“I got one hundred eighty-six,” the other man confirmed. “What you expecting, kid?”
“We left the ranch with one seventy-eight, so that’s amazing,” Teer said with intentionally wide eyes. The two men looked at each other in near-panic before Coral started laughing behind him.
“Talk down to Teer, he’s going to yank you,” she told the outriders. “We left with a hundred eighty-six.”
“We did,” Teer confirmed with a chuckle. “So, our counts match.”
Cas waved a finger at him but was chuckling himself.
“You are trouble, Master Teer,” he said. There was a bit more respect in his tone than there had been a moment before. “Master Ohlman is in the office. Here.”
Cas pulled a pen and a pad of papers from inside his jacket. He jotted down a quick note of numbers and initialed the paper. Yanking the sheet off, he handed it up to Teer.
“That confirms we count one hundred and eighty-six head,” he explained, like Teer hadn’t watched the process before. “Boss will sort out stones for your boss. Safe ride home.”
“Thanks, Cas,” Teer replied. He swung Star around to look at his own ranch hands. “I’ll go meet with Master Ohlman,” he told them. “Catch up with you three in a candlemark.”
There was a clock on the watchtower behind the wardstone, visible from anywhere in the central part of town. The five-story tower was the only building in the wardtown that had more than two stories.
“At the bar?” Coral suggested cheerfully.
“Fine,” he agreed with exaggerated patience. “Hardin isn’t paying for your booze.”
“When does he ever? See you, Teer.”
The two male hands pulled their horses in behind Coral’s with cheerful waves to Teer. Shaking his head, he glanced around the stockyard to make sure Ohlman had set his office up in the same place as always.
There were three buildings that could be used as an office in the stockyard, but only one had the cattle drive’s provision wagon pulled right up next to it. The brightly painted sign on the side of the wagon announced that “Atrach and Sons Cattle Sales” was in town—and, presumably, in that office.
“Come in, Teer,” Ohlman—one of the sons of “Atrach and Sons”—shouted the moment the young Merik knocked on the door.
Teer chuckled and stepped into the office. He hadn’t been in the small building before, but it looked much the same as every structure he’d been in out here in the Unity’s Eastern Territories. The Territories were still only loosely policed or organized, but the buildings were either built with imported materials from the West, raw logs, or planks cut to standard pieces by the handful of sawmills in the Territories themselves.
Alvid was built around one of said sawmills, so everything in the wardtown was built of identical standardized planks. The desk Ohlman rose from as Teer entered was made from a mix of shorter standard pieces and cast-off bits.
There were nicer pieces of furniture to be had in the small wardtown, but this office was a rental that would go through five or six users over the course of a turning of the seasons. So long as it was sturdy, the caravans that came through were happy enough.
Ohlman came around the desk and grasped Teer’s hands in both of his, shaking up and down fiercely. The cattle drive leader was a Zeeanan, a broad-shouldered man tanned enough to only look a bit pale against the mostly-Merik population of Alvid.
The Merik had been the first people the Spehari had brought into the Unity, and still formed the beating heart of its power and growth. Teer had his problems with his country and its overlords, but he still took pride in the role his people had taken in bringing civilization to this continent.
“You have the receipt from Cas?” Ohlman asked after releasing Teer’s hands.
“Here.” Teer passed over the piece of paper.
“Good, good.” Ohlman gestured him to a seat in front of the desk as he read the note. “I see you managed to beat the sickness that caught them. My last letter from Hardin said he was worried he’d have a hundred fifty head or even less for us.”
“A few cursed long nights staying up with the sickest and a tenday of hand-feeding five of ’em, but they pulled through,” Teer said. “We checked before we rode out; these’re all the same weight as the rest now. We swapped three that weren’t for steers from our own winter herd. They’ll get up to weight for when we need ’em, but aren’t yet.”
“That’s why I like dealing with Hardin,” the drive leader told him. “He told you to tell me all that?”
“He did, sir, yes,” Teer confirmed. There weren’t many people he’d call sir. Hardin was one of them. Outside of that, there was really only the town Wardkeeper and Ohlman himself.
“You’re nineteen now, Teer, a man in every way that matters,” the Zeeanan said with a laugh. “I refuse to have a man I’m talking business and money with call me sir; am I clear?”
“Yes…Ohlman.”
“Good. Now, the rate Hardin and I agreed to was a stone and twenty shards a head,” Ohlman continued. “Hardin wasn’t sure when we last traded letters how he’d want it paid. Did he give you instructions?”
“Letter with the bank,” Teer confirmed. His mother did Hardin’s books, so he knew the logic behind taking deposit versus cash. A “stone” was a physical redcrystal, a type of rock valued by the Spehari for their magic, cut to a specific carat and stamped with a mark to certify that weight.
There were blue and white glass coins for smaller amounts—shards and chips—and notes for larger, but the certified crystals were still the default cash.
“Always the easiest for me,” Ohlman agreed cheerfully. “I keep accounts in Alvid anyway. I pick up a good chunk of my cattle here.”
He pulled a bottle and two cups out of the desk.
“Cactus spirit, Teer? That’s business handled for Hardin, but
