Blood Ward Read online

  Blood Ward

  A Teer & Kard Story

  Glynn Stewart

  Wardtown © 2020 Glynn Stewart

  Illustration © 2020 Hillary Wilson

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Published by Faolan’s Pen Publishing Inc.

  Faolan’s Pen Publishing logo is a trademark of Faolan’s Pen Publishing Inc.

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

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  1

  Teer woke up alone.

  That was neither unfamiliar nor really a surprise, though he hadn’t gone to sleep alone. The dark-skinned young man got out of bed and lit a lamp. The dim light of dawn was streaming through the shutters into the small but comfortable hotel room, and he could hear the growing chaos of the town outside.

  Soon it would become unbearable. Teer hadn’t been in a large town in a dozen turnings of the seasons, and he was certain his senses hadn’t been as sharp then. He could pick out the shouting of early-morning vendors clearly, even though the nearest of them had to be half a mile away.

  He wouldn’t be able to track Doka, though. The blue-skinned Kotan woman had stayed longer than she’d originally planned to, and he liked to think she’d stayed because of him, but he’d always known she was going to leave.

  Doka was a tracker, one Teer and his master had hired for a specific job. They’d been friends, but the sex had explicitly been without strings—and she’d clearly run out of her patience with Carlon, the largest town in the Unity’s Eastern Territories.

  There was a dent in the mattress where Doka had fallen asleep, but that was the only sign she’d ever been in the room. Teer had no illusions about his ability to follow her, either. Unnatural senses or no, he was a fledgling bounty hunter at best. The tracker had ten turnings of experience on him in every way.

  He put his hand on the mattress. He could still pick up a bit of warmth, but it had been at least three or four candlemarks since she’d snuck out without waking him.

  Teer sighed and found his clothes crumpled against the wall where Doka had tossed them the night before. Bending over to pick them up, he tested his motion where he’d been slashed across the back before they’d arrived in Carlon.

  Everything bent and moved like it should. Like him, Doka possessed gifts others would call magic. Hers was in poultices and potions, the magic of the Kotan tribes who remained outside the Unity. His was in his own flesh and muscles, the magic of the Merik people who formed the bulk of the people of the Unity.

  Between those magics, his wounds had healed in mere days.

  Teer dressed with the practice of a ranch hand long used to nights on the prairie. The clothes were higher-quality than he’d worn before, bought with the proceeds from the first bounty he’d brought in with his master and partner, but only the armored gray coat was different from what he’d have worn before.

  The coat was a sign of his new job. It was apparently tradition, worn by most bounty hunters, and could resist bullets. Finally dressed, Teer gave the empty bed one last disappointed look and then headed for the door.

  The turnings of the seasons didn’t wait for people of any race.

  Teer’s master, partner, companion—he wasn’t entirely certain what exactly the relationship was yet—was already in the inn’s common room when Teer came downstairs. He was leaning over a table, a cup of tea steaming at his left hand as he leafed through a set of formal parchments.

  To Teer, Kard was a big man, as tall as Teer but more heavily built than the Merik youth. His skin was pale and his hair was dark, pierced by long and sharp ears that curved backward like knives strapped to his skull.

  Kard was El-Spehari, a halfblood child of the demigod-like Spehari who ruled the Unity. Since the halfbloods had revolted a dozen turnings earlier, any El-Spehari who wasn’t specifically sworn to the King in Winter was subject to arrest and execution.

  That was why Teer was the only person who saw the true Kard. His magical gifts rendered him completely immune to the illusion that Kard wove around himself of a Merik man even more darkly colored than Teer himself.

  All that illusion did for Teer was give him a headache. There was a vague disturbance around Kard to his eyes, like there was a hot summer sun behind him, and that was all he saw of the spell.

  “The server will be back soon,” Kard told him as he arrived. “Take a seat.”

  “Anything of use to us?” Teer asked, gesturing to the parchments. They were Writs of Seizure, the formal papers authorizing bounty hunters like Kard and now Teer to arrest people and bring them to the Wardkeepers of the Eastern Territories.

  “None of them have any useful information on where the target can be found,” Kard admitted. “And the rewards are slight. Two stone, maybe three.” He waved vaguely and took a sip of his tea. “I can see a few places to check out, but I figure it would do no good to chase any of these quickly.”

  The server returned to the table as Kard was speaking. She was a Merik like Teer and cast him an assessing glance as she laid a wooden plate in front of Kard.

  “Where’s yer third?” she asked. “The blue one?”

  “She’s gone,” Teer admitted. “City weren’t for her.”

  “I see,” the young woman replied. “Well, what it be? Breakfast?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Thanks.”

  He settled into his chair and grabbed a random Writ. This one was for a Zeeanan man named Pozi. Wanted for nonpayment of debts, reward of a single stone for live delivery.

  The stamped redcrystal stones were worth quite a bit, but one wasn’t enough to justify two Hunters riding halfway across the Territories.

  “I’m thinking to head northeast, to the swamps,” Kard murmured. “I have an old friend in the hills out there who might know more of your…”

  He cut off as the server returned with a cup of tea for Teer. Teer nodded his thanks to the woman—and his understanding to Kard.

  The Merik had been conquered by the Spehari a long time before. If there were any records of Merik magic, the Spehari had them—and they weren’t sharing with the son of a dead Unity conscript or a proscribed halfblood.

  “Learning more would be nice,” Teer admitted. “But money is good too.”

  The one bounty they’d brought in had been a mass-murdering bandit and his gang. The reward had been enough to cover living well for a few turnings at least—especially if Teer managed to get away from the overwhelming noise of Carlon.

  “Any of these lead north?” he asked, gesturing at the Writs. They could turn i
n a captive bounty to the Wardkeeper at any wardtown so long as they had the Writ. Some would be jailed. Others would be hung over the wardstones that shielded the Territories’ towns from weather and attack, their life force charging the stones’ magic.

  “A couple,” Kard said. “None have…useful clues.”

  The waitress slid a wooden platter in front of Teer, the same thick bread and bacon on Kard’s plate. The inn was one of the better ones in town, but “breakfast” was still a single menu item here.

  She stayed by their table for a minute, her hands on her hips and her body tilted forward in a way Teer hadn’t seen from the girl before.

  “Anythin’ else?” she asked.

  “I think we’re good,” Kard told her. “On our tab?”

  “’Course, ’course,” she agreed, winking at Teer before she headed back to the kitchen.

  “She wants something else put on our tab,” the older Hunter said with a chuckle.

  Teer looked at him in confusion.

  “Kard?” he asked.

  Kard chuckled again.

  “Most of the staff in a place like this is, ah, available,” he told Teer. “She won’t bed you for free, but she might think you’re attractive enough for a discount.”

  Teer flushed, grateful that his coloring didn’t show that easily.

  “I see,” he said. “I…I’ll be good.”

  “Doka wore you out, did she?” the other man asked. “Fair enough. You finished your shopping here?”

  “Yeah,” Teer confirmed. “Picked ever’ing up yesterday. Waiting on you now.”

  He’d bought new clothes to supplement the clothes he’d left home with. His mother and her husband had forced a lot of things on him when he’d left, but more clothes were always useful.

  And he’d had no choice about leaving. His initial encounter with Kard had involved him shooting the man in a fit of rage, thinking he was Spehari. To spare him the penalty of attacking a Spehari, Kard had magically bound Teer to him.

  A brand on Teer’s shoulder marked him as Kard’s property, not that the El-Spehari treated him that way. And it wasn’t like the Spehari didn’t regard everyone in the Unity as property.

  Teer stared morosely into the plate of food, almost unconsciously slathering the bacon and its grease over the fresh bread. The days in Carlon had helped drive home just how strange his situation was.

  He had just started eating when the tone of the shouting outside changed. He paused, chewing and swallowing as the chaos grew louder.

  “Someone in trouble,” he said softly. “I hear…murder.”

  “Murder?” Kard asked. Both of them knew Teer’s senses were sharper, though Kard could hear better than anyone else Teer knew.

  “Lot of shouting,” Teer confirmed. “Should we…”

  “Unless you hear shooting, finish your breakfast,” Kard ordered. “It sounds like we might have some real work to do.”

  2

  “Hunter Kard?”

  The hard-bitten woman in gray leathers walked right up to Teer and Kard’s table, just as Teer was shoveling the last of his breakfast into his mouth.

  “Wardwatch Jenny, yes?” Kard asked as he met the woman’s gaze.

  Teer vaguely recognized the woman as well. She was one of the Wardwatches, the deputies who supported a Wardkeeper in a larger town like Carlon. Even if he hadn’t recognized her, she carried a lever-operated repeater slung over one shoulder, and Carlon discouraged carrying long guns inside the ward dome.

  “Yes,” Jenny confirmed. “Wardkeeper wants you and yer apprentice. At the tower, candlemark ago!”

  “I know the type,” Kard agreed. He swept the Writs back into the leather pouch he carried them in and turned his gaze on Teer.

  “Shall we, my apprentice?” he asked.

  They both knew Teer would. Teer wasn’t even sure the brand that marked him as Kard’s Bondsman would let him disobey the older man—he hadn’t tried since getting it. Certainly, the magic that let him know where Kard was at all times worked well enough!

  “We heard commotion,” Kard continued as Teer rose. “What’s going on?”

  “Most o’ that is the Wardkeeper’s place to say,” Jenny told them, leading the way out into the street.

  Hard-packed dirt covered Carlon’s roads, carefully cleared and flattened where needed. There were almost as many horses out as people, but Jenny had come on foot. The tower wasn’t far—most of the town’s inns were near to the central clock tower next to the wardstone.

  Now he was outside, Teer could see the massive transparent dome of the town’s ward. Translucent green to his eyes, its magic protected the town from most inclement weather and could even, he was told, be strengthened to guard against real attack.

  He’d only recently learned that no one else could see the dome of the ward.

  “You can tell us some, can’t you?” Kard asked as they set off along the street.

  “Man beat near to death,” Jenny said bluntly. “Attacker stole his coin and a horse, fled town. Should be easy for Hunters.”

  Teer kept his peace as he heard Kard grunt. It would be easier, he suspected, with Doka, but Kard could track and he was learning. His superior senses only helped so much.

  Jenny delivered them to the clock tower a few moments later, where several other Wardwatches were being visibly present with repeaters in their hands. Most of the days they’d spent in Carlon, there’d only been a single Watch guarding the building and the wardstone in front of it.

  “Wardkeeper Ashan is waitin’ for you,” Jenny told them. “Ride well, Hunters.”

  Kard gave her a nod and pushed the door open with Teer in his wake. The room on the other side was large enough, with several currently empty desks arrayed in a pattern that funneled any visitor toward the back of the room.

  A single weathered Merik woman in a black vest over gray leathers was waiting for them. She had a golden snowflake on her vest that marked her as the keeper of the Spehari’s law in Carlon.

  “You called us, Wardkeeper,” Kard said calmly.

  “That I did,” Ashan told them. “Bad business, Hunter, but bad business is your business.”

  “It is. You’ve riders enough here, though. Why us?” Kard asked.

  “I’ve a thousand tasks for my Watches,” the Wardkeeper replied. “That’s why.”

  “I meant the fort,” Kard said quietly.

  Teer probably didn’t manage to conceal his shiver. Carlon was a semi-fortified town, with walls running from the river up to a man-made hill that held a Unity fort. Teer didn’t know how many of the Unity’s soldiers, men like his long-dead father, occupied that fort—but Kard was right. With a fort nearby, why was the Keeper hiring Hunters to pursue a runaway?

  “If I send Unity after a runaway, I get back a body,” Ashan said bluntly. “I send you after a runaway, I get someone to stand trial. You want the work or no, Hunter?”

  “We’ll take the work,” Kard agreed. “Just curious, Wardkeeper.”

  Ashan grabbed a freshly inked paper Writ from the desk and handed it to him.

  “Girl’s name is Lora,” she snapped. “Beat a man called Carind to the edge o’ death, took his money and a horse and fled.”

  “Any idea what happened?” Kard asked.

  “He’d paid for the night. Guess she decided he didn’t pay enough,” the Wardkeeper said. “Three Horses Inn; you can check it out to start.”

  “Two stone?” Kard passed the Writ to Teer, who slid it into their pouch of documents.

  “Just assault and she ain’t makin’ it far,” Ashan said. “Easy money.”

  “True. We’ll bring her back,” Kard promised. “Alive.”

  “No reward for a corpse this time, Hunter,” the Wardkeeper said.

  “What happens if we bring this one in?” Teer asked as he followed Kard along the street.

  “Trial,” Kard said grimly. “It’ll be fair enough. Probably sent to a work gang. Mines or dragon lines; unpleasant work but survivable.�
��

  Lora hadn’t attacked a Spehari, Teer remembered. Attacking a Spehari was an instant death sentence, though he figured he’d been supposed to have a trial first.

  “Come on, Three Horses is this way,” Kard told him. “It’s the second-best inn in town, where we’d have stayed if Anristo’s had been full. I’ve stayed there before.”

  They continued down the street in silence, their distinctive gray coats and visible quickshooters buying them a bit of space. Carlon was sufficiently frontier that most folks were armed—but also so that there was enough space to leave armed people alone.

  The inn was easy to pick out. It had a large hand-painted sign hanging over the door with three differently colored horses on it. An armed Wardwatch was sitting on the steps, watching the people coming and going but not interrupting anyone.

  “We’re here to check on the crime scene,” Kard told the man. “Any trouble with that?”

  “Nah.” The Watch produced a key and handed it to Teer. “We locked the door. You’ll need this.”

  They exchanged nods with the man and stepped into the common room. Unlike Anristo’s, the space was empty of customers. People seemed to be rushing to reach their rooms or leave the inn, not stopping for breakfast.

  Two women were standing behind the bar. One’s hands were holding something under the wood—and Teer could smell the gun oil from there.

  “She’s armed,” he murmured to Kard.

  “I’d be too.”

  They approached the women.