Killer
By David Drake and Karl Edward Wagner
Rain was again trickling from the grayness overhead, and the damp reek of the animals hung on the misty droplets. A hyena wailed miserably, longing for the dry plains it would never see again. Lycon listened without pity. Let it bark its lungs out here in Brundisium, or die later in the amphitheater at Rome. He remembered the Ethiopian girl who had lived three days after a hyena had dragged her down. It would have been far better had the beast not been driven off before it had finished disembowelling her.
“Wish the rain would stop,” complained Vonones. The Armenian dealer’s plump face was gloomy. “A lot of these are going to die otherwise, and I’ll be caught in the middle. In Rome they only pay me for live delivery, but I have to pay you regardless.”
Which is why I’m a hunter and you’re a dealer, mused Lycon without overmuch sympathy. “Well, it won’t ruin you,” he reassured the dealer. “Not at the prices you pay. You can replace the entire lot for a fifth of what they’ll bring in Rome.”
. . .
