“I know horses,” Teer said. “You’ve just got to treat ’em right.”
He took a moment as she was leading him out to pause at the exit from the stables and look around. There was only one way out of the inn’s yard, and it headed east onto the main street.
Teer suspected he knew exactly where Lora had gone, at least to start.
4
Kard arrived at the front of the hotel just as Teer was stepping out of the yard, their two horses following behind him like the extremely well-trained animals they were. Saddlebags hung from both animals’ tack, holding all of their worldly possessions.
Newly formed habit meant that the first thing Teer checked when he reached Star was the long scabbard hanging at the rear of the mare’s saddle. It held the rifled hunter he’d been given by his mother’s husband when he’d left with Kard, a breech-loading long-range gun of exceptional quality.
The gun was worth more than anything else he owned…and it was the only weapon he’d ever killed a man with.
“She left the yard onto the main street, headed east,” Teer told Kard. “Was panicking, I think, so she’d’ve kept going east. I figure I can pick out her horseshoes once we’re outside the ward.”
There’d be a lot fewer horses on the road and there was a higher chance of mud, too, once they’d left the city.
“Let’s ride,” Kard replied, running his hands over Clack’s mane. Clack was a nondescript speckled gelding, similar to both Star and the horses Teer had befriended in the inn’s stable in being of good health and no particular breed.
The two men mounted up with the ease of long practice and set off. Carlon was awake now, and the coaches and horses around them were pressing in on Teer. He hadn’t noticed it as much when he was focused on the horses or the crime scene, something he noted for later.
If he was focusing, maybe a city wouldn’t be so overwhelming? For now, at least, he was just happy to be leaving town.
“Girl’s father took one of the horses, but he’s somewhere in town,” Teer told Kard. “She took another, with all of the gear. Wasn’t planning on coming back.”
“We’ll change that,” Kard said. “Might take longer than I thought, if she’s being smart about things.”
“We’ll see, I figure. She’s townfolk, not country, so might be easy.”
Just because Lora knew what she was doing with the horse didn’t mean she’d know what she was doing in the country.
“Hoy, Hunters!” a stranger’s voice shouted. “Hol’ up.”
Teer exchanged a look with Kard but pulled Star up as Kard controlled Clack, turning to the source of the voice.
The shaven-headed Merik man who rode up to them wore practical clothing, much the same shirts and breeches everyone else was wearing, except his were dyed a deep red that would never stand up to heavy wear. It was a sign of wealth that tried to be subtle but still screamed its intent to anyone with the eyes to see.
“You are the Hunter Kard and his apprentice, yes?” the stranger asked. “The coats are distinctive.”
“That would be their duty,” Kard said calmly, precisely. “How may we help?”
“My name is Terino, I work for Carind, Marked of House Ilit,” the Merik introduced himself. “You are pursuing the woman who attacked my employer, yes?”
“We are,” Kard said. “That is a matter of Writ and Unity law, yes.”
“My master is awake now and he wished me to speak with you,” Terino told them. “His injuries will take some time to heal and he is angry. He wishes you to know that he will expand upon the rewards promised by Ward and Unity to bring Lora to justice.
“If she is delivered alive to the Wardwatches, I or another of Carind’s factors will pay you an additional ten stone beyond the promised reward.”
Teer sucked in a breath, aware that his reaction would be obvious to Terino but unable to help himself. Ten stone was half of what they’d been paid for Boulder—and Boulder had been a brigand leader who’d rampaged across the Eastern Territories and killed nine Wardwatches.
“Carind is very invested in seeing his attacker brought to justice,” Terino said in reply to Teer’s wordless commentary. “It will, of course, be easier to pay you if you bring her directly to Carlon, but we will endeavor to find and compensate you regardless.”
Teer only understood about two-thirds of that sentence, but he figured he’d got the meaning.
“We will do what we can,” Kard said gruffly. “Thank you for letting us know. Come, Teer.”
The youth pulled Star in behind his mentor as Kard continued riding east, leaving Terino sitting on his horse in the middle of the street.
“Kard?” Teer murmured a few minutes later.
“Later,” Kard snapped. “We’re reaching the edge of the ward. You said you could find her trail?”
Teer could see the green dome coming up ahead of them, its glowing haze reaching down to the soil. He took a breath as they reached it, tightening his hands on the reins.
Few animals liked crossing a ward—which was part of their value to the wardtowns—but horses were mostly trained for it. It was still wise to keep a grip on the reins, just in case.
Star plodded placidly through the green haze as it tingled its way across Teer. The ground was softer outside the ward. There had been rain last night, it looked like, and it had inevitably been heavier outside the magical protections.
He pulled the mare up and dismounted, running his gaze to and fro across the tracks on the road. The horse followed calmly enough as Teer walked along, waiting patiently every so often for a wagon or another rider to pass.
Kard hung back, his hand on the scabbarded repeater on Clack’s saddle. Outside the ward, there was no rule against longarms, but the weapon Kard carried had history Teer’s hunter didn’t.
Short repeaters were used by Unity cavalry still, but they’d been the iconic weapon of the Sunset Rebellion led by the El-Spehari—a rebellion that Kard had been involved in to an extent Teer didn’t yet fully know.
He did know that Kard had been present at the battle where his father had died—but it hadn’t been Kard who had decided that a records mix-up meant that the soldier’s widow didn’t get the pension she was owed.
That had been the Unity. That had been the Spehari.
Teer shook aside that old hate and kept his eyes and mind on the ground, looking through the mix of hoofprints for…that.
“Here,” he called to Kard. “I found her.”
Lora had tried to mix her track with the other trails, but she’d been riding just after the rain, and her horse’s shoes were more distinctive than most.
“The shoe is distinctive; the other horses had ’em,” he told Kard. “Might be other people with the same horseshoes…but I only see one set of ’em in this mess.”
The El-Spehari focused his gaze on the print that Teer was pointing to, clearly fixing the image in his mind.
“All right,” he replied. “Let’s follow the trail and see where it leads us.”
The trail of horseshoe prints wasn’t always entirely clear and continuous, since other riders had come through since their prey, but it was close enough that Teer and Kard were always able to find its continuation until, about a mile and a half outside of town, the trail turned toward the north and left the main road.