CHAPTER ONE

Brind couldn't see the enemy, but he knew it was there. Any thicket, any rock, any overgrown hollow in the ground might conceal it. Lurking, waiting to pounce, to kill without teeth or sword. The sun was shining, hazy and lurid, and for almost the first day in a wretched twelve-month of rain and mud and blackened crops, it warmed the dog boy's back. But he couldn't relax. He hadn't felt like this for a long time. Hunted.