“Doka is known to play,” she told him, her face very close to his and her voice very soft. “Many ways. And to get some types of play, other types get in way. So. Openness. Doka not do partners, but Doka interested in roll in moss with you.
“Whatchu say to Doka?”
Teer blinked, his ears burning again. Doka was definitely very straightforward. He glanced over at Kard for some kind of sign or hint of what his new boss thought, but the El-Spehari had very specifically put his back to them and started doing the dishes for the three of them.
Which was, he supposed, a sign.
“Okay?” he finally squeaked.
Teer woke up to the light of dawn leaking through the trees above the patch of promised soft moss. The blanket they’d started on top of had been carefully wrapped around him to protect him from the night’s chill.
He was still naked inside the cocooned blanket, and he held the blanket to his chest as he raised his head to look around. Doka had folded a second blanket under herself and was sitting cross-legged, watching him.
“Morning,” he said carefully.
“Mornin’,” she replied with a smile. She was still completely naked. “Doka didn’t want wake you. You sleep cute.”
“Thanks,” Teer said. He gestured toward her blanket. “You slept well?”
“Doka always sleep well after good sex,” she told him, still smiling. “You do okay for boy. But…you get…terms, yes?”
Teer blinked at her serious tone, then remembered what she’d said the prior night.
“This was just once,” he said aloud. “No promise, nothing more. I get it.”
“Good.” Doka was still smiling as she unfolded a leg and yanked the blanket away to expose Teer’s nakedness. “You very pretty. But Doka have work. So does Teer.”
“I know,” he agreed. It took him a minute to remember where he’d left his clothes—Doka prancing naked across the mossy clearing didn’t help—but he was packed up and dressed within a few minutes.
Kard was waiting when they returned to the main campsite, a pot of tea steeping on the fire.
“I figured you two could use the extra steam this morning,” the bounty hunter told them, gesturing to the tea. “It’s jerky and trail bread from here. Fires might warn Boulder we’re coming.”
“Or get attention,” Doka said. “Travelers come through here. Man like Boulder sees that as prey.”
“It’s two on seven,” Kard replied. “I’d rather we did the ambushing.”
“Three on seven,” the guide told him. “Doka not great warrior, but Doka help.”
“I appreciate that,” Kard said. “Might make more difference than you think. Now, from here…four candlemarks to the first camp, you said?”
“Yes,” Doka confirmed. “Need tea. Was busy night.”
“I heard,” Kard said drily.
Teer realized he was blushing again and quickly took his own tea. He didn’t know his boss all that well yet, but he had the distinct impression there was no way Kard was going to let this go anytime soon.
He didn’t get the impression Kard disapproved, but he didn’t think he was going to hear the end of it.
12
“We close,” Doka told the two men, holding up a hand. “Horses probably fine, but want to walk from here.”
“All right,” Kard agreed. He dismounted and drew his repeater from the scabbard.
Teer followed suit with his hunter, casting an eye on his boss’s gun as he tied Star to a tree to keep her calm. It wasn’t quite the weapon he was expecting. Most of the repeaters he was familiar with weren’t much shorter than his hunter, lever-action rifles with magazines in the grip.
The grip on Kard’s gun was identical, but the barrel was at least eight inches shorter. Teer could see how that made it a handier weapon, more easily used from horseback, and he wondered why he’d rarely seen the short version of the gun before.
“Still hauling rebel gun, Doka see,” the guide observed as she followed Teer’s gaze.
“The Unity army cavalry uses the short repeater just as much as the Sunset Brigades did,” Kard replied, his tone somewhat defensive. “And for my purposes, it’s the better gun. Not my fault everyone has decided they’re specifically the Sunset gun.”
Teer shook his head.
“That answers my question before I even ask it,” he admitted. “Was wondering why I hadn’t seen a short repeater before.”
“Unity cavalry still use them,” Kard told him. “But they used to be issued to a bunch of other units, too. They’ve been phased out since the war, since everyone sees them as a ‘rebel gun,’ as Doka put it.”
“Good gun,” Doka admitted as she pulled two weapons from scabbards on her stallion’s saddle. Both were recognizable to Teer, though he wouldn’t have expected either of them to be a weapon someone would carry into a fight.
First, the guide had a short-barrelled thunderbuss. Only the most rudimentary attempt had been made to smooth the end where Doka had sawed the barrel off at much the same length as Kard’s short repeater, and the gun was, in general, a cheap and rough-looking weapon.
The second weapon was the thunderbuss’s opposite in every way. While Teer had never used a bow in his life, he recognized the weapon on sight. Doka’s was a gorgeous piece of spectacular craftsmanship, with multiple woods composited together and lacquered for both aesthetic and, he assumed, practical purposes.
The thunderbuss went in a holster on Doka’s left hip, where Teer wore his quickshooter, and the bow went over her shoulder.
“This…second likely spot,” Doka told them. “Step quiet, be careful.”
Teer nodded as he took in her meaning. Of the three spots, she didn’t think this was the most likely place for Boulder to be camping, but she also didn’t think it was the least likely place. They were in a quietly wooded part of the hills, and he stretched his ears for any kind of hints.
All he heard were wildlife and a distant brook burbling.
“Where to?” Kard asked.
“This way,” Doka told them, gesturing to follow her.
