A heavy clay mug shattered against the cedar post of the lower hall, splattering sour mash across Garek's bruised boots.
Brody stood at the head of the trestle table, his face mottled with purple bruises from the previous night, his knuckles raw where he had clawed the cliff gravel. The morning sun crept through the high slit windows of the Iron Wave headquarters, casting cold gray light over ten men who sat with their arms folded tight against their chests. None of them had strapped on their ironwood weapons, and none of them had donned their leather aprons for the morning shift.
"I gave an order," Brody rasped, his voice tearing on dried phlegm as he slammed both fists onto the table. "We take twenty men down to the northern ravine, corner the independent herb gatherers before they rea
