Into where no map reached, water bubbled grey as the skiff drifted. The walls slanted high as we travelled along the edge, sweating dark bricks by our sides. I thought I knew that everything down here stank of rot and metal, but this stretch was worse. The density smelled like the sewer couldn't push its own filth away fast enough.
At first, I thought it was just the water thickening. Then the skiff slowed. Something clogged the tunnel mouth ahead.
Bodies.
Not clean kills, nor neat to the sight. A clot of rats, lampreys, and limbs knotted together, riding the current like driftwood jammed in a storm drain. The tide pushed more into it, fattening the plug until the water rose and lapped the gunwale. Bits broke loose, bobbing back out into the channel.
Kael leaned forward, hand on his hip. "So that's why it stinks worse here."
One Ferryman rapped its pole against the hull. "Clogs. Used as tribute to be fed."
It sounds factual, the way they said it. My stomach twisted at the heap anyway. They didn't need to clean the mess. Eventually, it would unjam, float out, and the Ferrymen would collect what corpses hadn't rotted through.
Kael didn't wait for permission. He stepped onto the lip of the skiff and started cutting into the clot. Rats split, lampreys slumped, human skin tore like wet cloth. The Prism at my side gave one sharp pulse, enough to burn a hole into the tangle, and then dimmed again, whining low.
That was when the clog moved.
At first it looked like current, a swell pushing back. Then a slick arm of corpses twisted out, wrapped in sewer weeds, and smacked against the skiff. Lanterns swung wild. Water slapped. Kael braced, knife flashing, hacking until the limb tore loose and floated.
The rest of the mass quivered, as if deciding whether to come alive. Then it sagged. Just rot again.
The Ferrymen hissed once, satisfied. Kael spat over the side. "Stiffer than it looked."
We pushed through. Bits of rat fur and broken teeth floated past in the wake. Behind us, the clog shifted like something still hungry, then stilled.
The Matte Card pulsed faint against my ribs. Red dots spread deeper into unmapped dark. The next stretch felt forever as it rings by our ears. Silence thick enough to hear the skiff's planks pop.
Kael was the one who caught it first. "Where's the red dot?"
I flicked the Prism lens and pulled up the overlay. The one signal we'd been watching, that pulsed like a heartbeat in the dark, was gone. Just static on the grid.
Another one flickered, far side of the channel. Bright. Then off. Like something had run a few steps, then vanished.
The Ferrymen stiffened. They hissed together, like snakes sharing the same throat. One pressed its lantern low, as if hiding light from something bigger.
That was when I heard it.
A grinding that wasn't metal against stone or any brick, but a steady chew, deep enough my ribs shook with it. Yet, like teeth the size of houses gnashing far beneath us.
Kael froze, knife angled but not raised. His head tilted like he was listening to someone whisper.
"You hear that?" he asked.
I did. But it wasn't whispering for me. What slipped into my ears was a hum. Low, almost hymn-like, threading the air like the sound of wires vibrating. The notes slid under my skin until my molars hurt.
We didn't speak after that. Not until the grinding stopped, sudden as if it had never begun.
The Prism's grid jittered again, static crawling along the lens. The dots were gone. Not dead. Just erased.
Kael muttered, "Something's wiping them off the board."
The Ferrymen didn't deny it. They kept their heads down, poles pushing us forward, waxen faces unreadable.
The skiff veered left with poles scraping stones. We drifted into wider water, a chamber cut tall enough to swallow a whole district. Pillars jutted from the depths, half-submerged, each slick with moss and chain. Lantern light fell short of the ceiling. Whatever had built this place hadn't meant it for boats.
That's when we saw something floating against a pillar. At first I thought it was driftwood. Then the light hit wax.
A Ferryman husk. Stained long on the usual pale.
It clung to the chain like it had drowned standing. Ribs cracked, wax face split. One arm's gone at the shoulder. Its lantern dangled empty, glass shattered, flame long dead. The mannequin's joints that made its body twitchable were slack, water rocking it with each swell.
Kael crouched low in the skiff, eyes narrowing. "Looks like it got peeled."
I raised the Prism, dim but scanning. The grid skated over the husk, lines breaking where it flickered. Nothing living inside. But the metal struts through its spine had been bent inward, not out. Like something had crumpled it in one. Something that chewed like gears.
The Card continues in steady thumps in my pouch, faint red stutters across the grid.
I lowered my voice. "Guardian?"
The Ferrymen hissed all at once, poles rattling. Wax faces didn't turn, but their ribs creaked sharp enough to sound like a warning.
Kael shifted his knife in his hand, muttering, "Seems like it then."
Kael waded across before I could stop him, boots dragging through the sludge. He nudged the Ferryman husk with his knife. It collapsed further, ribs folding inward like brittle paper. His blade stuck halfway into the chest, edge catching on wax.
The familiar porcelain child's hand raised the lantern towards us, and gave us a deal to help bring back the remaining husk for the exchange of 20 kills in its name. Without much thinking, the moment Kael and I exchanged a knowing glance, we sealed the deal, and we headed to fulfill.
Unlike the usual way we treated rats and lampreys, the husk was laid neat on tanned fur by the ferrymen. Kael and I gathered the remains, keeping our eyes sharp while they worked a crude dressing with whatever scraps the night hadn't stolen from us.
Another herd of rats lunged in fur and teeth. Kael grunted, twisting steel into vermin flesh. When the knife came free, the edge was duller, dragging light instead of flashing it. Every rat he had to stab twice. Every mimic that twitched too long left his shoulders taut with frustration. He muttered under his breath, irritation sharp. "Blunt already."
The Ferrymen on our skiff hissed low, but not in grief. More like warning. Their lanterns dimmed to cold sparks. The wrapped husk was carried sacred in child's arm. Weight sat heavy to sink into the dark if not held close.
I checked the Prism again. The map didn't show dots here. Nothing. Blank space. Too clean. I took a deep breath after a long glance at where we've entered.
The corpses at our feet bled thin streams into the water, drifting like ink. Not all of them old. Fresh enough that steam still rose from the rats. Fresh enough that the Ferrymen's lanterns swayed as if scenting the kills.
I crouched, nudged a limp lamprey with my boot. The skin was still warm.
Kael noticed me watching. He wiped his blade against his sleeve, scowled. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I am not your mum."
"That pile back at the dock." He jerked his chin toward the direction we came from. "The scythe."
The word hung between us.
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I bent closer to the kill, running my fingers near the still-twitching gills. The Prism in my lap gave a faint shudder in recognition. Alive seconds ago. Fortunate enough to worth points.
I looked up. The Ferrymen hadn't moved, but their wax faces were turned toward us, lanterns jittering in their ribs. Waiting.
Kael's jaw was set. He tapped the dull edge of his knife against his boot. "We burn ourselves out for another twenty kills, maybe thirty, and we can bargain. Blade like that buys us reach. Clean edge. And right now? I'm cutting with scrap."
"Besides, they are all dead. It's safe." He squeezed his eyes closed when he said.
Eyed the Prism as well as the Matte card, both prove his statement with no sign of arguments.
I swallowed and nodded once. "Fine. We check if they count. If they're fresh enough."
Kael's grin was thin, tired, with a soft chuckle. We managed to pole back the entrance. One of them stepped forward, lantern dangling low. It lowered its scythe into the water, the hooked blade slipping beneath a floating rat. With a practiced jerk, it lifted the carcass high, letting it sway like bait. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the rat convulsed once, twice, twitching with the last memory of breath. The Ferryman tilted its head. Its ribs creaked.
Lantern flared.
The scythe hissed as if exhaling, and the rat's body collapsed inward, dry and brittle like paper. Only then did the Ferryman toss it onto the pile. The air smelled of ash and rust by the time they were done.
"So, twenty more."
I swallowed. "At least."
The next hours blurred into sweat and damp and teeth. The Prism gave only thin light, enough to blind the nearest lampreys when I angled the lens just right. But every flare dimmed the lantern faster, and we couldn't stray far without the Ferrymen's glow at our backs.
Kael fought like the tunnels belonged to him, reckless, knife arm swinging until it bent wrong at the wrist from strain. His curses echoed as he stabbed again and again, each kill slower, harder. When he faltered, I spotted with the Prism, distracting creatures with sudden glints of fractured light.
The corpses stacked. Rats, mimics, one lamprey nearly the size of my leg.
Each time we dragged one back, the Ferrymen tested them the same way — hook, lift, flare, husk. No words and tallies spoken aloud. But I felt it in my bones: they were counting.
The pile grew.
Kael's shoulders glistened, his breathing sharp. He wiped his knife on his boot, only for it to smear black sludge. "How many's that?"
I counted, lips moving against the damp air. "Seventeen."
"Damn." He pressed a palm against the wall, steadied himself. Then laughed, hoarse. "Three more. Let's finish it."
We did.
By the time the last rat husked, and the lantern dimmed in satisfaction, the Ferrymen parted without a word. They led us to the docks. One stepped forward, its scythe tilted not as a weapon, but as I helped them with the unloading.
The blade gleamed, black hooked steel, the haft bound with strips of pale skin. Kael's hand twitched toward it, then stilled. His dull knife, still wet at his hip, looked small, a child's toy by comparison.
The Ferryman tilted its head, waiting.
I looked at Kael. He didn't look at me.
Then he took it.
He hefted it one-handed, then with both, the blade dragging an arc across the stone. Too long, too heavy for a knife-fighter's stance. For a breath, he looked almost clumsy. We decided to test the compatibility near the docks.
The first rat pack came fast, claws scratching wet brick. Kael swung wide, reckless, and the blade buried itself in the wall, rats scattering past. He hissed through his teeth, yanked hard, almost overbalanced. The blade betrayed him with a kiss on the surface, where threads of gurgling bubbles scattered like startled fish.
Then he grinned.
Second swing, he dropped low. Not elegant, but the curve of the blade caught two at once, bodies hooking mid-air before they even squealed. He twisted, let their weight pull the haft, and slammed them into the ground. One twitched. The knife in his free hand finished it before I even registered the movement.
By the third strike, he wasn't swinging wide anymore. He was carving through water. The scythe wasn't fast, but Kael was. Every arc he cut fed straight into a thrust, every hook dragged something closer for the knife. He fought like he always had: straight-line, no hesitation, only now with reach.
The scythe seemed to like it. Each impact carried momentum too smooth for a weapon that size, pulling toward fresh bodies as if it anticipated his intent. The Ferrymen hissed sharp approval when the next pack fell in one sweep, corpses spilling onto the boards.
Kael braced the haft against his shoulder, sweat sliding down his jawline. "Messy," he said, breath ragged. That was the last words when he knocked himself up before he ended the day after I agreed to look out the night.
The extra kills during the test run were used to upgrade his blunt knife. He slept with the scythe and the sharpened knife beside him like he'd always owned them.