Wardtown (Teer & Kard Book 1) Read online

  “We’re in town for two more days,” Ohlman told him gently. “If you want to go back to the ranch, talk to Hardin and your ma, I get it. Offer’s open until the end of the season, really, if you were to change your mind and catch up later, even.

  “Take your time, Teer. This wasn’t supposed to be this kind of shock.”

  Teer nodded his understanding, not trusting his mouth to say anything reasonable, and then painstakingly turned and left the room.

  He was supposed to meet his people at the bar. That sounded surprisingly appealing at this particular moment.

  2

  Teer led his horse through the streets of Alvid, using the reins as much to keep himself from stumbling as to guide the animal. Confusion tore through him as his feet half-consciously led him toward the nearest bar.

  Hardin had raised him for ten turnings, and now he was trying to kick him out. Gently, true, but that didn’t change that his mother’s husband wanted him gone so he wouldn’t threaten his half-brother.

  Ten turnings before, Hardin had offered his childhood friend and her son a job and a place on his ranch. As Teer understood it, Hardin had competed with his father for his mother’s hand in marriage and lost. That was part of why he’d left to go east with the rest of the crazy and ambitious.

  Teer’s mother Alana had been destitute when Hardin’s letter had arrived. Teer hadn’t understood then, but he knew now that the Unity had lost the paperwork for his father’s enlistment. Instead of a widow-and-orphan pension that should have let them keep their tiny house in a fishing village, they’d received nothing.

  Living on the charity of their neighbors had been a struggle for Alana, so she’d taken Hardin’s offer. From what the hands had told him as he grew older, she’d tried to go to Hardin’s bed the very first night, thinking that was part of the payment—but he’d refused her.

  His own conversations with his mother suggested that Hardin had been a gentleman about the whole situation for far longer than she would have preferred, but that initial refusal was part of why she loved him.

  That had been hard enough for Teer to take, though he’d had seven turnings since the wedding to get used to it. But now, to be kicked out like this…

  He still had enough attention and habit left to tie Star to the hitching post outside the combined hotel and bar that served as Alvid’s watering hole. He didn’t really register if his hands’ horses were there before he walked into the building and took a seat at the long wooden bar.

  Unlike the crudely fashioned desk in the rental office, the bar was a labor of love. Several entire trees had been sacrificed to its construction, their only encounter with a sawmill being to flatten one side of them to create the surfaces needed for drinks.

  “Whiskey,” he ordered as he leaned on the bar.

  “Five chips,” the bartender replied a second later, eyeing him cautiously as she slid the drink across the table. “Tab?”

  “No.” Teer fished several coins of out his pocket, glanced at them blearily, then slid several blue glass shards across the table. Enough for at least half a dozen drinks. He swallowed the entire glass of whiskey and slid it back to the woman.

  “Keep ’em coming,” he requested.

  She leaned over the bar, exposing an expanse of cleavage that probably increased her tips threefold and would have held his attention more solidly at a different time, and scooped the coins.

  “Fair ’nough.”

  Another glass of amber liquid appeared in front of him. This time, he sipped it more slowly, letting the spirits burn their way down his throat as he tried to find some semblance of thought or reason to what was going on.

  Even on the wrong side of far too much liquor, he knew he needed to take time to think about Ohlman’s offer. Sober time, which right now definitely wasn’t. He was even aware enough to realize that he should probably stop drinking and get Coral and the others to help him get home.

  He’d pay for this in a few ways. Not least because he buried that voice under the rest of the glass of whiskey and waved for another. The bartender obliged, but she was starting to eye him cautiously.

  She knew Teer, after all. He couldn’t remember her name at this moment, but they’d met and chatted before. She’d occasionally—probably jokingly—threatened to make a deal with Hardin to marry him to her daughter.

  He drained the third glass, considering the world and his newfound problems through the unclear filter of the bottom of an empty glass, then looked up as the door swung open to admit a stranger.

  Something about the man held Teer’s gaze, a vague fuzziness around him that registered as wrong to him. He blinked, trying to clear away the alcohol blur, and then inhaled sharply as the stranger finally came into focus.

  He was a big man, easily Teer’s height and without the gawky frame of the dark-skinned youth. He wore a long gray canvas duster that only drew attention to the pale tone of his skin. The stranger wasn’t dark enough to be a Zeeanan, let alone a Merik, and that left few options—and his ears left only one.

  The man’s ears were long and narrow, rising out of his rough-cut black hair and pointing backward like sharp knives strapped to the stranger’s skull.

  Only one race was that pale and had ears that long. The stranger was Spehari, one of the magic-wielding overlords of the Unity. One of the bastards who’d dragged Teer’s father off to war and then broken faith with him after he’d died.

  No one else in the bar seemed to find the presence of a Spehari dressed like a long-distance rider odd. They gave the stranger the same once-over they’d give anyone and then turned back to their drinks.

  Teer tried to do the same, despite the bubbling anger tearing through him, but the stranger leaned against the bar in the empty space next to him.

  “Rum and water,” the stranger ordered. “Cheap rum, if you please.”

  “What, you don’t want the finest in the house for nothing?” Teer snapped before he could stop himself. “Isn’t that what your kind do?”

  The duster-clad rider turned to look at him with a strange look. He was fuzzy again now that he was close. It was like there was someone else superimposed over him, someone Teer couldn’t quite see.

  “My kind? I don’t know what—”

  “Your lying, filthy, knife-eared kind,” Teer snarled. “Who come from the sea and lie and betray? Why’s one of you stooping so low as to drink water?”

  “Teer, what are you on about?” the bartender demanded. “Sir, I apologize for the kid; he’s had too—”

  “Don’t apologize for me,” he snarled. “This knife-eared bastard walks in here, like he can drink with ordinary folk, like there’s no blood on his hands? He should be—”

  “You see interestingly,” the stranger said slowly, backing away from Teer and raising his hands placatingly. “I want no trouble here. I’m sorry if I’ve offended; I mean no harm.”

  Somehow, that only made Teer angrier.

  “No, sir, it’s fine. We’ll seat you elsewhere, away from this idiot.” The bartender was glaring at Teer now as she gestured for the Spehari to move away.

  “Don’t you walk away from me!” Teer shouted.

  He didn’t remember drawing the gun. He would never remember drawing the gun, but the quickshooter was in his hand before anyone in the bar could react, still at his hip as he pulled the trigger.

  He’d remember that moment for the rest of his life, the cold certainty that cut through his drunken haze to tell him that he’d aimed perfectly. For an eternally cold moment, he realized he’d just killed a man for nothing.

  But the stranger had moved almost as fast as he had. By the time Teer’s quickshooter was clear of his holster, the Spehari had a hand up facing him. Blue light flashed in the bar as a wall of shimmering energy blocked Teer’s bullet.

  The young man gaped in drunken surprise at the blatant display of magic that confirmed that the stranger was Spehari, despite everyone else’s confusion.

  He never saw the length of wood t
hat smashed into the side of his head.

  3

  Teer woke up with about six kinds of headache. Groaning, he felt at his head without opening his eyes, wincing away from the bruise along the side of his head.

  It didn’t feel like it was the only bruise. He felt like he’d fallen off a horse and been dragged along the ground. He had enough time to wonder just what had happened—and then it all came rushing back.

  He was going to be sick.

  Teer rolled off the low cot and opened his eyes, trying to find something to be sick into. He was in a bare room, maybe three paces on a side. The low cot was the only furniture, though there was at least a sink—and a bucket.

  He grabbed the bucket just in time. For several minutes, not making a mess that he suspected he’d have to clean up was his only focus.

  Finally, he was able to put the bucket aside and take another look at his surroundings. Unlike almost every structure in Alvid, the walls of the room were stone. There was a small window next to the ceiling that let light in, a long, narrow thing no one he’d ever met would fit through.

  It was still barred, which was an unnecessary confirmation of the conclusion he drew from the stone walls. There was only one stone building in Alvid: the Wardkeeper’s office and jail. The watchtower with its clock was built on the roof of the stone block Teer was now sealed inside.

  A panel slid aside in the door and someone looked through.

  “Aw, fuck,” a voice Teer couldn’t place swore. “Niles, gonna have to swap out the bucket. Grab the jug and the plate while you’re on your way over, too. Let’s make this quick.”

  The panel slid shut and Teer took a careful seat on the bed, his hands visible. He wasn’t sure how much trouble he was in—he hadn’t, thankfully, actually killed anyone—but he knew it was more than he’d ever managed before.

  Being as cooperative as he could struck him as a good idea.

  The door swung open a few minutes later. Two of the town Wardwatches, the Wardkeeper’s staff, stepped through. One was carrying a tray with a chunk of bread and a bowl of soup, with a new bucket hanging from one of the hands holding it.

  The other held a jug of water in one hand—and a drawn quickshooter in the other.

  “We going to have trouble, Teer?” Niles asked as he approached with the tray.

  “No,” Teer said. “Sober now. Not sure I’m any smarter, but sober.”

  He knew Niles, by name and face at least. The other Wardwatch he hadn’t met. They passed the jug over to Niles as the man Teer knew put the tray at the end of the cot.

  “Keeper’s orders,” the unknown Wardwatch told him. “No one’s alone with you; someone’s always armed. You made quite the scene.”

  “I recall most of it,” Teer said grimly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Isn’t my call if sorry is enough,” the Wardwatch said. “But I don’t think it’s going to cut it.”

  “No,” Teer agreed. “Sorry for the pain I’m causing you. Sorry about the rest, too, but that’s a bigger mess.”

  The Wardwatch grunted.

  “Knock on the door when you’re done with the tray,” he ordered. “We’ll collect it and you. Wardkeeper wants a word but wants you fed first.”

  That was probably meant to be exactly as non-reassuring as it sounded.

  “Thanks,” Teer said.

  The two Wardwatches stepped back together, Niles leaving the cell first and the armed officer following him.

  They were treating him like a murderer. Which was, Teer reflected, probably fair. He sighed.

  At least the soup smelled good.

  The Wardkeeper was probably the person in town who came closest to approaching a Spehari in paleness. He was a Rolin, the main race the Unity had conquered when they’d gone south from their original landing—as opposed to the Zeeanans, who they’d found when they’d gone north.

  Komo was naturally pale, though turnings of manual labor and sun had faded him to the color of tea-stained paper. His hair was more white than black now, but Teer had no illusions about the strength and speed remaining in the old Keeper’s body.

  “We need the manacles?” he asked calmly after Niles seated Teer in a chair in his office. He gestured to the metal cuffs around Teer’s wrists. “You going to do anything stupider?”

  “No,” Teer said. “Leave ’em on if you want. Won’t matter much.”

  “That’s what I figured.” Komo walked around the desk, gesturing for Niles to leave, and unlocked the manacles.

  He tossed them onto the desk as the door closed behind Niles, then continued on to lock the door behind the Wardwatch.

  The office didn’t look particularly different from the cell. It had the same high, thin window for light, the same sink in the corner—if Teer was guessing correctly, the sinks were all along one internal wall. One pipe fed all of the sinks in the building.

  It was better furnished than the cell, of course. Komo had a big handmade desk in the middle of the room, a set of shelves filled with books and mementos, and several crystal lamps to add to the natural light from the window.

  The crystal lamps were rare in the wardtowns, a luxury only someone like the Wardkeeper would have. The lamps could be made in the factories in the west, but the crystals had to be charged by an actual Spehari. That wasn’t something many of the Unity’s overlords did, which made them expensive.

  Komo’s might be getting recharged by the local magistrate as a personal favor. Anyone else’s would die out after a few seasons and need to be replaced. The light from the lamps had always bothered Teer, which meant he preferred the cheaper oil lanterns and candles anyway.

  His focus on the lamps meant it took him a moment to realize that Komo hadn’t said anything, the big Rolin standing behind him silently.

  “This is a fine mess you’ve created for us all, Teer,” he finally said. “I’d ask what you were thinking, but from the smell, I can guess.”

  Teer winced. He couldn’t smell himself, but he could take a guess at just how bad it was. He’d helped sober up a few of the hands who’d overindulged over the turnings, after all.

  “I was drunk, I was angry, I was dumb,” Teer admitted. “I should have left my cursed gun on my horse.”

  “Yes,” Komo agreed flatly. “And it’s worse than you think.”

  The Wardkeeper walked around the desk to settle down in his chair, gazing levelly at Teer across the wooden surface and the manacles sitting in the middle of it.

  “Once Lord Karn used magic to defend himself, his attempt to conceal himself was rendered quite pointless. While he is now openly among us, he has still declined to demand his Right of Retribution in this case,” the Wardkeeper told him. “He is, as a Spehari, entitled to claim the life of a non-Spehari who strikes at him. Did you even think of that?”

  Teer looked down at his hands and shook his head. He hadn’t even known that was the case. He’d been so far gone, it wouldn’t have made any difference, but he hadn’t known.

  “With Lord Karn declining his Right of Retribution, your fate falls to the hands of law and magistrate,” Komo told him. “The law of the Unity requires that you be judged by a Spehari in this case, which means Magistrate Lysus. He’s on the circuit and will return to Alvid in about five tendays. Until then, you will remain in the cells here.”

  Teer simply nodded. What else could he do?

  Komo studied him for a long moment, then sighed.

  “Do you want to know?” he asked. “How deep you’ve dug?”

  “Tell me,” Teer said. He was numb right now. Better to get it over with while he was numb.

  “There have been a number of ugly incidents back west and a handful in the Eastern Territories against the Spehari,” Komo told him. “The direction coming from the King in Winter is that there is no mercy, no leniency for those who attack Spehari.

  “Magistrate Lysus is not a generous man in the best of times and with direction from his King, he will show no weakness. What happened is beyond question and he wi
ll not care about your reasons,” the Wardkeeper said. “You have five tendays, Teer. Then Magistrate Lysus will order me to hang you over the wardstone.”

  A wardstone could be charged two ways: by a Spehari expending a portion of their own power into it—which was exhausting for the Spehari but was part of why the magistrates were Spehari—or with death.

  A wardtown’s gallows were built above its wardstone for a reason. A single execution could fuel the usual weather-mitigating use of a wardstone for over a turning.

  Teer had been wrong. He wasn’t numb after all, and he found himself staring at Komo in terror. He had managed to avoid accepting that that was a risk. But now it was laid out clearly.

  “I see,” he finally whispered.

  “You asked,” Komo told him. “It’s not what I would do. It’s not what even Lysus would have ordered a turning ago. But it’s what’s going to happen, boy, and I can’t change it. Take what peace you can find in that cell.

  “It’s all I can give you.”

  4

  Over the next few candlemarks, Teer began to appreciate just how small the building the Wardkeeper worked out of was. It basically consisted of a single corridor with six identical rooms on each side. One of the rooms presumably held the stairs to the watchtower, and one was the Keeper’s office. The other ten were mostly cells like the one Teer was locked in.

  The entire structure was maybe thirty paces long. Even with the cell door closed and barred, Teer could hear almost everything going on in the building. If he focused a bit, he could make out entire conversations.

  There were three Wardwatches who worked in the building: Niles and Gon—the two who’d dropped off his food when he woke up—and Atara, a woman Teer knew by name at least.

  After several candlemarks awake in his cell, he now knew that Atara was the Wardkeeper’s lover, that Gon was married to the bartender, Lis, and that Niles had two boyfriends who both worked on the stockyard’s limited permanent staff.