Iron Covenant on the Salt Road

About this book:

The Salt Road doesn't forgive. It doesn't forget. And it certainly doesn't pay bonuses for honor.

Seven years ago, Ser Royce Vance was the Eagle of the White Ford—a knight who held a gate against twenty men and refused to hang prisoners when his lord ordered it. The reward for his integrity: a broken spur, stolen lands, and a slow rot in the sulfur-stinking sinkhole of Qasr al-Milh. Now he drinks sour ale, counts coppers, and watches the rust eat his blade. Then Master Elian Finch walks into the tavern with a wagon train of white gold—two thousand bags of crystalline salt bound for Al-Kharid, seven hundred miles of dead flats, dry wells, and three tribes who consider every passing caravan a personal insult from God. Finch offers fifty imperial sovereigns for a sword arm. Royce takes the coin. He knows the road will try to kill them both before the first week ends.

What follows is a masterclass in gritty, ground-level fantasy: oxen shoed with rawhide against salt crust, wagon hubs greased with pig fat to survive desert heat, mercenaries who'll sell your throat for three sheep, and a merchant desperate enough to gamble his family's fortune on a disgraced knight's word. Royce and Finch circle each other like wounded wolves—one fighting for redemption he doesn't believe he deserves, the other for a legacy crumbling under debt. Every mile strips away pretense. Every decision carries the weight of broken covenants. On the Salt Road, the only thing harder than the journey is keeping your honor intact when the world pays better for betrayal.