They’d been traveling through forested hills ever since leaving Odar. Teer hadn’t found them particularly bothersome, but he found himself sighing in relief as the horses pulled the stagecoach out of the woods and onto a more open stretch of land. The hill they were on sloped gently down toward a plain that reminded him of home, and in the distance he could see the glint of light marking their destination.
The Carahassee River ran from there back toward the west, eventually entering the northern swamps and becoming unusable for different reasons. It still gave the Eastern Territories a natural waterway that helped supply the larger towns.
The dragon lines were spreading east, but none of them were within five hundred miles of here yet. A town the size of Carlon needed a supply line—and without the steam-driven dragons and their caravans, Carlon’s was the Carahassee River.
The town itself was little more than a hazy spot beside the river to Teer. He could pick out a couple of spots there that he suspected were the domes of the wards, but they were still miles and miles away.
He clucked at the horses, snapping the reins lightly to get them to pick up the pace. He could hear the line of prisoners behind him, the hooves of over a dozen horses keeping time as they headed down onto the plains.
“And just what do you think you’re doing?” he heard Kard demand behind him, and grinned. One of their prisoners had presumably been trying something clever.
Or at least something they thought was clever. Teer couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, as the voices lowered a bit, but it didn’t sound like anyone was going anywhere.
His back already hurt less than he expected. He wasn’t going to start poking at the wound under the poultice, but he wondered if Doka’s magic had already healed him. That would be…well, it would be magic.
The “shock absorbers” Kard had spoken of were more than capable of handling the slowly reducing roughness as they followed the road toward Carlon. The stagecoach was probably the single smoothest ride that Teer had ever had, and he took the time to enjoy it as they made their way toward the warded city.
And city was the right word. As they grew closer, he realized that he’d misjudged the size of the ward he’d picked out. Alvid’s ward, the one he was most used to, covered a circle about two miles across.
From the buildings Teer could see through the ward, Carlon’s wardstone was projecting a dome at least six miles wide—and there were buildings outside the ward, which Wardkeeper Komo would never have allowed.
Still, the ward over Carlon was much the same as Alvid’s ward except for its scale. It was still a dome to Teer’s eyes and still a pale translucent green. The second ward that became visible as they drew nearer was very different.
It wasn’t clear whether the hill on the other side of the Carahassee River was natural. It was alone in the middle of the prairie, so it might have been built by Unity diggers at one point. Mixed wood and earth walls circled the top, with shorter walls leading down to the river, where two towers flanked the water on the western edge of town.
The walls linking the fort to the water were unwarded, but the fort itself was encased in a gleaming blood-red cylinder that rose at least two hundred feet into the air. It was less translucent than the ward over the town, and it took conscious focus for Teer to see past the barrier to see the walled fortress within.
“Welcome to civilization,” he muttered to himself as he took in the scale of the much larger wardtown. “Bit different from the ranch, I suppose.”
For the first time since leaving Odar, he’d have to consciously avoid alcohol, too. After everything that had happened with Kard, he wasn’t going to risk getting drunk. He was never touching the stuff again, but it would be a lot more available in town than on the road.
He knew Kard had several canteens of whiskey or similar in the supplies, but his El-Spehari boss had listened to Teer’s reasoning the first time he’d offered and never repeated the gesture. Both the original offer and the lack of a second offer were meaningful to Teer.
They gave him hope for a future after delivering this group of bounties. He’d been focused on the immediate job, but as the green dome of Carlon grew ahead of him, he knew that this job was almost over.
Which meant that uncertain future was almost upon him.
23
“Well, now, just what under the Iron Pillars is this lot?” the Merik woman on the front steps of the Wardkeeper’s office demanded.
Kard was now out in the lead, with Teer following the bounty hunter carefully in the stagecoach. There were a lot of horses and carriages on Carlon’s streets, and the noise and smell were oppressive in a way that suggested his senses had grown sharper since leaving Alvid.
The tighter his focus, the less the wardtown overwhelmed him, which meant Teer was entirely focused on Kard and the stone building they’d arrived at.
“Writ of seizure, Wardkeeper,” Kard greeted the woman. Teer realized that there was a golden snowflake on the woman’s black vest. It stood out against leather only a shade paler than the officer’s skin.
“I see it,” she agreed, studying the cavalcade that Doka was organizing in front of her. “Who’s the sack?”
“Boulder himself,” Kard said simply, hauling the bag over and cutting it open to show the Wardkeeper. “He tried to draw on me and my partner shot him.”
“Writ makes no difference if he’s alive or dead,” the Wardkeeper said cheerfully. “That man left three of my Wardwatches dead last time he came through Carlon. I ain’t shedding tears over his corpse. And this lot?” She gestured at the prisoners.
“They were riding with him when we brought him down,” Kard said. “Cut up my partner good,
