The area the Reapers' wounded captive led them through was crooked and treacherous. Precarious canyons cut into the craggy earth and steep arches and columns of pale rock ruptured the sky. The men moved quickly and quietly along the shallower crevices and came to a great canyon that stretched as far the eye could see to the north and south. The settlers who called this frontier home could thank this natural divide for their lives as it had until recently kept the greater hordes of hobgoblins and other threats at bay. There were no signs of encampments or activity but there was much terrain to scan.

"Where?" Nail asked their captive. The bandit weakly pointed down at their feet, toward the cliff's edge. He then staggered forward, closer to the precipice. Thirteen pointed his crossbow at the highwayman, ready for any surprises in store. Finally the bandit came to the very ledge and Blacwin thought he might leap from it and dash himself upon the rocks a thousand feet below. Perhaps the fool simply wanted to waste their time and was happy to martyr himself as the final master stroke in the punchline to his own absurd joke. Instead the unwitting guide dropped to the ground with his belly to the dirt and crawled to the cusp of the empty gulf before him and looked down from its edge and pointed to the space just below the ridge.

Blacwin had his crossbow out now as well. He crept closer but kept himself at safe distance from the wounded road agent. The half-ylf felt a sudden spike of headiness when he approached that edge where the world's floor abruptly ceased. It was a heart-stopping sight with the sun setting at the far horizon and splashing the canyon in all the colors of autumn and hell. Blacwin's boot kicked pebbles loose as he drew closer to the precipice and they clattered into the abyss. He then saw what the bandit had been trying to explain. There was some form of structure on the cliff's face directly below where they stood. Rickety ramps made their way down to openings in the sheer wall. The Reapers pulled back away from the ledge and took up a position where they could observe from afar. They used their spyglasses but saw no activity.

"Think those are Qoldah ruins," said Riddle. "They sometimes carved temples into the very cliffsides."

"Of course the birdkin had wings," said Jasha.

"So says the lore," remarked Nail. "Then again, perhaps they were always just assholes in feathers like our friend here."

"Regardless," said Riddle, "someone who had no wings built those ramps and made it their home."

"Our escort's old friends, I imagine," said Jasha. "And with luck, the missing ladies we seek are right beneath our feet."

They gave the bandit a stick and had him sketch the interior's layout in the dirt. The Reapers prepared their weapons and plotted. Nail and Jasha would stay back to cover the exits with their crossbows. Vulture would keep to the hills with the prisoner bound and gagged to prevent him from escaping or alerting his fellows. Blacwin and Thirteen and Riddle would go down into the cliffside caves. "Blacwin, you're point man," Nail said.

Rather than use the walkways which could be trapped or otherwise unsafe Blacwin and the other two Reapers assigned to him rappelled from the cliff's edge like black spiders in descent for prey. They softly landed on a platform and quickly ducked against a wall. They could hear drunken laughter and singing from within. A calmness washed over Blacwin and his senses sharpened. Time slowed. This is when he felt most alive, when life was on the line. The cool night air that gusted through those openings tickled his cheeks and brushed against his eyes. He did indeed feel inhuman at times like this.

The Reapers scanned the passage for traps or runery. The stone walls had carvings of beaked demigods and motifs of feathers and fearsome talons. Alcoves lined the passages and inside them were sculptures of large smooth eggs. Riddle had read that the Qoldah believed these stone vessels would hatch if they received enough adoration from their caretakers, spawning the next generation of paragons that would protect their feathered people. It seemed the vessels would never be hatching now. The Qoldah were said to be a dead race though there were rumors that small flocks of them, degenerate and flightless, still haunted the highest peaks in the farthest wastes. Their ancestors would likely be tormented at the thought of others nesting in these sacred confines. Good, thought Riddle. Perhaps the Reapers would get some help from their angry spirits.

— • —

Jinx awoke to a hellish pain on his chest. He found himself strapped to a table. Several human faces stared down, watching as he stirred from his coma. The Reaper looked at the source of his gnawing pain and saw fresh sutures on his chest. Blood and white sheets. He screamed. Upon his howling, more pain came, as did more men. One of those who entered the room was Inquisitor Wral.

"What have you done to me?" Jinx found his voice weak and feeble. The chest-wound was lathered with salves that made his eyes water and sting.

"We have runed your heart," said Wral. "You'll be back on your feet in no time. Our restoratives are razor's-edge."

Jinx started at the news. His heart painfully pounded. He gasped and wrestled with his numb tongue.

"And if I were to speak the right combination of words," Wral casually continued, "the runes will stop the organ's beating. They also will allow us to track your every movement. Tamper with it and die. You are to continue working your post at the Triad. Report anything you learn to us. It is that simple. Then we will see."

"I don't understand," Jinx said, writhing in pain. His heart winced with each beat. He could feel that he'd been drugged, or the pain would be far worse. He'd surely be dead if not kept alive by their strange concoctions. "You want me to spy on your own government? Whose side are you people on?" Jinx's head swam as the sedatives wore off. A nausea began to set in. The room spun on sickening pivots. "And the security at the Triad is thick as bees. They conduct strip searches. They'll discover my wound and be suspicious."

"Let them be," Wral said. "We've modified your records to show you had an emergency procedure done. Your heart had stopped beating and an Anatoli surgeon resuscitated you. And if you are, for whatever reason, arrested by the Triad guards... who will they deliver you over to? Us. Me. And then I will continue with our charade. Tell them you've been properly dealt with as any mage would be. We'll burn some other guilty man at the stake in your place. A lovely way to ensure there is no body to inspect later. And stash you elsewhere. Our needs are many, soldier. And we couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a Reaper on our 'staff.' You will be useful to us. As we can be to you."

"Who else do you refer to?" asked Jinx. "Who are you working with?"

"Do as we ask," said Wral. "Earn our faith. And you will learn more. Play this game well and you will be rewarded handsomely. You want to ply the deepest truths? Possess the keys to immortality? We know of such things. I started in much the same position as you. We always begin under the heel of some other. It is up to each of us to worm our own way out."

"And what happens if I just bite the heel?"

"Isn't that obvious?" said Wral. "You are crushed by it."

"How do I know you didn't just cut me open and stitch me back up?"

"I invite you," said Wral, "to browse the obituaries of those who insisted on asking the same question."

"You don't know who you're fucking with, blood," said Jinx. "A Reaper only forgives with knives."

Wral pressed his hand against the bloody stitches on Jinx's chest and applied enough pressure to make him squirm. "Thus the extra incentivisation." He leaned in and whispered into Jinx's ear as the captive fought off the stabbing pain in his chest. "I know exactly who you are, practitioner. Remember the typical fate I give those who fall into my custody. Some are robbed of their tongues and hands and sent far below the city to be further corrupted and twisted and studied like your frogs. Others are simply burned alive. Be thankful this is the fate I've chosen for you. Be thankful you are of some use to me. Now it is up to you to keep it that way."

— • —

The outlaws of checkered past known as Wade Two Face, Rusty Cliff, Noose, and Sherm Smokes had their own sagas as rich and strange as any Reaper's but all their stories ended that night in cold and sudden death. The Qoldah imitators had been drinking and gambling their pilfered prizes when Reaper Team 3 gunned them down in a hail of steel bolts from the shadows. One of the cutthroats had been dancing in his feathered bird costume when he took a bolt to the neck under his beaked mask. He looked grimly absurd going down with his fake wings sprawling. Thirteen stepped in and cooly finished the buffoon with a bayonet to the heart. The other three outlaws were dead before their drunken minds could start to reckon with the sudden invasion of silent and black assassins into their cliffside domain. They had expected their fellows to return with new bounties. Not death itself.

The Reapers moved in deeper to check the knot of chambers and tunnels in the back. They found that the highwaymen had accumulated all manner of artifacts and trinkets and weaponry from their raids across the warfucked countryside. Riddle carefully went through the bandits' stash to check for glyphed traps and cursings while Blacwin and Thirteen tactically moved from room to room to clear the rest of the small compound. The stonework had all been carved in devotion to feather and talon. As Blacwin moved with Thirteen just at his rear he imagined families of Qoldah roosting there ages ago. He could picture their beaked faces in the firelight that brought the idols and hieroglyphs to shadowy life.

Ahead was a curtained room. Blacwin heard muffled movement from within. His ylfish eyes saw the faint glow of warm bodies through the narrow part in the curtains. The Reaper called out in the human and goblin tongues, ready to fire his riflebow at the first sign of trouble. There came answers in high voices. Women. Thirteen pushed past Blacwin and went through the curtain. Blacwin made a mental note to address the break in protocol at some later time. He followed, pushing through silky drapes that were surely stolen as were all things here. Inside this last chamber Blacwin saw the flame-licked faces and bodies of several terrified women.

"Watch that door," said Thirteen. He handed his crossbow to Blacwin and began to unbuckle his belt-straps.

"The hell are you doing?" But of course Blacwin knew his teammate's designs.

"These damsels been poked a thousand times by them scoundrels," Thirteen said. "What's a couple more for the men who saved their skins? Least they could do. C'mon, man..." He gestured at the women and licked his lips. His eyes took on a mad luster. "Tell me you don't wanna just dive into that harem? Let's do it, brother! Bolts and thunder!" Thirteen looked manic in his painted skull in the twilight. "Or did you want first pick? That what the fuss is about?"

Blacwin put his face into Thirteen's skull of ash and blood. "I'll send you to the stars, snake—" Blacwin pointed at the door, "—if you do not stand down immediately and march yourself out of this room. Or we can go the other way. Your choice... brother."

The black skull on Thirteen's face distorted into a grin. "What you gonna do? Put a bolt in me?" He patted his chest. "Go ahead, hero. Do it." He pushed Blacwin, who stumbled back. Thirteen was solid and tenacious while Blacwin was thin and light but both were tough as hell inside and out. The rescued captives watched on in amazement and fear as their two saviors shoved one another and shouted threats and curses.

"Let's dance, brother!" said Thirteen, drunk on blood. "Hack and slash!"

Riddle pushed the curtain aside and came through. "What the hell is going on in here?" He quickly saw from Thirteen's state the answer to that question. "You're a Reaper, man," the rune man said to Thirteen. "How about you act like one."

"Thought I was." Thirteen sneered and buckled his belt. "My old man was a Reaper. Should tell you sometime about the shit he's done." His eyes shot daggers at Blacwin. "Thought this was a war. Not some goddamn tea party."

"Let's go, ladies," said Riddle, ushering out the rescued women. "You'll be safe now, under the care of the Nation."

"Are you truly Reapers?" asked one of the freed hostages.

"We'll explain everything once we get you somewhere safe," said Blacwin. The girl hugged him and would not let him go. He realized suddenly that he was indeed a hero in the estimation of these people. Blacwin, who started life as nothing better than these road agents they had just slain. Killing the Blind Prophet had been one thing—but next to this feeling it was nothing. That had been cold. This was warm. He and Riddle gave the women blankets and ushered them into the main chamber that looked out on the sweeping canyon. The liberated saw the dead bandits on the bloodied floor and some of them gasped and remarked at the passing of their tormentors. It was clear these poor women had been badly mistreated by the cutthroats and were happy to see them gone but strangely some of them went to the clown who had died dancing in his Qoldah costume and softly wept for him. They touched his face and oddly grieved for the fallen brigand. Blacwin supposed this fellow had been kinder than the other keepers. Perhaps he did not take advantage of the captives. Sneaked food to them. Spoke with them. Well, he was gone now. And yet this monster Thirteen, so ready to rape and kill, still breathed. Sick fate.

Riddle went back up to the canyon ledge first to inform Nail and the others of what had transpired and to help direct the extraction of the people and goods. Thirteen and Blacwin remained below to secure the women and loot with ropes. The Reapers carefully raised the victims to the surface above one-by-one. Soon it was just Blacwin and Thirteen alone at the cave's mouth. Wind whipped their clothing and hair. They were the last two people alive who remained in the Qoldah temple.

Thirteen peered over the edge and began to make a retching sound. He summoned up a thick wad of phlegm and let it dangle from his lip. Watched the spit break and fall into the canyon. A mad idea took hold of Blacwin in that moment as he watched Thirteen balance himself on that edge. A simple push was all it would take. There would be no witnesses, no chance of reclaiming the body. All Blacwin would have to say is that the scoundrel slipped and fell. He thought of what the skull-faced lunatic had done in their maculate trek through these frontiers. His callous disregard for life. His eagerness to rape those girls who had already seen so much abuse. That family Blacwin was sure Thirteen and Vulture had murdered in the farmhouse. The horrors they would no doubt inflict in the future.

And so Blacwin did it. He put his foot between Thirteen's shoulderblades and with a rush of bitter satisfaction pushed him to his screaming death. Blacwin thought he dimly heard the doomed man curse his name on the winds as he plummeted. The ranger looked down to see Thirteen's distant body dashed against the canyon floor and broken on the rocks. He then noticed the nest of fledgling birds that clung to the cliff wall below. Thirteen had likely been aiming for it with his spittle before Blacwin pushed him. A last testament of the slain Reaper's cruelness of spirit. A small and final validation of the execution just committed.

Blacwin took hold of the rope and looked up. There was the last of the rescued girls, the one who had hugged him before, staring down. She had not cleared the surface, perhaps paralyzed by fear of making that last leap to safety. The look on her face confirmed she had seen the half-ylf's lethal deed.