The Redhook Crew

Human road-thieves of the Vale — deserters and debt-jumpers who fall on carts and stragglers and drag the takings back to a ring of hide tents.

The commonest danger on the Vale roads and the least romantic: people who decided a stranger's cart was easier than honest work. They fight with whatever the last raid turned up — a stolen blade, a hunting bow, a cutpurse's knife — and break the moment their chief goes down. Their nerve is all borrowed from Vera Redhook and her hooked axe; without her they are a rabble.