The morning sun hung like a furnace in the sky - merciless, indifferent to everything that dared breathe beneath it. Red dust rose in waves around the wheels of the carriage as it rattled through the rusted gates of a weathered sign that read: Faraway Downs.

Lord Ashley, clad in a once-crisp linen suit now wrinkled by the relentless heat, gripped the handle of his silver walking cane - not out of need, but to preserve the last thread of dignity he carried with him from England. He had traveled across half the world to reunite with his wife. And now, she was dead.

Dead.

The word still refused to settle in his chest. There had been no body. Only an official letter, sterile words, and vague reports of "suspicious circumstances" and "territorial tensions." Nothing solid. Nothing final. And Ashley, a man raised on restraint and refinement, had made the most impulsive decision of his life: to not let it go.

What he found on the property was closer to ruin than land. Broken fences. Scattered cattle. Farmhands either missing or fearful. The dry wind howled through empty troughs. His wife, Eleanor, had fought for this land - bled for it. And now there was only silence, and dust.

On the veranda of the main house, an old worker approached him, hat pressed tightly to his chest.

"Lord Ashley... I'm sorry. She was good to all of us."

Ashley gave a short, controlled nod, jaw set tight as he asked the old man about the new owner of Faraway Downs.

"You are, sir. But... there's a problem."

There always was. In the scorched north, problems didn't come one at a time. This one was simple: if Ashley didn't personally drive 1,500 head of cattle to Darwin and sell them to the army, the land would fall into the hands of King Carney - a local cattle baron with fingers in every pocket and boots on every neck.

Ashley, more familiar with marble floors and orchestras than dirt roads and dust storms, now faced the brutal journey of pushing half-wild cattle across a land that could kill a man with sun or silence. And to do it, he would need someone who knew the land - someone who could survive it.

"You need Drover, sir," the old man said, almost in a whisper. "Only man who can get it done. If he'll take the job."

Ashley frowned. The name sounded more like a myth than a man.

"Half horse, half hurricane. But he respected your wife. Might just respect you... if you can handle him."

Ashley didn't reply. He simply nodded, eyes drifting toward the horizon, where smoke curled in the distance and the wind smelled of heat and iron.

Hours later, just as the sun began its descent - spilling gold and rust across the land - the distant rhythm of hooves approached. The cattle lowed restlessly, sensing change in the air.

Ashley stepped out into the yard, shielding his eyes from the glare. And then he saw him.

A black horse emerged from the bend in the trail, and on its back rode a man like something conjured from the earth itself. Hat low over his brow, shirt undone against the heat, boots caked with the same dust that clung to everything here. He dismounted in one swift motion, moving with the ease of someone who carried the outback in his bones.

He walked toward Ashley, each step measured, unhurried, heavy with presence. Ashley didn't move. Didn't breathe.

Then the man raised his head - eyes dark, wild, and sharp. The kind of gaze that knew more than it ever said. It was in that moment that they saw each other for the first time.

Two men. Two strangers. One land that promised to swallow or forge them whole.

The man stopped a few paces away, lips barely curving into something that might've been a smirk. "Name's Drover, I drive cattle, I drive horses, I drive people - if they let me."