I’ll admit, I may have been a bit too eager to be on my way. I probably should have waited another night, gotten a good night of sleep and a hearty breakfast, and then headed out. I would have been a heck of a lot better off.

  But what can I say? I was a really impatient young man. I had a whole world to see and people to meet, and my adventure had been on hold for years. It could not wait any longer.

  Well, it didn’t go according to plan.

  First, I should have bought a horse. But they’re expensive, and I didn’t have any idea how to care for one. I could ride well enough as I’d been on one of the beasts a few times, but ask me to actually get the saddle on and fastened, and I would have been lost. And again, horses are expensive. I could have taken a carriage or even the train, but what fun was that? Part of the adventure was actually going out and seeing the world. I wanted to experience it like my brother had experienced it, and I knew Gareth hadn’t taken a train.

  So, I hoofed it. The first night was fine. I made a fire with some loose dry tinder I found under a small copse of trees near a bend in the road. There was a rocky clearing, and the remains of someone else’s fire from nights long past. It wasn’t hard to find wood and make a new one. I had some dried goods for dinner, and a small skein of wine, a vintage that belonged to Uncle Deebo. I’d promised myself I’d never drink it until I was out on the road. Uncle would have said I was too young, but I’d say I was past sixteen, and by the law of the Badlands, I was a man. And what man can’t have a drink every once in a while? Not too much, of course, lest I become a drunkard like Elryck and Thoman. I wasn’t about to do that.

  So, I had a good meal, a nice drink, and then I smothered my fire and hunkered down for the night.

  When I woke in the morning, my mind was still in a daze, groggy and drained, and I figured maybe the wine wasn’t as good as I’d been hoping. It took me far too long to realize what the real problem was. I bolted awake, my body groaning, probably because somehow my pack had been taken out from under me without my waking. That was what I was using as a pillow, and now I was all stiff, and my neck hurt something fierce.

  I looked around to realize that all of my things were gone. Yep, all of them. My pack, my boots, my brand new bludgel, and even my hat. And that was a grievous offense, because it was the only thing I had in all the world that my father had given me. It was my only connection to him, and I’d be damned if I let someone steal it from me.

  At least they left me with my duster, belt, and jeans, which was a shock since jeans were still relatively new and not as easy to come by in these parts. The denim material was revolutionary, and already, factories were popping up all over to make the material. I’d heard it was invented by a man whose dog kept destroying his uniform pants, and he invented a material they couldn’t rip easily. And the dog’s name was Jean. Or maybe that was the man’s name. I couldn’t recall, but whichever it was, they made a mean pant.

  I screamed into the morning sun and cursed for good measure. I let my hands fall down my cheeks, nails dragging at my skin, though not enough to break the surface. My cheeks and jaw were already prickly with stubble, a fresh little fuzz. I swatted away some of my red-brown hair from my face. Every little annoyance threatened to prickle me more, and I responded in kind, cursing up more of a storm. I was sure I’d be heard for miles around, but I didn’t give a damn.

  Of course! Of course this would happen to me. Son of a . . .

  But no, calm down, Griff. You’re no fool. You might still be able to get your stuff back.

  The thought was delusional, and I knew it. Whoever had my stuff was likely long gone and way better equipped than I was, but I couldn’t turn around and head home. Not with nothing but the shirt on my back, and I reckon I was lucky to have that much. Perhaps they figured that I would have woken from that particular violation, and they didn’t want to have to kill me. For that, I was thankful. Being robbed, I could endure, but being skewered in my sleep? Now, that would have been a right fine rudeness.

  I took a deep breath, calmed my mind and my heart and my rage, and began to investigate.

  Whoever it was that nicked my stuff from under my nose, they weren’t exactly subtle. A mess of footprints scattered about the dust and dirt of my little camp. They were all stamped about, so it was hard to get a true estimate of how many people I was dealing with until they began to trail away from the campsite and back to the road. I scrambled after them and counted five distinct sets of boots. All boots and all large, so all men if I had to wager a guess. And a single set of hooves, too, so they had a horse. No . . . a pack bison. The prints were very deep and wider than a horse’s, and the strides weren’t as long.

  Okay, I had a trail. The boots might disappear, but a pack bison would be easy to track. They probably figured a young man like me with no weapons or resources would run back to Parroia with my tail between my legs or die out here before doing so. Well, nope. Not Griff Gunnar. They wouldn’t get rid of me so easily.

  I didn’t waste any time. Even though my stomach rumbled, demanding food. I didn’t have any, and I had no means to hunt for some. My lips were dry, my throat parched, and having water out in the roughs was a lot more important than food. I was lucky I was still near a town; else I would have been in danger of dying from dehydration. Awful kind of them.

  I stoked my rage, let it simmer beneath the surface, sustaining me in lieu of food. I was thankful that it was only morning, and the sun wasn’t at its peak yet. Though, it wasn’t the sun I was worried about. It was the critters that lived in the roughs. The areas around towns, even smaller ones, usually had a good bit of safety, because hunters and deputies patrolled and made sure monsters didn’t come close. And even the roads themselves had some degree of safety because people traveled them. But if you went off the beaten path, you’d soon find yourself in danger.

  I wasn’t quite there yet. My campsite wasn’t far from the road, which would have been unwise, but clearly, it had also not been far enough.

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  The bison tracks took me back to the road. Already, my feet were pained as rocks and sticks and every little thing jabbed through my socks. It was frustrating, to say the least.

  Once on the road, the trail wasn’t so easy to find. The bandits’ footsteps were lost amid a sea of other footsteps stamped by dozens or hundreds of other travelers. Carriage wheels made heavy grooves in the hard packed dirt road, but thankfully, the bison didn’t step in these. I was able to follow it for a while, though sometimes I had to pause and double back when I realized I was following a horse or camel track.

  I passed a few travelers on the road, mostly traveling salesmen and a few bounty hunter-looking types, plus one wagon with a family. I asked each of them if they’d seen a bunch of no-good scoundrels with a pack bison, but no such luck. So, I continued following the meager trail and ignoring the stares of confusion at my bootless socks and haggard appearance.

  To be honest, I was a good kid. I tried my best to do what was right, to help people where I could, but I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t have a rage in me. An anger at my brother for leaving without a word, an anger at the town for not being better to me sometimes, an anger at this world for how it treated certain people. And an anger at the selfish people who took advantage of others.

  I was a good kid, but when I found these bandits, I was gonna show them I was done being taken advantage of.

  Did I actually stand a chance against them? I didn’t know how many there were, and I had no weapon, so probably not. I also knew I couldn’t just turn around and go back to town in defeat. Hell, no. I had to do something. If I was outnumbered and outclassed, I’d think of something. Maybe it was na?ve bravado, but I didn’t care. My anger was raging too great to think rationally.

  Eventually, the tracks went off the main road, following a worn path south. I could hardly see the path, but the hoof prints were clear, and within them, the men’s boot prints too. Sometimes they disappeared amongst the shrubbery and short dry grasses, but my eyes were on the hunt, and I found them soon enough.

  The path led me from the wide-open roughs to a small forest that sloped up a hill. To the south, I saw a small river cutting through the landscape and in and around the forest. I guessed it was the Hather’s River or one of her tributaries, which went through Mushyon Ridge but wound away from Parroia.

  I figured the bandits had a camp along the river. Or they took a boat down the river, in which case I was screwed.

  That thought got my feet moving faster.

  I didn’t want to run up on them because I was one man against five or more, and I didn’t have any weapons on me. I had no idea what exactly I was going to do when I found the bandits, but I wasn’t going to give up.

  Unfortunately, stealth had to take a back seat to haste. I was very sneaky, but I also was running out of time. Who knew if they were gone or about to leave?

  The forest wasn’t dense, so I could see pretty far through the trees. The leaves were pale gray, brown, and some reds, and the bark yellow and papery. I didn’t know the name of the trees, but I knew the bark was used for some potions. I stayed low, moving quickly along the path, which was barely visible, but I tracked the crushed grass and the shrubs and leaves that had crumbled under the feet of the men and the bison.

  Before long, I saw someone moving ahead of me, and it was definitely a person. If it had been a monster, even one of the humanoid ones, I’d have been given a handy little description of the beasty. Another nice feature of the card system.

  But no, this person was moving fast, but not the same fast as a quick walk or a run. No, they were sneaking around. I wanted to put on some stealthy speed of my own, but I paused as a new sound pierced the quiet morning air.

  Laughter. A whole raucous round of it.

  It rang out from ahead. The trees were still sparse enough that I could see fairly far ahead, and the forest was sloping down, no doubt heading for a river at the bottom of the slope. The laughter came from below. My skin prickled. It sounded like a lot of men, though it was hard to tell if it was more than the five I suspected to have robbed me.

  I tried to focus on the other sneaking person who I assumed probably wasn’t with the bandits. Why else would they be sneaking? But when I looked back to where they’d been, they were gone.

  My brows pinched tight. “Where the heck—”

  And the where was answered immediately as a figure launched themselves on me and took me to the ground without much effort. Granted, I was not expecting it. I was usually very hard to get a jump on, so whoever this was had some skill for sure. A card or natural instincts? Hard to tell.

  They pressed their knee to the small of my back and put their full weight into me as they wrenched my right arm painfully behind me.

  I howled with pain, the howl in question not particularly loud because my mind was still cognizant of the danger lurking ahead. If the bandits heard us, then the element of surprise was lost, and that was my only advantage. Still, the pain was bad as they pressed their hand against my elbow, a clear threat not to do anything funny.

  “Knock it off, will ya?” I hissed. “Unless you’re with the bandits, I don’t have a beef with you.”

  “You were following me, and I don’t take kindly to that.”

  I continued to struggle, but there was something familiar about the voice. It was lighter than I was expecting, and I realized it was feminine. This was a woman pinning me down. Now, some might think I’d be embarrassed to get my ass handed to me by a woman, but on the contrary, I knew several women that were more than my match. Out in the Badlands, you had to be tough, and that transcended gender. So did card powers.

  No doubt I was probably physically stronger if you were measuring raw strength, but this woman knew how to position herself just right. All of her weight was forced into my spine, making it hard to move or even breathe without causing myself more discomfort, and she had my arm at her mercy. I could tell that she could snap it with ease if she was so inclined.

  “Okay, okay, I apologize, miss. Would you be so kind as to get off me? I think we’re on the same side here.”

  She didn’t respond for a good long moment, nor did she refute my use of “miss,” so I assumed I was right on the money. When I finally felt the pressure on my arm release, I sucked in a sigh of relief. But that was short-lived. The statement of gratitude died in my throat as she flipped me onto my back and pinned me with her knees and full body weight. A woman she might have been, but I could feel her strength.

  And I could feel the blade at my neck, a long shaft of steel that curved and lightly reflected the meager rays of sun peeking through the trees. A scythe, a combat model designed for fighting the monsters of the Fissures. Though they were perfectly adapted to taking human life as well.

  I froze, though with her pinning me, it wasn’t like I could move much anyway. Still, as I swallowed, I felt the cold blade dig into the supple flesh of my throat.

  “Easy there, friend,” I told her, each syllable making her weapon cut deeper. “I ain’t a bandit.”

  She studied me. “Well, I suppose that’s true. You look like crap, partner. What the hell happened to you?”

  I explained myself, how it was my first day on the road, and after my first night, I was robbed blind. She blinked at me, though I couldn’t see her too well. Then, she threw her head back and laughed. A beautiful sound, and somehow, she timed it with that of the men ahead so they wouldn’t hear her.

  But I did, and two things became apparent. One, I knew that laugh. It was deeper than I last remembered, but I would remember its sound anywhere. And that face. That smile, those eyes. As her hat pitched up and I got a proper look at my attacker’s face, the full wave of familiarity smacked me hard across the face.

  This was no stranger. I recognized her immediately even if I hadn’t seen her for several years. Not since she left Parroia.

  Hers was the face of one of my childhood best friends. Nell Newton. Just then, I knew I’d be okay.

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