Chapter One

He was small, brown, dressed in a jupon of scarlet edged with silver, a pointed cap on a rich tangle of curls and striped hose on slender legs, a boy of about ten now caught in a mesh of brambles with one foot snared in the clamped jaws of a vegetable trap. On each wrist captive bells made a harsh jangling as he waved his arms.

Dumarest had heard the sound as he crested the ridge and tracked it to its source lower down the slope. Now, halting, he eased the weight of the pack on his shoulders.

"Are you hurt?" Dumarest frowned as the boy shook his head. "Can't you speak?"

Again the shake of the head, this time accompanied by the thrust of a finger toward the opened mouth. A mute, trapped in a prison of thorns, the bells his only means of calling for help. Yet would such a boy be out alone?

Dumarest turned, eyes narrowed as he scanned the area. On all sides the ground fell from the encircling hills to cup the solitary town of Shard in a spined embrace. Matted grass broken with tall fronds bright with lacelike blooms intermingled with rearing brambles. Sprawling growths reared twice the height of a man, bearing succulent berries and traps designed to snare insects and small rodents. The branches and stems, some as thick as a man's body, were covered with curved and vicious barbs.

"Don't move!" Dumarest called the warning as, again, the air shook to the desperate jangle of bells. "Just stay calm. I'll get you out."

He studied the ground as the lad obeyed, noting marks in the matted grass, the lie of stems. To one side a thorned branch had been broken and sap oozed from the fracture. As he knelt to check for tracks he heard a soft rustle and spun, snatching at the knife he carried in his boot, sunlight splintering from the nine inches of edged and pointed steel.

A rustle, followed by others as a gust of wind stirred the fronds and filled the somnolent air with the heady scent of their perfume.

Rising, Dumarest slipped the pack from his shoulders and eased his way toward the trapped boy. Small and lithe, the lad would have had little trouble slipping through the brambles, but three times Dumarest had to slash clear a path. As he reached the recumbent figure certain things became clear.

The jupon was of cheap material, patched, frayed, the silver edging nothing but scraps of discarded foil. The bells were of brass suspended from wires on either wrist. The hose were covered with darns and the pointed hat had been roughly made-unmistakable signs of poverty despite their bright show, matched by the hollow cheeks and the too-bright eyes, the frail bones of the boy himself. A basket to one side explained his presence, the container half-full of purple berries; a harvest painfully won.

"Steady!" The thin ankle trapped in the jaws was mottled with bruises, blood dappling the hose, evidence of frantic efforts to pull it free. The knife flashed as Dumarest cut at the tangle of thorns. "Don't move!"

Though mute, the lad could hear and understand and he remained still as Dumarest finished the task and sheathed his knife. Bells jangled as he lifted the boy and he saw the extended hand, the determination stamped on the small face.

"You want the fruit, is that it?" He recovered the basket as the lad nodded. "Here. Can you walk?" He watched as the boy took a cautious, limping step. "Too slow. I'll carry you."

A heave and the lad was riding on his shoulder, the basket held firmly in the small hands. Cautiously Dumarest retraced his path, halting as, again, he heard a soft rustle.

This time there was no wind.

A patch of grass lay to one side and Dumarest moved toward it, throwing the boy into its softness as again something rustled close. He turned, ducking. A club aimed at his head missed to whine through the air, the man holding it thrown off-balance by the unexpected lack of resistance. He was a grimy, rat-faced man wearing garments stained green and brown, camouflage protecting him from the human predators who lurked in the brush. He doubled, retching, as Dumarest kicked him in the stomach, staggering back to become hooked in thorned spines.

"Jarl?" The voice came from ahead, impatient, querulous. "You get him? You get him, Jarl?"

Two of them and there could be more. Dumarest lifted the knife from his boot and slipped to one side among the brambles feeling the rasp of thorns over his clothing, the drag and burn as a barb tore at his scalp.

"Jarl? Answer me, damn you!"

A rustle and Dumarest saw a mottled bulk, the loom of gross body, the gleam of sunlight reflected from furtive eyes. A man lunged forward, gripping a gnarled branch. His fingers parted beneath the slash of razor-edged steel to fall in spurting showers of blood.

"You bastard!" Pain and rage convulsed the ravaged face. "I'll have your eyes for that! Leave you to wander blind in the brush! Jarl! Kelly! Get him, damn you!"

He backed, his uninjured hand diving into a pocket, lifting again weighted with the bulk of a gun. A wide-barreled shot-projector which could fill the air with a lethal hail. As it appeared Dumarest threw himself forward, blade extended, the point ripping into the body below the breastbone in an upwards thrust which reached the heart. Killing as surely as the burn of a laser through the brain.

As the man fell he heard a frantic cursing, the clumsy passage of a body close at hand, the echoes of another from where he had left his pack. When he reached the spot he found it gone.

The jangle of bells reminded him of the boy.

He sat where he'd been thrown, his eyes anxious, the injured leg held stiffly before him. The ankle was too swollen for the lad to do more than crawl. Jarl had vanished, scraps of skin and clothing left hanging on broken thorns, a trail of blood marking his passage, a trail Dumarest could easily follow but not while carrying the boy. And, with darkness, other predators would come eager for helpless prey.

"Up!" Dumarest lifted the small body to his shoulder. "I'd better get you home."

The town matched the planet-small, bleak, devoid of all but functional utility. The field was an expanse of rutted dirt, deserted now, the warehouses sagging and empty. Once there had been a bustling tide of commerce but the veins of valuable ores had been exhausted, the operation closed down, sheds and workers abandoned. Among them had been the local factor.

"Earl!" He rose as Dumarest entered his store. "Man, it's good to see you!"

Mel Glover was a one-time face-worker who had been hurt in an accident and now dragged a useless foot. A big, broad man with a rugged build and a face marred with a perpetual scowl, he ran the store and acted as agent and hated every moment of it. He found surcease in talk and drugs and exotic dreams. Now he frowned as Dumarest set down the boy.

"Anton! What the devil have you been up to?" He looked at Dumarest. "He find you or what?" The frown deepened as he listened to an answer. "Caught in the brambles-anything else?"

An attempt on his life, theft, a man lying dead-but Dumarest chose not to elaborate. He said, "That's it. I heard him and found him and brought him in. You know where he lives?"

"In the Drell."

"With his people?"

"His mother. His father got himself killed last year." Glover reached into a jar and threw the boy a ball of wrapped candy. "Here, lad. Can you walk? Try hopping. Good. Off you go now." As the boy hopped away, sucking his sweet, the basket hung over one arm, he added, "I bet you didn't know he could do that."

"No."

"But you know he's a mute?"

Dumarest nodded and looked around the store. It was as he remembered, cluttered with a variety of produce, most of local manufacture. Baskets of woven reed filled with delicate blooms rested beside pots of sunbaked clay crammed with spices, seeds, sections of narcotic weed. A bale held furs, another the tanned hides of ferocious lizards, the scales seeming to be made of nacre traced with silver, jet and gold. Products of minor value but still worth collecting by ships content with small profits. Beneath a window facing the foothills stood a bench, a book lying on its surface together with a pair of powerful binoculars.