying in his tent, drunk on village beer and the sights from his first trip outside the walls. He'd felt brave, courageous. Until he'd heard the sounds of monsters from the Deep, and spent the night fighting the urge to piss himself, and too scared to go and use a latrine.

Now, on the eve of his third Reaping, all he felt was an all-encompassing anxiety. He'd spent two months in the Deep between his first two Reapings, and he wouldn't feel fear ‘til he could see fangs. He was worried about manifesting, not monsters. He may as well throw himself at them. If he didn't manifest this time, he was done.

He was strangely eager to see the morning. Then, they'd start their six week long journey into the Deep Green with the dawn light. The vast forest surrounded Wayrest on all sides, like a great green army. It was unbroken for hundreds of miles, with the exception of the trade roads, and no one, not even the Hunters, could claim to know it all. The different units from each Reaping would all strike into the Deep on a different bearing, and within a day's march would be out of range of help from the village they staged from, or from each other.

As Tom's thoughts drifted and he started to relax, a great bassy cracking echoed from the forest. It was a long ways off, but whichever tree had broken sounded titanic. It spoke volumes for whatever had caused it.

And so the night progressed. Far off sounds of inhuman things drifted to them on the wind. Closer at hand, Tom could hear the sounds of restless tossing and turning. Many of them would get no sleep at all.

For Tom's part, he knew this was the merest taste of what was to come. He knew he'd need his rest for the weeks ahead. He lay there, on the brink of the wilds, repeating the same mantra to himself. I have to manifest. I have to manifest. I have to manifest. A prayer and a lullaby. Eventually, he relaxed enough to slip into a fitful sleep. In his dreams, the monsters all had his father's face, and they sneered as they stabbed him with swords.