“This is my old riding saddle,” Hardin told Teer. “It’s got better saddlebags and such for a long ride. You’ve never ridden for more than a few days, but trust me, you’ll learn to value them.”
Teer’s attention drifted from the saddle to the scabbard and its contents. Silently, he stepped past Hardin and drew the hunter. There was no decorative inlay on the gun, but it was still one of the more gorgeous weapons he’d ever seen in his life.
The metal was a blued chrome he’d never seen on another weapon, hand-machined with precise, clean edges. The wood was all carved from the same piece of black heartwood, sturdy and true.
Teer knew this gun.
“This is your gun,” he told Hardin. “I can’t take—”
“You can and you will,” Hardin barked. “I don’t have a repeater to give you, no soldier’s guns to keep you safe. Only this. Only the truest and straightest-shooting gun I ever owned.”
He stared at the gun in Teer’s hands and sighed.
“The one time I killed a man, it was with this gun,” he whispered, then shook his head. “Take it, Teer. It’s all I can do to keep you safe now. Anthor’s putting together a pack of supplies for both of you.”
“Thank you,” Teer said. “I don’t have…I don’t know.”
“Live, Teer,” Hardin told him. He produced a purse from inside his clothes and pressed it into Teer’s hand. Just from the feel of the contents, Teer knew it held actual stones, stamped crystals, not just glass coins.
“This is not how I wished us to part,” the rancher continued. “But part of me always knew you’d have to leave. Not for my fears about Alstair, but for something else. Something about you always told me you’d be more than I could ever help you be.
“So live, Teer, and ride out with this strange Spehari. This will always be your home, but we all have to leave where we began. Follow me, son?”
“I think so,” Teer said, the hunter still cold in his hands. “I think so.”
8
Teer carefully kept his eyes on the back of Star’s neck as the mare cantered away from Hardin’s Ranch, refusing to look back as the road vanished beneath her hooves. He’d managed to bathe and change into his spare set of clothes, so he felt more alive—but he was also leaving his only home behind.
“It’s always hard,” Kard told him in the Zeeanan drawl he seemed most comfortable with. “Leaving home. The first time, the tenth time. You don’t know when it’s going to be the last time.”
“I figure this is going to be the last time,” Teer admitted. “If you’re hiding who you are, returning to my family puts ’em at risk, don’t it?”
“It does,” Kard admitted levelly. “This time didn’t. There’s no way anyone will blame them for not knowing any more than they’ll blame the Wardkeeper.”
“Will Lysus know?” Teer asked. “What are you hiding?”
Kard sighed, glancing around the empty road.
“Let’s leave that for a few candlemarks,” he suggested. “You are owed answers and I will give them, but not on the road.”
Teer glanced over at the Spehari. For the first time, he noticed that there was a scabbard on Kard’s horse similar to the one Hardin had given him. The gun in Kard’s scabbard was shorter, with a visible lever on the grip.
It was, unless Teer missed his guess, exactly the type of repeater Hardin had been wishing he’d had to give. Like the quickshooters they both carried, it would hold multiple bullets.
“Where are we heading now?” he finally asked.
“While I was in Alvid, I got reports of Boulder being seen in Odar,” Kard told him. “Odar’s not a wardtown. No regular riders, no sending stones, so the news is out of date. But. That makes the second town in a small region I’ve heard of him in—and lets me draw a path since he made a mess in Carlon.
“I know a guide from the area we’re going to meet in Odar,” the bounty hunter continued. “Her letter promised me a detailed local map, one I can use to pick out likely hiding spots. Boulder may have found himself a lair.”
He shook his head.
“Boulder won’t stay anywhere for long; he draws too much attention and he can’t stay quiet,” Kard concluded. “But if we get to Odar fast enough, we might manage to jump his hole before he moves on.”
“Two of us against seven of them?” Teer asked. “That seems dangerous.”
“And I try not to use magic as well,” Kard agreed. “It is dangerous. The plan is always to ambush them, make them blink and get them to lay down their guns. Once they’re unarmed and tied up, it’s as easy to handle ten bounties as it is to handle ten cattle.”
“Probably easier,” the ranch hand said after a moment’s thought. “The bounties probably believe you’ll shoot them if they run. Cows aren’t smart enough to register the threat.”
“Fair.” Kard sighed. “Plan always depends on the ground when we get there. We’ll see what Doka has to say when we meet with her. She’s a good eye but no gun hand. This isn’t her fight.”
“But it’s ours,” Teer accepted.
“So long as we want to get paid. And, sooner or later, if we don’t get paid, we run out of money, bullets and food.” The Spehari paused thoughtfully. “Usually in that order.”
Teer suspected that Kard wasn’t quite sure how hard he could push Star yet, as they took most of the day’s ride relatively gently. Still, by the time they were making camp at the end of the day, they were almost fifty miles from Alvid.
It wasn’t quite on the direct line to Odar, which Teer had finally found on a map, but their pace would get them there in another two days.
“Remember to brush
