The two men shared a glance and obeyed, breaking into a jog. Teer realized he’d lost sight of Doka, the woman having gone over the edge of a rise and disappeared from view. Knowing the direction she’d been going and following the tracks led them right to her.
And to what she’d found. The rise concealed a roughly cleared path marked by wagon ruts. It was probably on the maps that Teer had been shown, but he knew he wasn’t good enough to follow their location as they went. He was trusting Doka and Kard for that—if nothing else, they were the ones who had the maps.
Doka was standing next to a burnt-out wagon, carefully poking at the wreckage with a stick she’d acquired from somewhere. They’d been upwind of the site, but the smell hit Teer as he came down the hill onto the road: rotting meat and roast pork.
The wagon was built for two horses. One had been cut free; the other was dead in the harness.
“Eight bodies in the wagon,” Doka told them as they approached. “Fire was already burning when they were tossed in.”
Kard looked around the road.
“How long ago?” he demanded. “This wasn’t the four we’re chasing, was it?”
“Three, four days,” Doka told him. “This where they headed. They stop here, checking for signs.”
“So, Boulder sent men back to clean up the camp and left signs…to follow another wagon of loot, at a guess?” Kard asked.
“Doka guess that too.” She stepped away from the impromptu pyre and tossed the stick back into the woods. “Grabbed what could from wagon, tossed dead on to burn. Everything in another wagon.”
“Survivors?” Kard said grimly.
“Not sure.”
Despite his best efforts, the smell got to Teer. He missed the rest of the exchange as he ran to the side of the road and threw up. Repeatedly. He emptied his stomach and kept vomiting.
Eventually, Doka was there, pressing a canteen of water into his hand.
“Ugly days,” she murmured. “This why Kard hunts. This why Doka help. Teer grasp?”
“I get it,” he agreed, washing his mouth out with a first gulp of water before taking a long drink. “What…how…how does someone do this?”
“You either convince yourself they don’t matter, you convince yourself they deserve it, or you convince yourself your cause is just enough to require it,” Kard said behind him. “Boulder is one of the first. I’ve seen men do worse for a cause, but Boulder is bad enough.
“That’s why we’re here, Teer. These people are the last poor bastards that man is going to kill. Whatever it takes from us. You follow me?”
“I’m with you,” Teer agreed, straightening and passing the canteen back to Doka with a nod of thanks. “What do we do?”
“We still have some light and I don’t think that Boulder will have hauled his loot far,” Kard said. “This was a homesteading party. Boulder won’t have cared about the tools, but he’ll have taken the food and the alcohol. They’ll party for a few days until the booze is gone, and then they’ll move on the town.
“We find their campsite and we finish this.”
“All try to hide trails,” Doka warned. “Better than Doka expected. But Doka know these hills.”
“And?” Kard asked.
“No good site here. Couple decent sites. Can go far enough to know which way they went easy.”
“Then let’s hunt,” Kard ordered grimly. “No more innocents die. This ends now.”
15
Doka wasn’t exaggerating when she said she knew the hills. They’d followed the path she’d chosen for about a quarter-candlemark before they found the first signs that someone had come there before them.
“How did they manage to hide the wagon?” Teer asked as the vehicle’s tracks appeared from nowhere.
“Boards,” Doka said. “Lay down, run wagon along. Need at least six, takes time, need hard soil.”
“A lot of time,” Kard agreed. “But it helps hide the tracks. Have a couple of hands at the tail using brooms or something to mix up debris, you can make it almost impossible to track even a mid-sized group with a wagon. But they ran out of patience.”
Teer looked at the tracks and considered the process that Doka and Kard were suggesting. He was surprised the brigands had even managed to keep it up for an entire mile before they’d called it good enough.
“Doka know campsite they want,” she said. “Little hollow. Has spring, three sides shelter. All hills rideable, easy ways out.”
“Good spots for watches, I suppose?” Kard asked.
“Several,” she confirmed.
“Let’s get closer, but I’m thinking we’ll need that rope of yours,” the bounty hunter said. “I want them alive, but we need to take them out quietly.”
“Doka can.”
“All right. If we know where we’re going, let’s mount up,” Kard instructed. “I want to get a look at the place before nightfall and hit them at dawn.”
Teer nodded and leaned down to massage his shins.
“I am not going to complain about getting back on Star,” he admitted. “Long day.”
“Figured,” Kard said with a grin.
The three rode along the trail, their quarry’s tracks becoming clearer and clearer as they traveled farther from the road. They’d still been sweeping behind themselves for a while after they stopped planking the wagon tracks.
Doka eventually threw up a hand to stop them.
“Getting close,” she told them. “Path lead on for quarter-mile, swing around hill to come in from north. We can go over south hill. Highest point, will have watch.”
“We need the lay of the land,” Kard repeated. He looked up at the setting sun. “We only get one moon tonight; that’s not enough light for a good survey. We need a look now.”
“If Doka take watchman, he missed fore dawn,” Doka warned.
“I know,” Kard said sharply. “If we move now, we move now.”
Teer glanced up at the sun himself. Maybe a quarter-candlemark until dusk, a candlemark until full dark. He could see reasonably well in the dark, given a few moments to adjust. Was that as unusual as his hearing? He had no idea anymore.
If everyone could see as well as him,
