They found a bunkhouse near the depot. Cheap mattress, tin washbasin, one bare window facing the alley. But it was clean, and the door had a bolt. There was a pub next door, the kind of place workers would go to forget their hard day’s labor before returning the next day to begin again.

Outside the bunkhouse, three men argued in hushed tones by a fire barrel—freight taxes, conscription, and something about “Purity audits” down near Rivermarch. Delano had always been a crossroads town, but it was beginning to feel more watched than welcome.

One of them wore a faded Church armband. Joe kept walking, but Mac caught the word mobilization and felt the tension hang in the air like storm heat. Missions, freight depots, and Church offices all shared the same street now.

The pub was older than the town that had grown up around it. Smoke-dark beams held up a ceiling warped with age, and the hearthstone had been worn smooth by boots and stories. Mac followed Joe to a table near the corner where Joe could keep the wall at his back—habit more than caution, though Mac wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

They’d eaten better, but the stew was hot enough, the beer cold, and the table solid. It was enough.

Mac let his shoulders relax. It had been a long few days, and the pub had a warmth to it that reminded him of nights on campus when the dorm heaters worked and the wind stayed outside.

A fire crackled in the hearth, and a few tables over, a singer with a dented old resonator guitar was tuning up. His voice was deep but ragged, but the crowd hushed as he strummed the first chord. Even before he spoke, the mood turned expectant.

“Let me tell you about the Reaper…” the singer said, then he launched into song:

Tall as a storm and twice as grim, with a sword near as long as the length of him.

They say he sheathed his blade in men, And pulled it free to strike again.

He didn’t march, he didn’t yell, He walked like death through shot and shell.

You begged for mercy? He had none. He called it justice, and called it done.

 

He rode with fire and shadow and dust, And he never blinked, and he never cussed.

They say he sheathed his blade in men, And pulled it free to strike again.

He didn’t march, he didn’t yell, He walked like death through shot and shell.

You begged for mercy? He had none. He called it justice, and called it done.”

Mac looked up, spoon paused midair. He wasn’t sure what he expected—maybe a drinking song, or something bawdy. Not a war tale.

The singer plucked his chords and leaned in, voice dark and steady, as if switching from verse to gospel. The story unfurled like a nightmare: a Raleigh scout camp that had taken in Granblue deserters, ambushed at dusk, men begging for mercy. The Reaper gave none. Slaughtered every man who turned his back on the line. Raleighites, Granblue cowards, didn’t matter. Traitors bled the same.

“Some say he could smell betrayal in the smoke, That he saw fear before you spoke.

Said he left no bodies, just boots and ash, Struck from the dark in a silent flash.

He didn’t march, he didn’t yell, He walked like death through shot and shell.

You begged for mercy? He had none. He called it justice, and called it done.”

The singer’s voice rose to a crescendo as his finished his tale. The audience erupted with laughter, whoops, and mock shivers. It played right into the Raleigh line—another tale of Granblue brutality turned into fireside horror. Propaganda dressed up in rhyme and grit. Propaganda, he thought—but the kind that stuck. Raleigh didn’t just fight with rifles anymore. They fought with stories.

And someone had carved that one deep. They loved it—just like they loved every good scary story told with enough heat and gravel. Tankards thumped the tables in rhythm, and someone even called out for another verse. Joe said nothing.

Mac leaned across the table, voice low. “How much of that you figure holds water, and how much is just barroom smoke and spit?”

Joe looked at the fire. “Don’t know. But I wouldn’t tell that story in Granblue colors. You sure as hell won’t hear it in Morgan’s Landing.”

Mac chewed the inside of his cheek. It was just a story. And yet… something about the way the singer told it crawled under his skin. Mac didn’t believe in monsters—but maybe men could make monsters without meaning to. Still, the singer’s voice scraped at something old inside him—like a story he was supposed to forget but never did.

They finished eating and left the pub. The Reaper’s name trailed them out like smoke.

Joe slept light. Woke twice. Once to the sound of distant whistling, once to footsteps that never came close.

He rose early, packed tight, and shaved dry. He shook Mac awake and went downstairs to wait. The morning wind brought woodsmoke and salt, faint on the edge of the city’s breath.

Downstairs, the night clerk offered him coffee. Joe took it without sugar.

“You railin’ early?” the man asked.

“Montrey.”

“You’ve got a calm face for a man headed into that stretch.”

Joe smiled. “Nothing there I can’t handle.”

“Good.” The clerk didn’t press.

Outside, the streets were still damp from a night rain. He made his way back to the depot, the sky brightening by inches. Two women swept their stoop with short-handled brooms. A boy ran past with a kite made from tarpaper and string. The world hadn’t tipped yet. Not this morning.

A broadside flapped near the ticket booth: NEW INSPECTION ZONES DECLARED – DELANO, SURFSIDE, RIDGE POINT. Another sign that policy was outrunning patience.

Joe gave it a glance. “Rail guards’ll be real friendly now,” he muttered.

Neither said much—Joe with his satchel slung over one shoulder, Mac yawning behind him. while the engine backed in. This one was cleaned up pretty—brass still yellow, wheels even.

The line man called out: “Southbound to Rivermarch, Montrey, and points past. Third class boarding rear!”

The brothers stepped into the queue.

The air was cooler; the sky streaked with pale orange as they boarded. The train south was nearly empty. Joe sprawled across two seats, hat over his eyes. Mac sat by the window, boots up, watching fences blur past fields and scrub.

Mac’s thoughts returned to the inn the night before. The story clung to him like wet smoke. Something about it scratched the edges of his thoughts.

Joe shifted under his hat but said nothing. But Mac noticed the twitch at his jaw, the way he went still. Like maybe he was doing math he didn’t want to finish.

“Bet Pa knew someone like that,” Mac muttered.

Montrey smelled like coal smoke and overripe fruit. No fanfare. Just the rattle of wheels on gravel and the hiss of braking steam.

At the station, Mac spotted a familiar figure by a supply wagon, sleeves rolled, ledger in hand. Mercedes stood out against the bustle—short, muscular, and striking, even in plain jeans and blouse. A wide-brimmed trail hat shaded her face, but Mac could still make out the dark red hair catching sunlight beneath the brim.

When she looked up, he saw their mother’s eyes and dazzling smile in her face. She had the build of someone who lived hard and trained harder, tanned from the road, and buxom enough to turn heads even out of uniform. There was steel in the way she carried herself—not just from years with a blade, but from commanding a company of Raleigh’s Rangers and knowing exactly when to draw a line.

Joe got to her first. “That your handwriting, or did a spider fall into the ink?”

Mercedes blinked once, then grinned. “Oh my Lord, save me! Both of you? This is divine punishment!”

“Punishment?” Mac said, stepping in for a hug. “We’re the good ones. It’s you who took up with the Rangers and started swinging blades for Raleigh.”

“I lead a respectable company,” she said, squeezing him hard enough that he winced. “And you two still smell like coal smoke and road dust.”

“We earned that dust,” Joe said. “We came by train. Luxury travel.”

“Rattling box with no springs,” Mac added. “Only thing luxurious was the beer before we boarded.”

Mercedes laughed. “You boys run out of clever on the way here, or are you just warming up?”

Joe gave her a sidelong look. “We figured you’d be at the ranch.”

“I was,” she said, brushing a fly off her hat brim. “Pa sent me to pick up a load. Something about getting ahead of fall stock.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “He all right?”

“Seems fine.”

He hesitated. “What about Mama?”

Mercedes didn’t answer right away. She looked toward the station roof as if it might offer help. “Far as I know, she’s fine too. If there’s more to it, Pa hasn’t said.” Joe rubbed his jaw. That sounded rehearsed. Or maybe he just knew her tells too well.

Joe gave her a long look, but didn’t press. Mac’s smile faltered. For all her cheer, Mercedes wasn’t saying everything.

The silence hung a beat too long.

He slung his pack into the wagon. “Guess we don’t have a choice.”

Mercedes gave a dry snort. “Since when have we ever?”

Joe shifted, then nodded toward the rear axle. 'Strap looks weak there.'

Mercedes arched an eyebrow. 'Checked it twice.'

'Doesn’t mean I can’t look,' Joe said quietly.

Mac glanced between them but said nothing. A flicker of tension passed like heat off the trail.

“Well,” Mercedes muttered, “now I remember why I left home.”

Joe chuckled. “And here we were about to offer you a ride.”

The road back wound through flat, brittle country. Mac sat beside Mercedes on the wagon, Joe in back with the sacks of feed and hardware. For a while, no one said much.

Then they came to a stretch of road just past Blister Ridge—the kind of place folks didn’t linger unless they had to.

“You see that?” Joe called forward.

Mac leaned out, frowning. Mercedes slowed the wagon.

On a rise ahead, the ground looked wrong. Sunken in places, dry with scrub poking through. The earth was pale and crusted over, with faint traces of old lime dust clinging to the topsoil. What remained of the ash curled up in ghost-thin wisps, more memory than substance.

“Mass grave,” Mercedes said.

Mac felt a chill despite the sun. A dry wind lifted grit from the mound and carried a bitter tang—like rust or old lime, long baked into the ground.

“What happened?”

“Stacy said they found a mess of dead bandits out this way. Thirty paces off the road. No idea who killed them. No sign of a fight, either.”

Joe peered at the mound as they passed. “Somebody didn’t like being ambushed.”

“Somebody,” Mercedes echoed.

Mac kept looking back until the grave dipped out of sight. “That many men dead, and no sign of a fight?” he murmured. “Doesn’t sit right.”

“They didn’t even try to hide this,” Mercedes said quietly. “Just dumped the bodies in full view.”

She looked around. “Someone wanted a message delivered.”

Tharnen’s Rest looked the same, but Mac felt different now. Dust and travel had clung to them all, and the sky was slanting toward evening.

The ranch hands moved slow and steady. Smoke curled from the kitchen chimney.

Stacy stood by the corral, pipe in hand. He looked up, eyes narrowing.

“Well, I’ll be. You’re early. And you brought strays.”

Joe hopped down, brushing dust from his coat. “Didn’t want you getting soft.”

“Too late for that,” Stacy said, grinning. “Y’all hungry?”

“Always,” Mac said, voice dry.

They unloaded the wagon in silence, the road behind them and the house ahead. But none of them reached for the door.

Not yet.

They weren’t afraid of what they’d find inside—just of what they might not recognize