Eryx.
The contested territory had no name worth using.
People who lived here called it the Grey, which said everything you needed to know about it. Not quite anyone's land. Not quite safe.
The kind of place that existed in the spaces between borders where rules got complicated and men got desperate and anything could be bought if you knew who was selling.
I had been riding for two days.
Cade's two men — Brennan and Soren, both trackers, both quiet enough to be useful — rode behind me without complaint.
They asked no questions. They ate when I stopped, slept in shifts when I didn't and kept up without being told to.
Good men.
The trail had stayed east for the first day and then fractured.
Three directions splitting from a central point at a crossroads outside a small settlement
