Kard had been there. Teer knew that much…but he also knew that the El-Spehari wasn’t going to talk about it.
“Wait,” he said, looking at the ground. “Got her again. Heading straight east.”
The map was out by the time Kard rejoined him on the eastern bank of the stream and Kard spread it out between their horses.
“There’s nothing out there,” he concluded. “Not that’s on the map, anyway. And I don’t think a townswoman from Carlon knows about any secret anti-Unity camps out here.”
“Me neither,” Teer agreed. “She’s just running, isn’t she?”
“She doesn’t know where she’s going to, just what she’s running from,” Kard said. “Dangerous route for her to take.”
“Oh?” Teer asked.
“We’re into wild country now. There’s a few ranches and farms out this way, but most civilization around here is on the roads between the wardtowns. We’re thirty miles from Carlon already. At least that from any of the wardtowns east of here.
“Whatever she runs into out here, man or beast alike, it won’t be friendly.”
Kard shook his head.
“I might be wrong about her being better off brought in,” he admitted. “Because she’s just panicking and it may well get her killed.”
BOOM-BOOM.
“Stop,” Teer said sharply as he picked up the sound.
“What?” Kard replied, but the El-Spehari pulled up his horse next to Teer.
“Gunfire,” Teer said. “Two shots, close together… Double-barreled thunderbuss, probably a half-mile that way.”
He pointed along the trail they were following.
“She’s found trouble, hasn’t she?” Kard said grimly. “All right. Let’s go save the girl so we can arrest the girl.”
Teer chuckled, but he touched his heels to Star’s flanks. His quickshooter was in his hand, the five-chambered handgun a better weapon for this than his hunter.
Kard, on the other hand, drew his short repeater. The gun was designed for cavalry work, after all. It was probably the best gun for this work, but Teer had hesitated to spend any of his stones on weapons.
He had a significant stash of funds at this point but no idea when they’d get more. Spending it wisely seemed a requirement to him.
The horses answered to the wordless commands with eagerness, going from trot to canter in moments as they charged forward. That eagerness didn’t last forever, and Star started trying to veer away just as a new scent hit Teer’s nose.
The blood-and-shit scent of death—with an overlay he wasn’t familiar with, an acrid musk he’d never encountered before.
“Come on, girl,” he told Star, patting her neck with his free hand. That was enough for now, but he could tell she was unhappy.
Star was a brave horse and her concern was infectious. Teer closed the distance toward a new round of gunfire with his weapon out, training toward a danger he couldn’t see yet.
And then he heard them. Multiple creatures, yelping and barking in a twisted, high-pitched tone. Teer knew dogs…and that sound was not dogs.
Star crested the edge of a small dip and Teer took in the entire scene. Half a dozen wolfen, larger than their wolf cousins and with venomous teeth and claws, circled through a mid-sized copse of trees.
A horse lay at the edge of the copse, with two more wolfen tearing into its guts as they ate. The rest of the pack, though, had something treed.
As Teer drew nearer, he spotted her. And Lora spotted him—and the dark-skinned young woman dropped her half-loaded thunderbuss in shock.
The gun went off as it hit the ground, catching one of the wolfen in the belly. The beast recoiled and fell, whining loudly enough to be heard from almost a hundred feet away.
A moment later, it got back up on its feet and fled. It had taken the full blast of a thunderbuss at point-blank range and walked away.
Teer swallowed. This was going to be unpleasant.
“Do what needs, no more,” Kard told him as the other Hunter drew up besides him. Those had been Doka’s words, but the El-Spehari had clearly known them before they’d hired the tracker. “No need to kill them. This is their territory, after all.”
“Right.”
Teer lifted his pistol and fired. He hit the closest wolfen in the middle of its chest as it turned to him. The heavy round should have gone all the way through the beast but instead merely sent it crumpling to the ground.
It was back on its feet and charging him angrily a few moments later, so Teer shot it again. This time, the bullet hit the creature right between the eyes, and it skidded to a halt in an awkward pile of limbs and fur.
Teer wasn’t sure if it was dead, but the rest of the pack was now heading their way, smelling horseflesh and people flesh alike.
He shot three of them in the chest in rapid succession, emptying the quickshooter in a heartbeat as Kard’s repeater cracked next to him. Half of the pack hit the ground, but even the wolfen he’d shot between the eyes was getting back up.
“What are they made of?” Teer snapped as Star shied under him. He had three bullets in his fingers, but lining them up with the quickshooter wasn’t easy, even for him.
“Anger, hate and hunger,” Kard replied, firing three shots into the lead wolfen’s head and torso. “I take it back. Kill them,” he ordered.
“Right.” Teer slammed the rounds into the top chambers of the revolver and leveled it again. The wolfen he’d first shot was coming right for him. He shot it in both eyes, the bullets punching clear into the creature’s skull.
The animal dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, and the rest of the pack stopped at some unseen signal. They howled as one and Teer shot the next-closest wolfen in the top of the head as Kard emptied the last two bullets from his repeater into it.
That wolfen was the first to flee, but the rest of the pack followed a moment later.
Teer breathed a sigh of relief as he scrabbled in his cartridge pouch for new rounds, slowly loading the revolver as he watched the creatures flee. It was only now that he realized that the dead horse had been dragged away by several of the wolfen while the others had been attacking him and Kard.
The pack had lost a member and picked up some hopefully impressive bruises, but they also had dinner.
He shook his head and kneed Star past the dead wolfen on the ground. The horse shied away from the body but obeyed.
“You’re a good girl,” he murmured to the horse. “I’m impressed.”
Both Star and Clack had held up surprisingly well to a wolfen charge while their riders had opened fire. They’d done well, and Teer was going to have to find some treats to give them from the saddlebags.
“I’m impressed,” Kard told him. “Clack is a warhorse. He’s getting old now, but he was trained to keep his nerve while cannon roared. I wouldn’t have expected a ranch horse to stand up to that.”
Teer patted Star.
“She trusts me,” he said. “That’s all it is.”
Kard snorted as they reached the cluster of trees.
“Miss, it’s safe enough now,” he called out. “You can come down.”
“Who are you?” the woman demanded. “Ain’t no one s’posed to be out here.”