Moonlight spilled over a ruined roadside camp. Bodies lay strewn about, the casualties of a midnight ambush. Broken wagons and discarded weapons cast long shadows across blood-soaked dirt. The Coinbearer stepped silently through the carnage, his black boots leaving no trace in the mud.
Under a shattered wooden cart, a man clung to life. He was a bandit by the look of his tattered leather jerkin and the dagger still clenched in his trembling hand. An arrow had pierced his lung; each wet, ragged breath bubbled with blood. His comrades were dead around him, but he refused to join them at least not yet.
The bandit's vision swam as he tried to crawl out from under the cart. Pain and panic made his world a blur. He didn't notice the tall cloaked figure approaching until black boots stopped inches from his outstretched hand.
Startled, the bandit rolled onto his back with a gurgling curse. His eyes went wide at the sight before him: a man draped in tattered darkness, face hidden behind a dull silver mask. In the moon's glow, that mask looked otherworldly, the empty eye slits staring as if into the bandit's very soul.
"W-what... who...?" the bandit gasped. He tried to scoot back, only to cough violently, blood flecking his lips.
The Coinbearer said nothing yet. He simply watched, head slightly tilted. From his perspective, he could see the faint glow of the bandit's life-thread unraveling, an invisible filament only he and a few others could sense. It quivered, frayed by the arrow's cruel damage, moments from snapping.
Inside the hood, the Coinbearer's eyes (hidden behind the mask) flicked to the arrow shaft. A fatal wound. This man's thread was nearly cut. The Loom had decreed this life all but finished. That's why the Coinbearer was here.
"You... you're him, aren't you?" the bandit wheezed in dawning terror. Superstitious fear lit in his eyes. "The... the Coinbearer..."
He had heard the tales, clearly. Many in the underworld whispered of a soul-collector bound by Hell, a stranger who appeared when a man's fate teetered between life and death.
The bandit's bloody fingers scrabbled for the dagger. If he could fight off death itself...! With a desperate cry, he lunged upward, swinging the blade at the dark figure's legs.
But the Coinbearer did not flinch. Before the dagger could connect, something whipped out from beneath the cloak, a length of midnight fabric snapping like a living whip. The dagger flew from the bandit's hand, knocked aside by the prehensile edge of the Coinbearer's very cloak.
"Oy, none of that," a dry voice tutted from the emptiness of the hood. It wasn't the Coinbearer's voice. It came from the cloak itself, its tone sarcastic and scolding. "Is that any way to treat a guest, even if he is here to collect?"
The bandit gaped, not sure if delirium or reality made the cloak speak. The Coinbearer raised a gloved hand, and the cloak settled back into stillness with a faint grumble of disapproval.
"Heads or tails?" the Coinbearer intoned, his own voice low and devoid of anger. He reached into his coat and produced the silver coin between his fingers.
The bandit's heartbeat thundered in his ears. Despite the pain, he understood those words. This was the coin toss that would decide his fate. Perhaps... perhaps there was a chance! He had always been a lucky sort, hadn't he? He survived countless skirmishes, always slipping away. Maybe luck would favor him one more time.
"S-spare me," he coughed, trying to prop himself up on one elbow. "I'll change, I swear... I don't wanna die." He eyed the silver coin, a mixture of hope and terror in his face. "Heads," he croaked at last. He was a gambling man; he would bet on life.
The Coinbearer gave a curt nod and flipped the coin. It spun upward, catching a ray of moonlight as it danced in the air. The bandit's bloodshot eyes tracked it intensely. It felt as if the world slowed, the only sound the soft whir of the coin turning end over end.
With a soft chime, the coin landed in the Coinbearer's palm. He slapped it onto the back of his other hand, covered it, then slowly revealed the result.
Even before the bandit saw the face, he felt a strange warmth spread through his chest, his collapsed lung filling with air. The agony in his side ebbed to a dull ache. He drew a sharp breath in surprise, realizing he could breathe again.
On the coin's face, illuminated by pale light, was the profile of the crowned head.
Heads.
The Coinbearer closed his fist around the coin, concealing it once more. He inclined his head to the bandit, as if acknowledging that fate had chosen.
The bandit stared, bewildered at his sudden reprieve. He was still badly hurt and weak, but no longer at death's door. His hand shakily probed the wound somehow the bleeding had slowed, the arrow's bite less lethal for now. "I... I live?" he whispered, hardly daring to believe.
"Don't waste it," came the disembodied mutter from the cloak, almost begrudgingly. "Next time we might not be so kind."
The bandit blinked, but before he could respond, a distant shout echoed from down the road. Torchlight appeared perhaps travelers or a patrol drawn by the commotion. When he looked back toward the dark stranger, the man was already turning away, his cloak swirling around him.
"W-wait!" the bandit called weakly. "Who are you really? Why... why give me a chance?" He didn't fully grasp that it wasn't mercy but cosmic rule that spared him.
The Coinbearer paused only for a fraction of a second. He did not answer the bandit's question. He never did. Instead, he simply melted into the shadows beside the broken wagon, vanishing from sight just as a pair of wary armed travelers arrived on the scene. They would find the wounded bandit and take him for treatment or justice, whichever fate still had in store for the man. The Coinbearer's part in this life was done, for now.
In the blanketing dark beyond the road, the Coinbearer reappeared beside an ancient oak, far from the eyes of mortals. The night air was cool and filled with the scent of damp earth and blood on the breeze. Another thread had been measured, another life tipping back from the brink.
He opened his hand, examining the silver coin resting on his palm. The coin was old—older than any kingdom, etched with cryptic sigils along its edge. It gleamed with a subtle inner light that only its bearer could see, the light of fate's own fire.
The Coinbearer ran a thumb over the coin's faces: one side marred by countless scratches across the embossed head, the other side patterned with worn tails. He pondered, not for the first time, the capriciousness of this ritual. Heads spared, tails claimed was there meaning to it, or just chance? Not that it mattered; his duty was merely to flip and obey the outcome.
"You're brooding again," the cloak's voice interjected, cutting through his thoughts. The dark fabric rippled, the hood shifting as if an invisible head were turning to face him. "Don't tell me you're feeling sorry for that cutthroat. He's lucky, that one. Don't see that often."
The Coinbearer shook his head silently and tucked the coin away inside his cloak. The cloak huffed in response, a strangely human-like sound of exasperation.
They began to walk through the trees, the Coinbearer's stride soundless. Above, the moon drifted behind a cloud, deepening the darkness.
"How many does that make tonight?" the Coinbearer asked quietly. His voice was calm, but with a hint of weariness that only the cloak, his longtime companion, might detect.
"By my count, that was the fifth soul scheduled," the cloak replied crisply. It had an uncanny knack for tallying such things, no doubt part of the enchantment that bound it to him. "Three taken, two spared including our lucky bandit friend. That leaves… one more on the list for tonight."
The Coinbearer inclined his head. Through the fabric of reality, he could feel it too: another thread out there was close to snapping, calling to him like a distant harp string about to break.
"Somewhere in the east," the cloak noted, a corner of its hem vaguely gesturing to their left. "Not far. We should hurry. Hell's bureaucracy will be displeased if we arrive late, you know how they are with the quotas and ledgers." Its tone dripped with dry disdain.
A faint noise that could have been a chuckle escaped the Coinbearer. It was a rare sound. "They measure time differently down below," he murmured. "But yes. Let's not keep the ledger-devils waiting."
He touched the side of his mask absently, feeling along a thin, barely noticeable scar etched in the metal—one of the few marks marring its smooth surface. There weren't many beings capable of scratching Hell-forged silver. In fact, this scratch wasn't from a foe at all, but from a fragile clay cup thrown by a grieving child years ago. Though the mask had long since been repaired by infernal smiths, the memory of that night lingered in the Coinbearer's mind. In all the centuries of his duty, he seldom remembered the faces of those left behind. But that fearless little girl, daring to defy Death's messenger, had etched herself into his memory.
For a moment, an image flashed through his memory: a pair of tear-filled eyes, a trembling voice calling out for her father. The Coinbearer banished the thought before it could distract him further. That was long ago, and attachment to mortal memories did him no good.
Still, as he and his cloak stepped into the darkness heading east, he couldn't help but wonder, just for an instant what had become of that little girl with the courage to defy Death's messenger.
"Something on your mind?" the cloak probed, sensing his momentary hesitation.
"No," the Coinbearer lied softly. "Only the road ahead."
And with that, the Coinbearer and his sentient cloak disappeared deeper into the night, following the invisible threads of fate to the next soul in need of judgment. The darkness closed around them, and the night went on, indifferent and eternal.