It was easier to follow now, and Teer took a moment to trace out Lora’s path ahead of them.
“She’s headed for the Carahassee,” he guessed.
Carlon was built at the point where the Carahassee River stopped being navigable by barges coming down from the northern swamps and the Zeeanan provinces. The steam-dragon lines hadn’t reached this far east yet, which made the river the main trade link for the growing town.
“Unless she was meeting a boat there, she wouldn’t have gone far,” Kard replied. “I wonder what she was thinking.”
“We’ll find out, I figure,” Teer replied, urging Star to a trot. “The trail’s easier to follow now, at least.”
“That it is.”
They rode northeast, following her trail as it wound through rough scrubland that couldn’t support crops. There were farms around there that supported Carlon, but this section could only raise sheep and cows—and, from the state of the ground, had recently seen both come through.
That and the last night’s rain made it easier to follow the track up to the edge of the water, where it vanished into the shallow edges of the big river.
“Clever…except…” Kard studied where the trail ended and finally laughed.
“Kard?”
“Someone’s read a lot of adventure chip-novels,” the El-Spehari told him. “Riding in water to lose trackers is a great idea, yes, except that this is a terrible example of it.”
Kard pointed west.
“Two miles that way, she runs back into Carlon. If she’d gone that way, the Wardwatches would have seen her.” He turned his arm to point north. “And the Carahassee might not fit a barge through her, but no horse is crossing a hundred feet of deep water without training and help.”
“So, she could only go east,” Teer concluded, looking around the river. “We can’t see her trail now, but we’ll see where she came out.”
“Exactly. Come on,” Kard ordered. “We won’t see her trail in the dark, so let’s see if we can find it again by nightfall.”
Teer had to feel bad for the horse they were following. A well-behaved, loyal horse could ride through shallows for a while without much difficulty, but it wouldn’t be pleasant for the poor animal. Only careful attention afterward would avoid long-term problems, too.
They followed the river for over a mile, and Teer was beginning to question Kard’s logic when they finally saw the track they were looking for. The hoofprints were dryish now, but they could easily see that they had been wet when the horse had left the water.
Kard dismounted to examine the prints in more detail, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Even Teer didn’t pick anything useful out of the El-Spehari’s words.
He waited for his boss, breathing in the fresh plains air next to the river and delighting in the quiet. He could hear wind and water and trees and grass and all of that, but there weren’t dozens of riders and wagons every way he turned.
Teer hadn’t lived in a town since his mother had left the west coast to join a childhood friend—her now-second husband—on his ranch ten turnings of the seasons earlier. Even that had been a small fishing village, far removed from the bustle of Carlon.
With his senses sharpened far beyond the norm, towns were not going to be his first choice of location now.
“She’s still well ahead of us,” Kard said as he rose to his feet and brushed off his knees. “Half a dozen candlemarks, at least. We won’t catch up to her by nightfall, but her horse won’t stand up to this pace for more than a day, either.”
“We can catch her?” Teer asked.
Kard chuckled as he mounted.
“Without question, Teer. Without question.”
5
As Kard had guessed, they hadn’t come anywhere near Lora by the time it began to get too dark to track hoofprints in the soil. They pushed it harder than anyone else could have—even a single-moon night gave enough light for Teer to see reasonably well, and two of the three moons were up tonight—but eventually, it was too dark even for them.
The campfire went up with the ease of practice and Teer started cooking. The stew would take a while to cook; the jerky needed softening and the beans needed to pick up moisture from the water, so he stirred it and watched it while Kard rubbed down the horses and finally rejoined him.
“I miss your mother’s soup packages,” the older Hunter said as he took a sniff of the stew. “This smells fine, but those were something else.”
Teer chuckled. His mother had a gift—quite possibly magical, given his own talents—for assembling mixes of dried ingredients that turned into delightful meals when added to hot water.
“I learned as best I could, but no one cooks like Ma,” he admitted. “Give it a few more to cook.”
“I’ll watch; you set up your gear,” Kard ordered.
When Teer returned, the older man was tasting the stew and shook his head.
“Still needs a few more,” he admitted. “Tastes fine, but I don’t think you put a boot in here.”
“I like my boots,” Teer countered. The jerky wasn’t that bad; it could be eaten as it was, but it could always use more softening.
Soon enough, Teer split the stew into two bowls and they both began to eat while staring at the fire.
“You were angry with Terino,” Teer finally said, halfway through his food. “Why?”
“The Marked, the Bonded…” Kard took a bite of stew while he thought. “I don’t like dealing with my kin.”
Even there, miles away from anyone else, Kard still maintained the illusion that made him look like a Merik to anyone except Teer. He would at least talk about it, though, it seemed.
Teer took a moment to touch the brand on his shoulder. He was Bonded, but his magical Bond was to Kard. It was part of why he knew Kard was angry over the extra money they’d been promised.
“Everyone in the Unity is a slave, to one level or ’nother,” Kard finally continued. “The Bonded are favored slaves, but they pay for it with tighter chains.”
The young Merik shivered at that. He knew he didn’t have any real choice in following Kard. So far, there hadn’t been any reason for him to push that, but he also tried not to think about it.
“And the Marked?” he asked.
“They get the privileges of being Bonded without the prices,” Kard told him. “They’re…pets. Merchants and traders who make sure the Houses get what they needed, or manage the trade in charged redcrystal after the Spehari have dirtied their hands as much as they will with it.
“The Marked keep the Houses wealthy and keep the Houses powerful in ways their magic alone couldn’t,” the older Hunter concluded. “To be Marked means you were already powerful and useful to a House—and no one gets that way without trampling over a hundred others.”
Teer nodded slowly as he added some soap to the cookpot. He was still eating, but it would take some time to get the dishwater ready.
“And now we’re working for one of ’em,” he said.
“And I hate it,” Kard told him. “In this case, it doesn’t matter much, though. We’ll bring the girl in and she’ll face a trial. Not much more to it than that for us. Writ is for her alive, which makes it clearer, too.”