17
Grump followed the stagecoach out of the bandit camp and Teer studied the entire hollow again with a different eye.
“Do you think the coach’s cargo is here?” he asked Kard quietly. “You were figuring there was, what, a hundred stone worth of gold and raw redcrystal in the coach?”
“Around that, yeah,” the other man confirmed. “The exchanges make less money than you think—Iko probably pays out between thirty and fifty stone every tenday to the miners and panners around Odar, so this cargo probably cost them seventy or eighty stone.”
Kard shook his head.
“I know Iko expects to lose some of their cargos, but if they lose too many, the exchange can’t keep operating. Someone else will probably take over in Odar, but I know Doka likes Iko, so I’d rather get it back if we can.”
There wasn’t anything in the camp that stood out as a hiding spot for treasure. The only thing that drew Teer’s eye was one tent that was slightly larger than the others and made of nicer fabric.
“Figure that’s Boulder’s tent,” he told Kard, pointing. “Not sure where else to look for their loot.”
“I’ll check,” Kard replied. “Need you to do something else.”
The El-Spehari put his hand on Teer’s shoulder and pointed to the body by the fire.
“We need to deliver the body to get paid,” Kard told him. “I need you to find a sack and bag him up. We don’t want to be looking at his ugly mug all the way.”
Teer swallowed grimly but nodded.
“Trying not to think about it too much,” he admitted.
“Better to face it and deal,” Kard said. “You likely saved my life today, Teer. I think I get how Boulder lived as long as he did—he was fast. I’ve met faster, but I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Wasn’t faster than a bullet,” Teer whispered, trying for bravado. He figured he mostly just sounded tired, but the effort was there.
“Or you,” the older man agreed. “Bag him up, Teer. I’ll check his tent and see what I can find. Keep one eye on them.” He nodded towards the tied-up gang. Most of them had managed to get onto their sides or backs and were at least pretending to sleep. “Boulder’s head is worth more than them all combined, but I’d rather bring them all in. No innocents in this lot.”
“No, sir,” Teer said. “I’ll watch them.”
“Good. Let’s hope we find what we’re after. They’ve got to have a big sack in the homesteading wagon; that should serve.”
Kard’s guess proved correct. Teer figured the large sacks in the roll were intended for potatoes or similar, but they were definitely big enough to fit a man in. He peeled three of them off the roll—one because he’d screw up the first one inevitably and one to have laid out as an unspoken threat to the prisoners.
He was probably putting too much thought into that, but he was very aware that there were seven tied-up bandits and just the two of them. Carlon was almost three days’ ride away. From what he’d heard, it was one of the largest wardtowns out this far east.
Teer was looking forward to it. It had been over ten turnings since he’d seen any town larger than Alvid. If he’d taken Ohlman’s offer, he’d have seen several larger wardtowns—Carlon would have been one of them, but the biggest would have been Shiaray, the end of the dragon lines.
Instead he was here, in the middle of nowhere, laying massive sacks down next to a dead man. Boulder had been even bigger than he’d thought, with several inches on Teer’s own height and much heavier set.
The head was intact, but the torso was a mess. Teer’s round had entered through the front of Boulder’s shoulder and emerged through the back of the man’s ribs. He figured it had severed the spine along the way, as clean a kill as could be managed.
Teer didn’t disagree that Boulder had deserved to die—seeing the three women after they’d been cut free had solidified that decision in his head—but he felt better that the man had probably died without much pain.
Getting Boulder’s corpse into the bag was both easier than he’d feared and far worse than he’d expected. The literal dead weight was easy enough to move, and the big sack slid over the body smoothly enough. The sensation of dead flesh under his hands and the candlemark-old blood sticking to his hands was worse.
Much worse. He’d butchered deer and cattle before, but it was different knowing that this had been a man…a man he had killed.
He managed to get the corpse into the sack. Then he calmly rose, walked away from the prisoners into the bushes where he hoped they couldn’t see him, and threw up.
Kard was waiting when he returned, the older bounty hunter sewing up the top of the sack with a heavy needle he’d presumably found somewhere.
“Parts of it get easier,” he said calmly as Teer rejoined him. “Parts get worse. I’m a bit sorry you ended up in this life without any training.”
“There were no other choices,” Teer said. “Did you find the coach’s cargo?”
“Found a bunch of redcrystal and gold nuggets,” Kard confirmed. “Boulder had a neat little Spehari toy: saddlebag that was bigger on the inside.”
He glanced over at the prisoners.
“Locked so they couldn’t get in, of course,” he continued, his voice much quieter. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. Iko’s partners in Carlon should pay us for bringing it back.”
Teer nodded, eyeing the fire and the bandits alike.
“Guessing it’s not worth us keeping it?” he asked. A hundred stone was a lot of money, after all. More than Hardin cleared in profit each turning on the ranch.
“Boulder likely had the connections to sell it without trouble,” Kard said. “I don’t. Better to take a reward and build goodwill than get ourselves known as the type of bounty hunters who don’t return stolen goods.”
“Known by who?” Teer asked.
“Wardtowns talk to each other,” the El-Spehari told him. “Any wardstone can send a message to another wardstone, and they do. All the time. You didn’t know that?”
“I… No,” Teer admitted, feeling dumb. “Guess it wasn’t relevant.”
“Can’t send long letters by wardstone relay, just a few words, but it helps keep everything together.” Kard shook his head. “Sunset underestimated how much even that little let the Unity move around where he wasn’t looking.”
Teer looked over at the older man questioningly.
“You knew him?” he asked. “The Prince in Sunset?”
He knew Kard had ridden in the Sunset Brigades and fought in the Prince in Sunset’s revolt against the Unity, but this sounded like closer experience than that.
Kard sighed.
“Yeah, I knew the Governor—the Prince, whatever you want to call him,” he conceded. “Remember how I told you there were three ways to get a man to do horrific things?”
“Yeah,” Teer confirmed.
“The Prince in Sunset convinced himself his cause was just,” Kard said flatly. “And believed it so hard, it infected everyone around him. Still not sure he was wrong. All I really know is that he lost.”
The El-Spehari shook his head.
“Go rest, Teer,” he ordered. “I’ll take first watch, wake you in four candlemarks.”
With one final glance at both his boss and their prisoners, Teer obeyed.
18
The horses were cooperative enough. Linking them together with lengths of rope to form a continuous chain went without any real issues, the animals perfectly willing to follow each other in a long line.
The prisoners were not.
“You ain’t getting me on that horse, kid,” the first bandit snarled at Teer. “What are you gonna do, shoot me? Cut me free and yer gonna have all kinds of fun.”
Teer had undone enough of the ropes that the man was able to stand, but he needed to cut the prisoner’s ankles free so the bandit could mount the horse. Six other prisoners were watching, and Teer knew perfectly well that showing weakness was going to make all of this take a lot longer than they cou
ld afford.
“One chance,” he told the man, holding up a finger. “Ride the horse or be cargo; pick one.”
“You don’t have the ba—”
Teer punched the man in the head. He didn’t pull the blow nearly as much as he should have, and the bandit fell backward against the horse—his ankles still tied together.
The man might have been conscious. He might not have been. Teer didn’t much care. He grabbed the man’s mostly limp body and heaved him up onto the saddle, belly down, and then quickly tied his hands and ankles to each other.
A few stiff yanks tightened the loop, pinning the semiconscious prisoner to the saddle and holding him in place.
“So, one cargo,” he said aloud, looking at the rest of the bounties. “Y’all get the same choice, friends. Ride or cargo. Who else wants to be a saddlebag today?”
The next man up was the one they’d captured from the watch point. He rose with Teer’s help and shuffled toward the indicated horse. Teer watched him carefully as he cut the man’s ankles free, but he mounted without complaint and allowed Teer to tie his feet to the stirrups.
“Good call,” Kard said loudly. Teer looked up to see the El-Spehari joining them. “My partner is more generous than I am,” he continued. “I would have shot that fucker.”
Kard indicated the man slung over the saddle of the lead horse.
“So, you play by his rules and everyone lives, or you try to play by yours—and die by mine. We clear?”
Teer was familiar with the idea of playing good guy / bad guy in negotiations. Apparently, punching a man unconscious and tying him to a horse made him the good guy when handling prisoners.
In the end, no one got shot and none of the other prisoners ended up tied over their horses’ saddles. Teer wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the prisoners’ calls of nature over the course of the day or getting them off the horses at the end, but everyone got moving on schedule.
Several of the horses were pressed into duty as pack animals, carrying as much of the homesteaders’ gear and the bandits’ supplies as possible. The bandits had left the remaining wagon unusable, which Teer found mildly offensive, but what could he do?
He couldn’t rebuild a wagon from raw trees even if he had the tools and the time. He had neither. He just found the wanton, pointless destruction of using the wagon for firewood unquestionably wrong.
“You ride ahead,” Kard ordered. “Lead the horse line. I’ll follow behind, in case someone decides to get clever. The path to the road should be easy enough to follow; they weren’t the first people to camp here.”
“And then north on the road?” Teer asked.
“Exactly. Should find Doka pretty quickly—or she’ll find us. She promised she’d meet us, so she will.”
Teer nodded and put his heels to Star, riding up to the front of the line and grabbing the reins of the lead horse. In some ways, it was convenient that the lead horse’s occupant was tied down. It avoided him getting clever ideas.
He clucked at the horses, and they started up with him and Star. He didn’t know how far they had to go to get to the road, but as Kard had told him, the path was clear enough. There were far more ruts there than just those from the coach and wagon the bandits had brought into the hollow, and they all led in much the same direction.
If any of the bandits had clever comments to make, they kept them under their breath as the line of horses and riders made their way along the rough trail back to the road. It was a short trip before they came out onto a properly cleared stretch.
The roads there weren’t as solid as he remembered them being out west, but someone had at least made an occasional effort to follow the main ones and clear the trees. If there’d been any question in Teer’s mind that they were in the right place, Doka and the stagecoach were waiting for them.
Doka herself was sitting cross-legged on the driver’s seat, watching for them, and waved at his approach.
“Tie line to coach,” she instructed. “You and Kard ride flank and rear while coach lead.”
“Makes sense to me,” Teer agreed. He dismounted carefully and led the lead horse over to the stagecoach. He gave the women inside a small wave and smile, doing his best to keep his body language nonthreatening as he tied half a dozen murderers to the wrecked box at the back of the vehicle.
“Kard!” Doka shouted as the bounty hunter emerged from the forest. “You got plan for feeding this horde?”
“I don’t want to dig into the homesteaders’ goods too much, but it’s what we’ve got,” Kard replied as he caught up, keeping one eye on the trail of mounted prisoners. “What are you thinking?”
“Doka go hunt,” she suggested.
Kard shook his head.
“Who drives the coach if you hunt?” he asked delicately, gesturing at their collection of prisoners and escortees. “Having the bounties tied to the back of the coach is bad enough. I don’t think those women want to put their lives and safety in the hands of any man right now.”
“Teer can’t watch bounty line on his own,” Doka said. “So…Teer hunt? He bull, not sneaky.”
“I can hunt,” Teer said, ignoring Doka’s commentary. He glanced along their caravan. Seven prisoners, three rescuees and the three of them. Thirteen. “A good-sized deer should provide enough meat for two nights for us all.”
“You get deer?” Doka asked, but she nodded. To Teer’s surprise, she held out a hand to him with three rounds for the hunter between her fingers. “Impress Doka,” she told him. “Bring back a bullet.”
Teer heard Kard laugh as he shook his head at the guide.
“You expect me to take three bullets to get one deer?” he asked.
“No,” Doka said with a laugh. “Doka expect you to run out of Doka’s bullets and use yours.”
He took the bullets and grinned at her.
“And what happens if I bring your bullets back?” he asked.
“Then Doka impressed,” she chirped. “And Doka butcher deer for you. Fair?”
“Sounds fair,” he agreed, accepting her bet with a grin.
Teer might not know this particular environment as well as he’d like, but he certainly knew how to hunt deer!
Teer caught back up to them in the early evening as Kard was finishing up with the task of dismounting the prisoners. Finding any deer in the forest had proven harder than he’d anticipated, but the actual hunt had gone exactly as planned.
Doka looked up as he rode into the half-assembled camp and studied him and the deer slung over Star’s back. She raised a finger and a questioning eyebrow.
He rode up to her, swung down from his horse and handed her two bullets.
“Your change, Miss Doka,” he told her.
She looked down at the bullets in her palm, past him at the deer, and then grinned.
“Doka impressed,” she agreed. “Help Doka get deer down to butcher?”
Teer nodded, starting to untie the ropes while he looked around for a good spot. Most of the places Doka picked were recurring campgrounds, so he wasn’t entirely surprised to see that there was a flat stone of roughly the right size.
Doka washed the stone with some liquid that sizzled slightly when it hit the dry blood on the rock, and then waved for Teer to put the deer down while she removed a set of large knives from Grump’s saddlebags.
“Get fire started and help Kard,” she told him. “Doka said Doka’d butcher, so this Doka’s job.”
He bowed slightly to her and moved over to the fire. He figured Doka’s butcher work would be at least as good as his, and his field work would get enough food for their needs out of the animal he’d brought down.
Kard had the prisoners still tied together as he settled them down.
“They got their one call of nature,” he told the young Merik. “We’ll feed them, and after that, they can sleep or brood as they wish. The smart ones,” he said loudly enough that the prisoners could hear him, “will be thinking hard on what they can offer the Unity in exchange fo
r their lives.
“The Unity has uses for useless men, I suppose, but they also have use for men they can hang over a wardstone!”
Teer hoped he’d concealed his shiver at that phrase. They didn’t need the prisoners to realize that he’d almost shared that fate.
“How does the whole process work?” he asked.
“We ride up to the Wardkeeper’s office, I present the Writ,” Kard replied. “Wardkeeper checks them against the pictures we have and uses a truth stone on the rest to confirm they were Boulder’s men. Then we get paid and they’re the Wardkeeper’s problem.”
“You get paid,” Teer corrected.
“We get paid.” Kard grinned. “The split is going to be well in my favor, but you’re my partner in this. Winter knows you saved my life, Teer. I can’t undo how we’re bound, but that means something.”
“I get the feeling we’re going to be trading that life debt back and forth for a while,” Teer said softly as he stared off into the night. “Not a safe life, this.”
“No. But you did okay, for a first time out. I’m content to have you at my back with a gun, Teer, and that’s not a thing I say of many.”
Teer nodded slowly, the image of Boulder falling to the ground after being shot vivid in his head.
“Strange thing to discover one has a gift for,” he murmured.
“I guess,” Kard said. “I wouldn’t know. I was raised to do something like this. No surprises for me.”
Teer knew Kard couldn’t say more than that with strangers around. He didn’t get the impression that any El-Spehari had grown up with a particularly happy childhood.
“I’ll go get the fire started,” Teer told his boss. “Doka should have the first cuts for us to start with soon enough.”
19
Kard took first watch once again, leaving Teer to grab his bedroll and settle down on the edge of camp. He had an ear tuned to trouble as he lay down, just in case.
Wardtown (Teer & Kard Book 1) Page 10
