For three days Erasmus Rootwalker had checked his traps, and for three days he had found them empty. He knelt in the reeds and pried open a snare made of woven root and bent willow. Nothing. Somewhere in Turbidfen's marsh, a poacher was pulling out the rarest creatures faster than Erasmus could count them. The old forager had set his snares wide, hoping to catch the thief in the act. But the marsh stretched for miles, and Erasmus had no idea which stretch of it the poacher worked. His traps sat useless while pink honeysuckle blooms and spotted frogs vanished from the water. He scraped mud from his beard and looked at his dog. The big hound lay in the reeds, ears up, eyes drifting after a dragonfly that hovered near its nose. "I don't need the bugs today," Erasmus said. "I need a nose." He pulled a scrap of hide from his pouch. He had found it snagged on a broken snare that morning, greasy and reeking of tobacco and blood. Not his. The poacher's. He held it under the hound's snout. The dog forgot the dragonfly at once. It rose, tail stiff, and pushed its nose into the mud. Erasmus followed. The hound cut a straight line through the reeds, west, then south, away from every trap he had set. It stopped drifting after insects. It hunted. Erasmus struggled to keep pace, boots sucking in the black water, until the dog froze behind a screen of cattails and went low. Ahead, a man crouched over a wet sack. He was thick through the shoulders, bearded, a knife hanging at his belt and a strap of pouches crossed over his chest. He whistled through his teeth as he tied off the sack. Inside it, something small kicked and went still. Erasmus knew the face from talk in the village. Errol Stone, who sold exotic furs and meat to buyers who paid in silver and asked no questions. Now he had a name and a place. His hands shook, but not from cold. The hound broke first. It could not help itself. A dragonfly skimmed the water between them, and the dog lunged, splashing loud through the shallows. Errol spun. His eyes found Erasmus in the reeds. For one breath neither man moved. Then Errol snatched up his sack and ran, crashing south through the marsh with the speed of a man who knew every hidden path. Erasmus did not chase. He stood and marked the ground where Errol had crouched. Snares of fine wire lay coiled in the mud, staked along a channel Erasmus had never trapped. This was the poacher's stretch. He knew it now. He crouched and studied the wire snares, learning their shape. Errol knew his face. The hunt would run both ways now.

Erasmus knelt on the poacher's path and studied the fresh wire. Errol had learned his face. Now the poacher had turned hunter. New snares waited along every channel, hidden under leaves and skimmed with black water. One wrong step and the wire would take Erasmus by the ankle. He needed a plan that did not send him walking into Errol's traps. He wiped his hands on his coat and turned for help. He went to the house with open windows and a wide garden. Katrina Wilde ran her wildlife rescue from these rooms. She had pulled snakes and gators from fools who kept them as pets, and she hated poachers more than Erasmus did. She met him at the door with a bright bird on her shoulder and hair dyed in six colors at once. "You look like you slept in the marsh," she said. "Sit. Tell me what he's doing." Erasmus told her about the wire snares and the two-way hunt. Katrina listened, then pulled a wooden frame from a shelf. A small barrel of brown dust sat on top. "Stop chasing his feet," she said. "Mark him instead." She tapped the frame. When something tripped it, the barrel tipped and threw pungent tobacco dust into the air. It clung to skin, hair, and clothes. "He walks into this, he reeks for a mile. Your hound could follow that in his sleep." The plan was simple. Bait the trap with the same fine wire Errol used, set it on his own path, and let the poacher's greed carry him in. Erasmus carried the frame out at dusk and hid it in the reeds along Errol's channel. He set it low, where a man would reach to check a snare. Then he backed away along his own tracks, careful of every hidden wire, and waited with the hound in the cattails. Near dawn, boots splashed in the shallows. Errol came whistling through his teeth, knife at his belt, pouches crossed on his chest. He crouched to check his snares. His hand brushed the frame. The barrel tipped. A cloud of brown dust burst over his head and shoulders. Errol swore and swatted at his face, coughing, then hurried off south, still reeking. Erasmus let him go. He held the hide scrap under the hound's nose, then pointed at the drifting tobacco smell. The dog rose, tail stiff, and pushed its nose into the wind. It did not chase dragonflies now. It hunted the poacher's stink, straight and sure. They followed the trail south through channels Erasmus had never walked. The scent held strong on the wet air. But it did not lead to a sack or a snare line. It ran toward a low shape hidden in the reeds, a boat piled with cages. Errol was not stripping the marsh one creature at a time. He was hauling his whole catch out today, all at once.