Chapter 46
Grogan’s hut was set on a small mound making it - as befitting the leader - higher than the other dwellings in the village. Five years before, he and Hepplewhite, having incurred the baleful, unrelenting animosity of Kzar for causing numerous deaths selling spiked stims, had blundered into the jungle and discovered a group of indolent, leaderless street rejects and malcontents. Grogan - assertive, quick, clever and vicious - was soon dominant, with Hepplewhite an able second. Jordan - also fleeing from antagonising someone powerful - had stumbled up a couple of years later and become - relatively seamlessly - their enforcer.
At first they found life in the jungle much to their liking. Instead of being lowly fugitives, they were feared and treated like lords. Whole days could b
