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words, but they stepped politely aside as he headed toward the depot and the two Reapers waiting there for him.
    “I guess I didn’t have to worry about how they were going to take to you showing up here,” Cynyr said as he gained the platform.
    “Surprised the hell out of us,” Bevyn told him. “I can see why you’d make the town your home, Cree.”
    Arawn nodded at Cynyr though neither man put out a hand to the other. “There’s been trouble,” he said.
    Aingeal glanced toward the platform where her husband and his brethren were talking. She could tell by the set of Cynyr’s shoulders that problems had arisen while they were gone. She looked to Brady. “What happened?”
    Mick’s smile slowly slipped away. “The Sheenans,” he said. “The farm family who lived on the west edge of town?” At her nod, he told her about the family’s murder. 23
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    “Was it rogues?” she asked. She remembered the family and her first sight of them after the tornado. Cynyr had asked if they needed help but the man of the house had waved him away.
    “Aye,” Brady said. “Looks like it was Gibbs and that Jakotai brave from what Arawn says.”
    “Arawn, is it?” she countered, and grinned.
    Brady shrugged. “He and Bevyn are good folk. They’ve been a help to us and since they arrived, there hasn’t been the first hint of trouble in these parts.”
    Cynyr was listening to the Prime Reaper’s report on the Sheenan murders but he was watching his wife and Brady. It bothered him that the barber seemed to have an easy relationship with Aingeal. They were walking together, their heads down, and he wanted to grab Brady by the neck and strangle him.
    “I went out reconnoitering and found their trail,” Arawn said. “It led up into the mountains.”
    “We’ve been taking turns having a look around the area,” Bevyn said.
    “We thought about going after them together but then the town would have been left defenseless,” the Prime Reaper put in.
    Cynyr narrowed his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “A day or two after we got here, one of the local boys came in to tell us he’d seen something falling out of the sky,” Arawn said. “He said it crashed into the mountain but there wasn’t any noise when it hit.”
    “A ship?”
    “Looks that way,” Arawn agreed.
    “I went out that time but the closer I came to the pass where Arawn had followed the rogues’ trail, the darker I felt. Something was up there and if I’d continued on, I knew I’d be riding into a trap.”
    “It’s the Ceannus,” Arawn stated.
    Cynyr exhaled a long breath. The thought of the mad scientists working for Raphian, the Destroyer of Men’s Souls and the originator of the revenant worm, being once more upon Terra sent chills down his spine. “Have you informed Lord Kheelan?”
    he asked.
    “He knows of it, but he and the other members of the High Council haven’t been able to pinpoint where the ship landed. Something is blocking their efforts.”
    “It would stand to reason that in all the time Reapers have been on Terra,” Cynyr said, “the Ceannus have been working on how to remain undetected once they came back.”
    “At last count, there were three rogues scattered about the western territories. We’d all but wiped them out.”
    “Why do you suppose they come out here?” Bevyn asked.
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    “Why they congregate here is obvious,” Arawn said. “The vastness of the landscape keeps them well hidden.”
    “You think the Ceannus have brought more rogues,” Cynyr said.
    “I’d be willing to bet next month’s salary they have,” Bevyn said with a snort.
    “And I’d be willing to bet these rogues are much worse than the ones brought here in the first place,” Arawn agreed.
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    Charlotte Boyett-Compo
    Chapter Three

    Aingeal found her husband sitting on a bench in Moira McDermott’s backyard. He was staring toward the dark pyramids of the mountains to the west. She put