I had learned long ago that fear, in the borderlands, was a currency spent quickly and rarely paid back. The woman standing in front of me didn't spend it the way I expected; she squared her shoulders instead, angling herself protectively over whoever lay bleeding in the dirt behind her, her dagger raised with more resolve than skill.
"Come no closer," she said, voice trembling but not breaking.
I almost laughed. A single blade against four men who'd carved their names into this forest through years of desperate survival there was courage in it, or stupidity, and I'd learned those two things often wore the same face.
"Lower the knife," I said instead, stepping into the moonlight enough that she could see the crude leather armor, the scars, the unmistakable bearing of a man who commanded
