"I can manage."

"Of course. I didn't mean-" Roland broke off, flustered. Rising in his stirrups he looked back, then ahead to where Chelhar was riding close at Lavinia's side. "I'd better join them. There are things I want to say to her in private. Perhaps you would engage the dealer for me, Earl?"

He was being discreet and offering an opportunity to break up the couple. A mark of his jealousy or he could have genuinely had something to tell the woman. Dumarest watched him ride ahead then urged his own mount to a faster pace. Chelhar pulled to one side and waited for him to catch up.

"The Lord Acrae tells me you have the gambler's spirit, my friend. Shall we have a wager? Ten eldrens that I reach the clump of shrub at the edge of the foothills before you. A bet?"

One he couldn't lose. The man rode as well as Lavinia and Dumarest knew himself to be hopelessly outclassed. Chelhar shrugged as, bluntly, he refused.

"I understand. No man wants to appear less than his best before his lady. But we must do something to beguile the journey. For the fun of it, then. I will give you a start. Ride ahead and, when you reach that heap of yellow boulders to the left, I will follow and do my best to win."

Nodding Dumarest touched his heels to the flanks of his mount. The animal started a little, felt the firmness of the hands on the reins and stretched its legs into a gallop. Dumarest, riding with lengthened stirrups, standing so as to clear the jouncing of the saddle, watched as the ground streamed past. He would lose, that was certain, but he would not lose by much. His manner of riding, learned while on Ebth, made for comfort but not for continued bursts of speed. The dealer would win.

But Chelhar was slow in catching up.

Turning Dumarest saw him as he urged on his mount, lying low over the saddle, body rising and falling in perfect synchronization with the movements of the beast. As the patch of scrub came nearer he could hear the thud of hooves, the creak of leather, the pant of the animal's breath.

"Earl!" Lavinia called, waving as she rose in her saddle. "Wait, Earl! Wait!"

Her voice was thin, barely heard over the thud of hooves, the rush of wind, but Dumarest slowed a little, swinging his mount to the side as Chelhar came up level. The man turned, smiling, teeth flashing against the ebon of his skin, eyes bright beneath the curved line of his brows.

"Fifty eldrens if you catch me, Earl. We are almost at the scrub. Fifty-"

"No."

"Then follow me if you can!"

A stupid challenge, one born of the excitement of the moment and belonging more to a juvenile academy than to the world of grown men. Dumarest slowed even more as the other lunged ahead. He saw Chelhar reach the scrub, vanish into the patch of vegetation and heard again Lavinia's call.

"Stop him, Earl! There are crevasses-broken ground-stop him!"

A man galloping into the unknown, risking his life and that of his mount-for what?

And why?

Dumarest slowed to a walk and edged into the growth. Bushes lay ahead, broken by the passage of the other beast, leaves and broken twigs strewing the ground. Beyond lay a slope scored with shallow gullys, deeper slashes invisible until reached. A blur of movement revealed Chelhar as he urged his mount up a slope. At the crest he turned, waved, vanished from sight as he plunged down the other side.

Dumarest heard the scrabble of hooves, the ring of metal against rock, the shout and then, rising above all, the ghastly sound of the animal's scream.

It was lying at the bottom of a gully, legs kicking, head rearing, eyes suffused with blood. More blood lay thick around the intestines which bulged from its ripped stomach. Jagged stone, now smeared with carmine, showed where it had hit on the way down, tearing open its belly and breaking its back. Leaving it to kick and scream in helpless agony.

Chelhar lay limp and silent on the edge, a patch of bright color against the drab stone. One hand was thrown out to reveal the empty palm the other, equally empty, lay at his side. He appeared unconscious. He was also unarmed.

The crippled animal screamed again and Dumarest urged his own mount away from the edge. Dropping over the rim he slid down to a narrow ledge, moved along it, dropped again and, slipping, sliding, braking himself with hands and boots, skidded down the steep slope to the bottom of the gully.

The animal reared as he approached, catching his scent, realizing, perhaps, what he intended to do. A man might have been grateful but a beast knew only the need to survive, the drive to avoid extinction. It snapped as Dumarest knelt behind the head, catching it, holding it as, with one quick movement, he plunged his knife into the throat and sent the edge to slice the pulsing artery carrying blood to the brain.

An act of mercy which showered him with blood from the fountain gushing from the wound. A time in which he held the dying beast, easing its pain, giving it what comfort he could. Only when the eyes dulled and the head sagged did he rise, wiping the blade on the dappled hide, thrusting it back into his boot.

Turning he saw Chelhar.

The man had descended the wall of the gully with the agility of a cat, picking his path and drifting down as soundless as a falling leaf. Now he stood, watching, shaking his head as Dumarest stepped from the dead beast.

"A pity, Earl. That was a fine animal."

"It's cost will be put on your account."

"Am I responsible for its death?" The shrug was expressive. "It started, threw me, jumped for some reason and fell. Something must have alarmed it. Almost it killed me-and you want me to pay?"

"Not I-the Lady Lavinia. It was her animal."

"But what is hers is yours, is it not?" The dealer's smile was expressive. "I know the situation, my friend, there are those who have no love for it and they are loose with their mouths at times. How did it happen? A jaded woman, an engrossing stranger-well, such things are common. But do they last, my friend? Have you thought of that? And when the novelty has died-what then?"

Dumarest looked at the man, past him, eyes lifting to study the edge of the gully, seeing nothing but the glowing light of the twin suns. Magenta and violet which blended to cast a strange, eerie light in this shadowed place.

"You do not answer." Chelhar stepped forward, his right hand lifting, fingers extending as if he intended dropping his hand on Dumarest's shoulder. On the index finger the polished mound of the stone set in the wide band of a ring glowed like a lambent eye.

Glowed and dissolved as something spat from it in a winking thread of flame.

A dart which hummed and sang with a thin, shrilling vibration which grated at the nerves and created a blur of distortion in the air.

One which thudded home in the sleeve of Dumarests tunic as he flung his left arm upwards to protect his face.

Hitting it drilled; the plastic fuming into smoke, the protective metal mesh beneath fusing to rise in searing vapor, the flesh it covered bursting, pulping, oozing into slime.

Dumarest felt it as his right hand snatched the knife from his boot, sent it slashing upward to rip the dart from its seat, to hurl it to one side where, smoking, it vented the last of its energy on the stone. Another had followed, hitting the tunic where it covered the stomach, falling as again the knife jerked it free.

"Fast!" Chelhar backed, his hand rising to his mouth, eyes wide with disbelief. "I heard you were fast but never dreamed you could move so quickly. I-"

He died as the knife spun through the air to hit, to drive its point into the soft flesh of the throat, to sever arteries and to finally lodge in the spine. A death too quick, too merciful-but Dumarest had had no choice.

He swayed a little as he looked down at the dead man. His arm, and stomach bore pits of disrupted tissue. The fingers of the Jiand which had held the knife were bruised, the nails oozing blood, cells ruptured by the transmitted vibrations of the darts. The ring from which they had spat was empty now but Chelhar wore other rings, some as harmless diversions but at least one other must be carrying a lethal device.