Infiltrating a band of suspected smugglers is no easy task. It's even more difficult when you're a half-orc among humans.Life as a slave in J'Bel's gladiatorial arena taught Grendel the harsh rules of battle. Winning his freedom opened his eyes to the possibility of something more from life than a painful, blood-soaked death. In the land of Trakya, Markus Marchenko, second in command of the Kral's Ochi i Ushi, approaches the half-orc with a job proposition: spy for the Kral and infiltrate a band of smugglers who may have ties to the renegade Baron Krakov. Aleksandra Madasgorski-Krakova has a score to settle. The Kral's men killed her husband and destroyed her home, forcing her to go into hiding and putting her on dangerous ground with her family. With her husband's allies, she will finish the work that would have put her husband on Trakya's throne. As Grendel settles uneasily into his position as bodyguard to the man holding the purse strings on Dragahn's venture, sickness erupts in Trakya's capital city. No one can pinpoint the plague's source, only that it is spreading through the wealthiest parts of Pazard'zhik. Even as he, himself, falls ill, Markus grows more certain that the caravan and its cargo is somehow to blame. He can only hope that Grendel and his team can find the answer in time. This Second Edition of Son of Cayn is newly re-edited and reformatted for greater readability and verbal clarity.