“No,” the older man said, then shook his head. “I believe you. Pull the horses off the road. Doka, can you check it out? Quietly?”
The guide was already on the ground, leading Grump into the trees as she drew her bow from its case again.
“Doka leaves them unless attacked?”
“Exactly,” Kard said. “Be careful.”
“Doka always careful,” she replied. “Ask Teer.”
Teer’s ears were burning again. Thankfully, his coloring didn’t show blushing much, at least.
“I know,” the bounty hunter agreed. “But Boulder didn’t live the way he does this long by letting people sneak up on him.”
Doka winked and disappeared into the trees with unexpected speed.
“She’s a strange one,” Teer murmured. “I don’t know what to make of her.”
“That she’s a strange one,” Kard suggested. “She’s Kotan, but even among Kotan she’s strange. Like you or I, she has magic of her own. Like me, she hides it.”
The El-Spehari sighed.
“She’ll be safe enough, I hope. We’ve worked together enough I’d rather not lose her.”
Teer nodded, reaching down to loosen his hunter in its scabbard. He couldn’t hear any sign of Doka, but he figured he’d hear a change in the voices if they spotted her.
“Voices are moving,” he warned Kard. “Heading father away. North, I think?”
“You realize that’s not normal, right?” the bounty hunter asked with a chuckle. “I can’t hear them, and I hear better than any Merik should. Doka hears as well as I do…and you heard them before either of us.”
“Oh.” Teer chewed on that. “Not just sight, I guess.”
“No,” Kard agreed. “I need to find some books. Odar won’t have them. Carlon might.”
“Books, sir?” Teer asked.
“I’m not exactly going to write some old Spehari and ask him what magic the Merik had when his people arrived,” Kard said drily. “You’re gifted, Teer, and the more I know about your gift, the better off we both are.”
“Wait.” Teer held up a hand to quiet his boss. “Doka’s coming back.”
Now that he wasn’t walking behind her, he could pick out the soft sound of Doka’s footsteps. She was amazingly quiet, but she wasn’t silent.
A minute or so later, she emerged from the bushes and grinned up at the two men.
“Four men, watering horses,” she told them. “Got faces of followers?”
“Not all,” Kard noted. “But three were known when I got the writ.”
He pulled the papers out and handed them to Doka. She took them carefully, clearly aware that Kard might not get paid without the proper writ, and studied the pictures printed on the second sheet.
“This one.” Her finger stabbed one of the three smaller pictures on the sheet. “Dosav?”
“Dosav,” Kard confirmed, taking the sheet back. “The other two?”
“Not on your paper,” Doka told him. “But was Dosav.”
“Then we’re in the right place.”
“Not as hoped,” the guide said. “They go wrong direction for campsite.”
Teer glanced up the hill toward where he’d last heard the voices.
“Four horses, four men,” Kard said calmly. “Were they just watering horses, or did they fill containers, too?”
“Just canteens.”
“Detached group, trying to catch up,” the bounty hunter guessed. “They’re not moving against Odar yet; Boulder wouldn’t leave four men behind for that. He would leave four men behind to clean the campsite and eliminate anyone who catches up.”
“So, we follow the riders?” Teer asked.
“They careful. Ride in water,” Doka warned. “They good.”
“Good enough to get away from you?” Kard asked.
Doka bared her teeth in a disturbing grin.
“No. Doka can track.”
“Then let’s follow these people back to their boss and see what we find,” the El-Spehari bounty hunter concluded. “I’m figuring he’s moved closer to town, but we’ll find out.”
Doka led the way back to the stream, Grump trailing behind her like a well-trained puppy. Even Teer couldn’t hear their quarry anymore, but she glanced up the stream to make sure she couldn’t see anything before kneeling in the soil.
“Here and here,” she noted, pointing at marks in the soil. “You see?”
Teer dismounted from Star, holding her reins to lead the mare as he crossed to stand behind Doka. The bank of the stream had a lot of footprints and hoofprints, but he picked out the ones the guide was pointing to quickly enough—they were the ones heading directly into the water.
“Stream not wide enough for four,” Doka said. “Rode single file; might slip onto banks, still. Need find those. Know they went north, that hard part.”
Kard finally dismounted to join the other two, looking down at the tracks.
“We’ll have to hope they’re heading to the camp and will stop,” he told them. “Even Doka can’t track from horseback.”
“Sadly not,” Doka confirmed. “But if we walk horses, can outlast them.”
Teer saw Kard grimace, but his master’s expression suggested he’d been thinking the same thing. The hunter glanced back at Teer.
“Think you can handle that, Teer?” Kard asked. “I’m not figuring ranching to involve a lot of walking.”
“You’d be surprised,” Teer said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Then let’s move,” Kard ordered. “Time is wasting and they’re getting farther away.”
Doka didn’t even respond before taking off along the side of the river at a ground-eating trot. Teer shared a nod with Kard and made sure to extend Star’s reins into a lead before following.
Star was well trained, but her training was quite different than Grump’s. If Teer dropped her reins to the ground, she’d stay right where she was. She hadn’t been taught a command to follow, though she was probably bright enough to work it out as Clack and Grump headed after their riders.
It was better to lead her while he walked after Doka, watching as the guide studied the banks of the little stream. The last thing Teer could afford at this point was to lose his mare!
“One of them slip here,” Doka said, pointing at the bank. “Horse stumbled or something. Six paces on bank, then back in water.”
Teer studied the hoofprints she’d seen. He was paying attention to everything the guide said, trying to pick up as much as he could from the unexpected opportunity.
He figured
