"Reaper. You gonna stand there or carve the bastard?"
The voice grated, sharp as a rusted blade, cutting through Cinderfall's smog-choked fog. The Reaper didn't turn, his masked face fixed on the alley's mouth where claw marks scarred the cobblestones. His scythe rested on his shoulder, its grooved blade catching the flicker of a dying gaslight.
The speaker—a scavenger named Korr, all wiry muscle and twitching eyes—crouched behind a overturned crate, clutching a jagged knife. Two others flanked him, their breath steaming in the cold, hands gripping makeshift spears. Scavengers were vultures of Cinderfall's slums, picking at the city's bones after Stalker raids. The Reaper didn't trust them. He didn't trust anyone.
"Shut up," he said, voice low, clipped, like a blade snapping shut. He tilted his head, listening. A rasp echoed from the alley—wet, guttural, too deliberate for a Tier II. His fingers tightened on the scythe's grip, the leather creaking. Korr's crew were ungifted like him, but weak. They'd scatter if a Stalker so much as hissed. Useless, unless he needed bait.
Korr snorted, spitting into the muck. "Heard it's a bad one. Guild's already lost men. You gonna share the bounty, or—"
The Reaper's eyes flicked to him, cold as the Veil's touch. Korr froze, words dying. The other scavengers—Lir, a gaunt woman with a scar across her lips, and Torv, a hulking brute with a trembling spear—shifted, uneasy.
The Reaper didn't need words to kill a conversation. His presence did that. They'd seen him work—seen him carve a Tier III Stalker to ribbons while it screamed, seen him gut a scavenger who tried to steal his kill. In Cinderfall, the Reaper wasn't a man. He was a specter, ungifted yet reeking of the Veil, and that scared them more than any Stalker.
"Follow or stay," the Reaper said. "Don't talk."
He moved, boots silent on the slick stones, scythe held low. The alley was a throat of rusted pipes and crumbling brick, the air thick with oil and rot. Korr muttered something to Lir, but they followed, keeping their distance. The Reaper didn't care if they lived or died, but their noise might draw the Stalker out. He'd use that.
The claw marks deepened, gouged into the wall now, leading to a derelict foundry at the alley's end. Its iron doors hung ajar, leaking darkness. The Reaper stopped, scanning the frame. Fresh blood smeared the hinges—human, not Stalker. Guild work, sloppy. Wardens, probably, thinking their Veil Gifts made them invincible. Now they were dead.
"Blood," Lir whispered, her spear shaking. "That's… that's fresh."
The Reaper ignored her, crouching to study the marks. Four claws, deep, spaced like a man's hand but longer. Not a Tier III. Smarter. Heavier. Something new. His pulse didn't quicken—fear was a stranger—but his mind sharpened, mapping the Stalker's weight, speed, reach. The rasp came again, closer, from inside the foundry. It mimicked a human sob, but the rhythm was wrong, too precise.
"Bait," he said, standing.
Korr's eyes widened. "What? You saying it's playing us?"
The Reaper didn't answer. He stepped through the doors, scythe ready. The foundry was a cavern of rusted beams and shattered machinery, lit by sparks from a broken steam pipe. Shadows danced, too many to trust.
The scavengers hesitated at the threshold, but Korr cursed and followed, Lir and Torv trailing. The Reaper noted their positions—Korr ten paces back, Lir to his left, Torv lagging. If the Stalker struck, he'd let it take Torv first. The big man was slow. Expendable.
The sob came again, from a catwalk above. "Help… please…" A woman's voice, trembling. Lir gasped, gripping her spear tighter.
"It's a trick," the Reaper said, voice flat. He scanned the catwalk, spotting a flicker of movement—too fluid, too wrong. His scythe shifted, blade angled for a high swing.
"Could be real," Korr snapped, knife raised. "You'd leave someone to die?"
The Reaper's gaze didn't waver. "If it's human, it's dead already."
Korr's face twisted—anger, fear, the usual mix when people looked at him. Scavengers hated the Reaper, but they needed him. He killed what they couldn't, and they scavenged the scraps—Stalker claws, teeth, anything the guilds paid for. But trust? That was a myth in Cinderfall. The Reaper knew Korr would knife him for a big enough bounty. He'd do the same, if it came to it.
The sob turned to a scream, cut short. Metal groaned above, and the Stalker dropped—a humanoid shadow, taller than Torv, its limbs too long, its face a blank of writhing tendrils. No eyes, but it saw. Tier IV, maybe higher. Its claws gleamed, dripping black ichor. The scavengers froze, but the Reaper was already moving.
"Run!" Lir screamed, bolting for the door. Torv stumbled back, spear clattering. Korr held his ground, knife shaking.
The Reaper didn't run. He slid under a claw swipe, scythe arcing up to shear a tendril from the Stalker's face. It shrieked—a sound like glass on bone—and lunged, faster than he'd calculated. He rolled, feeling the air split where its claws struck. The foundry's floor sparked, metal gouged.
"Help, damn you!" Korr yelled, throwing his knife. It glanced off the Stalker's hide, useless. The creature turned, claws slashing. Korr dove behind a crate, barely dodging.
The Reaper used the distraction. He sprinted to a rusted crane arm, its chain dangling. His scythe hooked the chain, yanking it free. The arm groaned, swinging down. The Stalker spun, too late—the crane smashed its shoulder, pinning it to the floor. It thrashed, tendrils lashing, but the Reaper was on it. His scythe flashed, carving through its arm at the joint.
"Stay down," he muttered, not to the Stalker but himself, calculating the next strike. It wasn't dead. Not yet.
Lir screamed from the door. "It's not alone!"
Another Stalker slunk from the shadows—smaller, leaner, but its movements were deliberate, watching him. The Reaper's eyes narrowed. Two at once, coordinated. New behavior. He didn't like new.
"Torv, move!" Korr shouted. The big scavenger was frozen, spear forgotten. The second Stalker lunged, claws ripping through Torv's chest like paper. He didn't scream—just fell, blood pooling. Lir ran, vanishing into the fog. Korr cursed, scrambling for another knife.
The Reaper didn't flinch. Torv's death was a distraction, nothing more. He kicked a steam pipe, releasing a scalding burst that drove the second Stalker back. The first was still pinned, clawing at the crane. He focused on the smaller one—its tendrils twitched, mimicking Torv's voice: "Reaper… help…"
He swung, scythe cutting through the mimicry. The blade bit deep, severing its head. It collapsed, ichor bubbling. One down.
The pinned Stalker roared, breaking free. It was bigger, smarter, its tendrils forming a mockery of a human face—a guild Warden's face, hollowed and gray. "Reaper…" it hissed, voice stolen.
He didn't pause. He vaulted onto a beam, using its height to swing the scythe down, aiming for the neck.
The Stalker caught the blade, claws sparking against steel. Stronger than expected. It threw him back, and he hit the floor, rolling to avoid a claw swipe that shattered a pipe. Steam blinded them both, but the Reaper didn't need to see. He knew its anatomy—knew the weak point where the spine met the skull.
He lunged through the steam, scythe low, then spun upward. The blade sank into the Stalker's neck, twisting. It screamed, tendrils flailing, then fell still. Ichor drenched his coat, his mask. He stood, breathing steady, scythe dripping.
Korr emerged, panting, knife in hand. "You… you killed it. Both of 'em."
The Reaper turned, eyes locking on Korr. The scavenger stepped back, knife lowering. "Don't," the Reaper said. He didn't need to say more. Korr knew what happened to scavengers who got greedy.
But Korr's eyes flicked to the Stalkers' corpses, calculating. "Guild will pay big for these. New kind, right? Split it?"
The Reaper stepped closer, scythe still in hand. Korr froze, sweat beading. "You carried nothing," the Reaper said. "You get nothing."
Korr's jaw tightened, but he nodded, backing away. "Fine. Your kill, your coin."
The Reaper turned to the corpses, crouching to inspect them. The larger Stalker's tendrils were still, but its stolen face unnerved him—not fear, but recognition. It wasn't just mimicking a Warden. It had drained one. Guild tags lay in the ichor, blood-crusted. He pocketed them, not for sentiment but proof. The guilds paid better with proof.
He stood, scythe over his shoulder, and walked into the fog. Korr didn't follow. Smart, for once. The Reaper's mind churned—not on Torv's death or Lir's flight, but the Stalkers. They'd hunted together, used voices, targeted the gifted. That wasn't instinct. That was strategy.
Cinderfall's streets were quiet now, the screams faded. He moved toward the guild district, where gaslights burned brighter and iron walls kept the slums at bay. The guilds would want to know about this. They'd pay, maybe even beg him to hunt more. He didn't care about their coin or their fear. He cared about the hunt, the puzzle of a new Stalker. Something was shifting in the Veil, and he'd carve through it until he understood.
A shadow moved ahead—a guild runner, young, trembling, clutching a message. "Reaper!" the boy called, voice cracking. "The Iron Veil Guild—they need you. Now. More dead. They're… they're husked."
The Reaper stopped, tilting his head. "Husked?"
"No Gifts left. Just… empty." The boy swallowed, stepping back as the Reaper's shadow loomed. "They're saying it's Stalkers. New ones."
The Reaper's grip tightened on his scythe. New Stalkers, draining Gifts. That explained the Warden's face, the coordination. His mind raced, not with fear but with cold clarity. If they could strip Gifts, the guilds were useless. Eidolons, Wardens—all their power meant nothing. But he was ungifted.
"Lead," he said, voice like a blade through fog.
The boy nodded, sprinting toward the guild district. The Reaper followed, scythe glinting, already mapping the hunt. Cinderfall was bleeding, and he'd be the one to cauterize it—one Stalker at a time.