Wardtown (Teer & Kard Book 1)

by Glynn Stewart

  “If Boulder had ’em for more than a day, I know the story,” the Wardkeeper agreed. The cheerfulness was replaced with a grim expression. “Jenny, Lota!” she barked.

  Two hard-bitten women in gray leathers with Wardwatch repeaters materialized from the building.

  “We got three kidnappees in the coach,” the Keeper told them. “Help ’em out; get ’em fed and clean. We’ll need to put them up somewhere away from men for a bit while we sort ’em out.”

  “Our house will do,” one of the two women said with a glance at the other. “Ain’t no men living with us.”

  “Wasn’t gonna ask; glad you volunteered,” the Wardkeeper said. “Carry on.”

  She turned back to Kard as the two Wardwatches stepped onto the coach to take over the homesteaders.

  “I’m Wardkeeper Ashan,” she told him. “I think we’ve met before?”

  “Brought a bounty in last turning,” he agreed. “Smaller, just the one man.”

  Ashan snorted.

  “I’ll truthstone this lot and check our books,” she told him. “The coach yours?”

  “Belongs to the Odar Exchange. The horses are the passengers’, as I said,” Kard replied. “I have other items for the exchange, but if you could see to the coach?”

  “Of course. And I’ll have my Watches take the bounties off you,” Ashan told him. “Horses are yours; this lot won’t need them.”

  Kard bowed his head as more gray-leather-clad Wardwatches emerged from the stone building without waiting for the Keeper to call for them. Ashan gave sharp orders and they started hauling the prisoners down.

  “How far did you have to bring ’em?” she asked.

  “Three days’ ride up from the forests around Odar,” Kard said. “Boulder caught himself the coach and was fixing to rob the exchange in the mining town.”

  “Good thing you got there,” Ashan replied. “Most of the other hunters started here.”

  She shook her head.

  “’Course, that means I’m short of hunters for anything else, so swing on by in the morn and we’ll talk writs and rewards,” she said. “Give me a quarter-candlemark ’fore you ride on, Hunter Kard. I’ll have your stones.”

  According to the clock tower on top of the stone Wardkeeper’s office, it took the three of them most of that quarter-candlemark to reorganize their now-unburdened collection of thirteen horses. The two Wardwatches took the homesteaders’ two horses with them as they moved the coach and the rescued prisoners to safety.

  Both of Teer’s companions kept a careful eye on him as he worked. He was honestly feeling fine now. Doka’s poultice was still on his back, but it had worked wonders.

  Almost as soon as they finished tying the last of the horses together and choosing which ones would keep their gear, Wardkeeper Ashan emerged from her office again. This time, she held a small leather purse that she offered to Kard.

  “Boulder delivered dead, seven brigands delivered alive,” she said. “There’s a signed receipt in the bag and I kept the writ. I rounded up,” she concluded. “There’s twenty-five stone in the bag, Hunter Kard. Ten in stones, fifteen in paper. You’re welcome to count it.”

  Kard opened the purse, looking inside quickly before closing it and tucking it into an inside pocket of his long gray duster.

  “It looks right and I know where to find you,” he told her. “Thank you, Wardkeeper.”

  “Thank you, Hunter Kard. That murderer filled too many graves in Carlon alone, let alone the rest of the Territories. Unity’s far better served with him dead.”

  Kard rejoined Doka and Teer as the Wardkeeper returned to her chair on the front steps of her office. That was apparently her main working space, making her available to the folks of her town.

  “I didn’t think even this big a wardtown would be this loud,” Teer admitted grimly as Kard opened the purse again.

  “Almost twenty times the size of Alvid,” the bounty hunter reminded him. “It’s a different world.”

  “Too much for Doka. Doka stay to watch you, but must go soon,” she said. “Doka get paid?”

  “You did far more than I asked or contracted,” Kard told her. “I believe I owe you a stone and a half. Here’s three.”

  Doka raised an eyebrow, but she took the stamped crystals without comment.

  “I know what those poultices cost, if a non-Kotan can even find them,” the bounty hunter murmured, softly enough that Teer barely heard him. He then gestured Teer over. “And your share, Teer.”

  To Teer’s shock, Kard poured six stones into his hands.

  “A quarter for you, the rest for me,” the bounty hunter said. “Welcome to junior partnerhood.”

  Kard grinned widely.

  “Now, I’m going to take the coach and Boulder’s magical saddlebags over to a place I know does business with Iko. If I can impose for two more favors, Doka?”

  Her stones had already vanished somewhere, but they were clearly on her mind as she smiled brilliantly at Kard.

  “Whatchu need?” she asked.

  “Can you go with Teer to sell the horses? I want to hang onto two as pack animals. Between the pair of you, I figure you can judge that. Once you’ve sold them, take the kid to that tailor. That shirt’s a wreck and he’s brought in a bounty now.”

  Kard flicked the long gray duster he wore, setting it to fluttering in the wind.

  “There are traditions to uphold. He needs a longcoat.”

  “Chull can do that,” Doka confirmed. “Doka help, then check wounds. What hotel?”

  “Anristo’s,” Kard said. “I’ll meet you there by sundown.”

  24

  The stables, of course, paid far less to buy the horses from Teer than he’d have paid to buy similar horses from them. The bandits’ horses were decently trained and healthy animals, easily worth seventy or eighty shards apiece.

  In the end, Teer and Doka got five stone out of the stablemaster for all eleven of the beasts. He gave the animals one last pat each and then led the two pack horses they were keeping out to join Doka.

  “He make good stones off us,” Doka grumbled. “Robbery.”

  “The stable has to feed them and take care of them until they sell,” Teer pointed out. “And I won’t begrudge them some profit.” He grinned up at the blue woman on her stallion. “Still probably robbery, but we don’t want to be feeding and stabling them.”

  “True. Doka take you to Chull now?” she asked.

  “Chull’s the tailor, right?” Teer asked. He glanced at their quartet of horses and shrugged. “So long as they have somewhere to tie up the horses. I trust Star to stay where I put her, but these two are still learning to trust me.”

  “Grump keep in line,” Doka replied. “But yes, Chull has posts.”

  “Then lead on,” Teer agreed as he mounted up on Star. He had filled the feed bags for her and the two packhorses before entering the stable, but he checked hers anyway out of habit, and the horse whinnied and pressed her head into his hand for a moment.

  “She trusts Teer,” Doka observed. “Smart girl.”

  Teer felt his cheeks heat as he spotted Doka smiling softly at him.

  “She can’t take care of me if I don’t take care of her,” he told the guide.

  “And Star knows,” Doka agreed. “Other two learn. Come. Chull fix you new clothes.”

  Chull’s shop was tucked onto a corner of two of Carlon’s busier streets, where several sets of three-story buildings with shops on the ground floor met—the stores sharing, Teer was glad to note, a long bar outside for hitching horses. He tied the three animals to the bar and quickly checked them over for signs of difficulty.

  Doka waited patiently for him to finish his check and then led him into the building. It looked well built, with judicious use of stone and brick to reinforce the neatly cut planks that made up most of the walls. The stores all had windows, but the tailor’s shop had installed shutters over them.

  They looked like they allowed light in, but they kept pry
ing eyes out. Only the proprietor’s name painted on the door told him they’d come to the right place.

  Doka, of course, didn’t hesitate for a moment. She pushed the door open and strode cheerfully into the store.

  “Chull! Is Doka!”

  Teer followed her somewhat less energetically, taking in the interior of the store as he did. Despite the shutters, the space was well lit. He spotted six crystal lamps positioned around the room, augmenting the natural light to shine on brilliantly colored fabrics organized in neat sheets hung on the wall.

  Five person-like forms were positioned around the room, each wearing an outfit more formal than anything Teer had ever worn in his life. Several cutting tables were tucked at the corners, with everything positioned to create an open space in the middle of the small store, directly in front of a worktable with a cash register on it.

  Chull was sitting at that table, grinning up at Doka. She was a Rolin woman with a shaven head and pale brown skin. As she rose to greet the Kotan guide, Teer realized that Chull was tiny. If she came up to the middle of his chest, he’d be surprised.

  “Doka! It’s good to see you,” Chull said. “I only have about half your last order ready; I wasn’t expecting you for a few more tendays. What brings you to Carlon?”

  “Doka take what ready,” the guide replied. “And look at new designs. Work bring Doka here.” She waved vaguely at Teer. “Meet Teer. He work with Doka on last job.”

  “A pleasure,” Chull greeted Teer, bowing over her hands. “Step into the light, boy. Hrm.”

  She walked around the table slowly and he saw that she was missing one of her legs just below the knee. Her pants had been tailored to expose the contraption she wore to replace it, and the false limb itself was gorgeous, built of gleaming hardwood and inlaid with silver and gold. It clearly slowed her down but otherwise seemed to work just fine.

  Teer obeyed her instruction, stepping forward into the middle of the room, where all of the lights were shining on him.

  “New designs are on the table as always, Doka,” Chull noted. “What does your friend need?”

  “Teer just deliver first bounty,” Doka said. “Kard said tradition. Duster?”

  The tailor laughed, a soft and golden sound that Teer instinctively found reassuring.

  “Some would say, yes,” she agreed. She was circling Teer now. In another person, that might have been threatening, but something about the tiny Rolin woman told him he was safe. She sniffed at his clothes.

  “Love. Hmph.”

  “Love?” Teer asked.

  “Your clothes,” she told him. “Material, basic. Pattern, basic. Sewer, competent. All solid, but basic. But made with love. You can always tell. Ranch mother?”

  “My mother,” Teer replied carefully. “She married the ranch owner.”

  Chull laughed again.

  “Made with love twice over, I see,” she said. “And then worn for a turning, washed rarely, and cut by a blade.” She clucked her tongue. “So, tradition says one thing and you’ll leave with a coat.”

  Teer barely even registered her starting to run a measuring tape over him until she lifted one of his arms from behind.

  “I might have something in stock I can alter quickly,” she continued. “You work for Kard, huh?”

  “You know him?” Teer asked.

  “Of him,” Chull said. “Gray, then, for the coat. But the rest…”

  “The rest?”

  “Teer needs new clothes,” Doka said from where she was leafing through drawings. “Those failing and cut.”

  “Bounty hunters and long-distance riders have much the same needs, really,” Chull told him. “Two or three sturdy sets of regular clothes and a coat that’s cool in summer but a blanket in winter. Easy enough, but all depends.”

  “Depends on what?” Teer asked. He could afford the clothes, but he was feeling lost again. He was getting used to that feeling, but still!

  “Clothes make the man and the man makes the clothes,” Chull told him. “I can dress you in black leather, treated to shed blood and blades alike. Sharp angles and concealed pockets, clothes to make women swoon and men cower. Clothes to say this is a hunter of men and warn all around you of your power.”

  She must have felt Teer shiver at the image. He wasn’t quite sure what that would even look like, but it didn’t match what Kard was wearing—on the other hand, he didn’t want to match Kard.

  “Or I could make you much what you are wearing,” she continued after a moment. “Less love, better material, but still a workman’s clothes. You’ll blend, go unnoticed. Perhaps underestimation is your choice? Or perhaps you rebel against being a hunter? Is this path your choice?”

  “I’m not sure these are the right clothes for what I am now,” Teer said after a moment’s thought. “But I don’t think I need clothes to declare me a hunter of men. A…” He paused, thoughtfully.

  Clothes make the man and the man makes the clothes.

  Not just who are you? but who do you want to be?

  He was still sickened to have shot Boulder. It had been necessary and he accepted that, but he didn’t want to become the type of man who wasn’t sickened to have killed. He was proud to have ended the threat of Boulder’s gang—and he was proud to have rescued Kova and Pote and Rala. That was the important part.

  “A guardian,” he finally finished. “A hunter, yes, but a helper, too. I ride with Kard for reasons I can’t explain, but what we do…we do to help people.”

  “Not a worker, then,” Chull murmured. “Not a worker, but one called. I think I understand, Teer.”

  Teer waited as she finished measuring him in silence. Finally, she was standing in front of him, studying him up and down.

  “What do you think, Teer?” she asked. She gestured at the outfits shown in the store. “These are all too formal for you, yes?”

  He glanced around. Two dresses and three varieties of suit. He shook his head and smiled at her.

  “Yeah. I’m not that man.”

  “You could be,” she told him. “You carry yourself well. Hmm.”

  She walked around him one more time.

  “Black shirt would go poorly with skin tone,” she noted. “White too. Will you trust me enough to try something?”

  “I am lost and trusting Doka,” Teer admitted. “Doka?”

  “Chull amazing,” the guide told him, turning to face him. She tapped the corset she was wearing. “Chull make battle corset. Holds, supports, allows breathing.”

  “And resists blades,” Chull added. “Bullets too, to a point.”

  “All right. Surprise me,” Teer agreed.

  “Surprising him” resulted in having the two women strip Teer down to his poultice and re-dress him from the skin out. That was far more than he’d been anticipating, and he was reasonably sure he spent the whole time naked blushing.

  When they were done, he was finally allowed to look in the mirror, and he barely recognized himself. He still had his poorly maintained hair and a tenday’s worth of stubble, but the man who looked back at him didn’t fit his mental image at all.

  The man wore sturdier boots than Teer had ever owned in his life, smooth black leather that faded perfectly into a durable but astonishingly comfortable set of black work pants. A silver-buckled black leather belt closed the pants and held down a dark blue shirt that was lighter and thinner than anything he’d ever worn.

  “The shirt insulates both ways,” Chull told him. “Keeps heat out in summer, in in winter. It won’t stop bullets but it can keep dirt out of a wound. It can serve multiple purposes.”

  “I barely know the man in that mirror,” Teer confessed.

  “Would you, regardless of the clothes?” the tailor asked. “From what you’ve said, your life has changed a great deal in the last few tendays. The man in the mirror doesn’t look like who you were, but does he look like who you want to be?”

  Teer looked back at the mirror. Even with the gun on his belt, there was nothing in the clothi
ng that proclaimed wealth or power or threat. It was solid clothing, the kind of expensive that lasted. It didn’t proclaim I help people in the way he’d been thinking, but, looking at himself, he figured he looked like the kind of solid man folk did ask for help.

  “I think so,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t have picked it myself, but I wouldn’t have known where to start!”

  “Good.” Chull smiled. “This set fits you well enough, but if you give me till morning, I can have three tailored to your measurements with the coat. Four sets should serve you for a turning at least.”

  “Or forever,” Teer murmured, but he nodded. “That sounds fair. How much will I owe you?”

  “Wait until you see the coat,” she told him. “Hold on a moment.”

  She disappeared into the back of the store again, emerging a few minutes later with a long duster of a similar cut to Kard’s.

  “Here, take this,” she said.

  Teer obeyed and nearly dropped the coat. It was far heavier than he expected.

  “I only have two of these,” Chull told him. “I can adjust them, but I do not make them. A duster like this is more than a coat. There is iron woven into those seams. The silk shirt won’t stop bullets, Teer—but this coat will.

  “Once I have sized it to you, you will not feel the weight for more than a day,” she continued. “It will be with you for the rest of your life.”

  Doka helped Teer put it on, and he saw Chull’s point. Once he was wearing the duster, it didn’t feel quite as heavy. He turned to look at himself in the mirror and marveled at the ensemble.

  “Still don’t recognize the man in the mirror,” he admitted, “but I figure I can learn to be him. He looks impressive enough.”

  “Brings out Teer, that all,” Doka said from behind him. “Chull do good work.”

  He nodded and looked over at Chull.

  “How much?” He figured he wasn’t going to like the number, but the clothes seemed worth it.

  “Two stone, fifty shards,” she told him. “No haggling. That’s already discounted because I like Doka.”