## Chapter 444 — B-Rank Morning had reached the room without either of them doing much about it. Lethira lay on her side beneath the covers, one knee drawn up, ash-brown hair spread untidily across the pillow. The temporary bed was still too narrow for the amount of space she occupied when asleep. Ian had been correct about that. She had been awake for several minutes. "I think I'm going to the Guild today." Her fingers traced absently along the sheet between them. "Not for another sheep, or somebody's grain shed. I want to look at the B board." There was quiet satisfaction in saying it. The assessment had removed the restriction; the letter on her tag was no longer something Merrowford accepted only in principle. Garran had watched her work, corrected her once, annoyed her several times, and signed off on exactly what she had wanted proved: she was still fit for the grade she had earned years ago. Lethira shifted closer. "And if there's something there I actually want, I think I'm going to take it." A pause. "Alone." Her eyes stayed on Ian's. "Not because I've suddenly become tired of my attendant. You're very decorative, and occasionally useful." The humour passed without becoming the point. "I liked the assessment day. Going into the forest without having to think about whether I was slowing myself to human pace. Knowing you were somewhere else, doing your impossible things, and that we'd both come home afterwards." She reached across and rested her hand lightly against him. "I want more of that. Not constantly. But enough that being together doesn't mean we stop having separate lives." Her thumb moved once. "A proper B job might be a day. It might be three. Depends what's on the board." Then her mouth curved. "So. How badly are you going to cope with your Wood Elf abandoning you in our half-furnished house while she goes adventuring?" "I will try to rebuild my broken heart," Ian said, sarcasm plain in his voice. "For the first time, it's also morning in my reality and I'll be heading to work here soon. I quite like the fact we are both going out at a similar time." He looked at her and kissed her. Lethira kissed him back, slow enough that the Guild could wait another minute. "I like that too. You going to your work. Me going to mine. Then eventually both of us coming back and complaining about whichever part was irritating." Her mouth curved. "Although if your day contains more danger than my B-rank contract, I reserve the right to be annoyed." "My work is considerably closer to that of a manager of clerks, so obviously A-rank." Ian smiled, plainly not believing his own assertion. Lethira narrowed her eyes at him. "A-rank clerical management. Dangerous correspondence. Hostile meetings. Senior officials nesting in poorly labelled documents." She moved closer beneath the covers and kissed him once, briefly. "I'll still expect you home in one piece." "Shall we meet back here, or in town for some early evening dinner?" Lethira considered it. "In town. If I take something that keeps me out overnight, I'll leave word through the Guild. Otherwise, I'll meet you at the Reed and Wheel around early evening." A small smile appeared. "That way we both get to arrive from work and pretend we're respectable adults meeting for dinner." "Sounds lovely. I think I have one unranked aide duty first." Lethira's eyebrow rose. "Do you." She stayed where she was, warm beneath the covers and plainly in no hurry to rescue him from explaining himself. "What duty has my aide assigned himself?" "To ensure my Lady dresses well for high-stakes adventure, by observing her prepare." Ian blushed a tiny fraction. Lethira looked at him, then at the blanket, then back again. Her ears shifted just enough to betray the amusement she was otherwise containing. "Observing. An essential aide function, obviously." She pushed the covers back and sat up. "You may observe. Try to learn something useful." Lethira crossed to the chair where she had laid out her field things the night before. For a few moments there was little between Ian's attention and the body travelling clothes usually reduced to a practical silhouette: tall, long-limbed and lean-athletic, with a mature feminine shape and the pale interruptions of old scars earned across more than a century of field work. Her strength sat lightly on her frame; experience showed more readily in the way she moved. She caught him looking and smiled once, without embarrassment. The first layer was soft and close-fitting; over it came dark green-brown trousers cut for movement and a long-sleeved field tunic. Lethira worked each fastening by habit, checked the fabric at shoulder and hip, then added the darker leather outer layer that would take thorns and bark before either reached skin. The restored B-rank tag went onto her belt where it could be seen without swinging loose. Her two knives followed, one to either side, each sheath tested by touch. Her hair took longer. She gathered the ash-brown length back from her face, tied it high enough to clear bowstring and collar, then freed a strand caught beneath one silver ear cuff. Field preparation changed the room by degrees. The woman who had been warm beneath the blankets remained entirely herself while equipment found its places and the warden became easier to see. Boots came next. Lethira stamped each heel down, tightened the closures, then lifted the longbow from where it rested. Her fingers passed over limb, grip and string with practised care. The quiver settled at the angle she preferred. Into the small pack went water, food, cord, cloth, simple field supplies and enough empty space for whatever a contract unexpectedly made necessary. When she straightened, she turned once for Ian's benefit, slowly enough that the inspection could not be mistaken for accidental. Amusement sat openly in her expression. "Well?" Before the question could become another private rank system, she crossed back to the bed. "Your professional opinion can wait until dinner." Lethira bent, one hand against the side of his face, and kissed him goodbye. The kiss lingered beyond practicality, warm and familiar, until the bow at her shoulder made the angle inconvenient. She drew back with her forehead briefly against his. "Early evening, if the board cooperates." Then she took her pack and left for the Guild. --- By the time Lethira reached the market square, Merrowford had properly started its day. Carts edged around one another beneath shouted advice nobody followed, shutters stood open over counters, and bread from one street mixed with horses and river damp from another. The Guild's widened timber frontage caught the morning light above the old stone foundation. Inside, the lower boards were busy. Two young adventurers argued over a cellar notice while a courier copied an escort route onto waxed paper. Somebody near the counter smelled strongly of wet wool. Brannock's eyes went first to Lethira's tag. "Assessment survived, then." "Garran survived too." Brannock pulled a ledger towards herself. "He complained about your movement in the report. I assume you consider that praise." "Naturally." The clerk pointed with an ink-marked finger towards the board farther along the wall. Two B notices were clearly multi-day work; another required a second specialist who had not yet signed on. The remaining notice had gone up the previous afternoon and, if the ground proved as described, could be finished before dark. It concerned the low western drainage ground, where a managed channel crossed reed beds before feeding towards the larger river system. A sounder of Reed Maulers had broken two banks, wrecked a bean plot and pushed into a path used by ditch crews. One labourer had been gored in the thigh and survived. A C-rank pair sent to assess the animals had confirmed at least four, including one mature sow, then withdrawn when the reeds denied them a safe line of sight. The contract asked for the sounder's size to be confirmed, the mature animals presenting the immediate threat to be removed, and the bank damage checked for a den or other reason the monsters had settled there. Local crews were keeping clear until the Guild reported the path safe enough to approach. Lethira read it twice. The danger sat in the ground as much as in the animals: wet footing, limited sight-lines, several bodies moving together, and workers who would have to return once she was done. The job had a clear endpoint and no obvious reason to keep her away overnight. She carried the notice back to Brannock. "This one." The clerk checked the unrestricted line beside Lethira's name. "Alone?" "Yes." Brannock turned the ledger around and indicated the signature line. "West gate, then the outer drainage road. The ditch foreman left a white-cloth marker at the last safe crossing. Bring proof, not a carcass." Lethira signed and took the stamped contract strip. Outside the older town, newer houses thinned into workshops, gardens and hedged fields; beyond them, packed earth ran between drainage ditches still bright with recent rain. She settled into a pace that belonged entirely to her, long and easy, letting distance pass without matching anyone else's stride. The marker waited beside a narrow plank crossing, white cloth tied around a willow stake. Beyond it, the managed ditch widened and the reeds thickened into a pale-green wall broken by muddy runs. Lethira stayed on the firm side and read the ground before deciding where to put her weight. A wedge-shaped print had sunk deep beside the water, its edges softened by yesterday's damp. Another lay half across it. Coarse dark spines clung to splintered willow bark at shoulder height, and the bank beyond had been rooted open, wet clay kicked backwards in heavy fans. She worked outward from the obvious sign until separate paths began to emerge. The C-rank pair had been conservative. There were five animals, not four: three younger maulers and two mature adults. The sow's track was deepest and broadest through the shoulder line. A large male had used a parallel run closer to the channel. No piglet-sized prints followed either adult. Farther along the safe edge, Lethira found yesterday's rooting and a smear of dried blood on a broken stem, probably from the injured worker. The maulers had not pursued beyond the open path. The attack had most likely begun at close range in their feeding ground. A willow leaned over the wet ground at an angle that made its first branch almost a stair. Lethira climbed high enough to see over the reeds and settled with one boot braced against the trunk. She waited until her own movement stopped belonging to the scene. Wind pressed broad patterns through the reed tops. Water flashed in narrow strips beneath them. Two marsh birds rose, complained at the interruption, and moved farther downstream. After several minutes a dark ridge moved against the wind. A young Reed Mauler emerged onto a mud shelf thirty paces away. Its wedge head and curved lower tusks would have made the resemblance to an ordinary boar convincing if not for the stiff reed-like spines running over its shoulders. It drank, lifted its head and vanished again. Two more younger animals appeared separately along neighbouring runs before the reeds closed over them. The adults stayed hidden. Lethira climbed down on the dry side and circled south. The broken bank answered the contract's other question before the monsters returned: repeated rooting had pulled loose an old stone edge, and water had scoured a shallow pocket behind it. The maulers had enlarged the weakness because wet soil held roots and grubs. There was no den, no bedding and no protected young. The damaged channel was simply easy feeding, close to crops and close enough to workers that the next surprise meeting would be dangerous again. Killing the sounder would not repair the bank. Leaving the two mature animals to keep defending it would not help the people repairing it either. She chose a raised strip of old field bank along the eastern reed edge. Alder roots held it above the wet ground, and from there she had a clear line to the mud shelf and the main run. Anything that charged would have to leave cover before closing the last twenty paces. A tree behind her offered height if an injured animal crossed that distance faster than expected. Lethira nocked an arrow and waited. This part had changed least across a century: wind against her cheek, tension against three fingers, the patient calculation of distance and angle while an animal remained unaware that somebody else had begun making choices about the same ground. The first young mauler came out and she let it pass. The second followed, smaller, and received the same mercy. The adult male appeared ten minutes later, scarred across the left shoulder, and stepped broadside onto the mud shelf to root beneath the bank. Lethira drew. The bow bent into familiar weight; she held only long enough for the line to become clean and released. The arrow entered behind the foreleg. The mauler lunged forward, threw mud across the shelf and made three hard strides into the reeds before crashing heavily enough to shake water from the stalks. The reed bed erupted. Three younger animals broke in different directions, splashing through runs they had used often enough to trust. Lethira had another arrow nocked when the sow came out of the central path. She was larger than the track suggested, heavy through the shoulders, curved tusks dark with mud. She did not follow the younger animals. She saw Lethira on the raised bank and charged. The next arrow struck too high, cutting through the spine-bristles and burying shallowly behind the shoulder. The sow barely altered her pace. Twenty paces became fifteen while Lethira stepped sideways along the bank and drew again. The mauler tried to change angle, lost half a stride in the mud and came onto firmer ground with frightening speed. Lethira's third shot went through the throat at the base of the jaw. Momentum carried the sow onward. Lethira used the alder as she had planned, one hand and one boot taking her above the charge line before the animal reached the place she had occupied. The mauler struck the bank, staggered beneath the tree and collapsed against the roots. Lethira stayed on the branch with another arrow ready until the reeds became only wind and water again. Her heart beat hard, her breathing deeper than it had been on the walk out. The second shot had been poor enough to matter, and the animal had made sure she knew it. When the sow still breathed after several minutes, Lethira ended it with one close arrow. The male was already dead. The three younger animals did not return; their tracks left the reed bed in separate directions and continued beyond the feeding ground. Mud covered one boot nearly to mid-calf. A reed spine had scored the leather of her outer sleeve without reaching skin, and the arrow that had struck high on the sow was broken where the animal fell against the bank. Lethira recovered what she could, took the short sections of back-spine the notice specified as proof from the two mature animals, and marked the carcass locations for the ditch crew. The inspection after the fight took longer than the fight itself. Water had undermined more stone than the surface collapse suggested, loosening two courses near the break. The maulers had exposed the weakness and worsened it, but had not created all of it. Lethira tied cloth where the edge was least trustworthy, sketched the relation between the channel, rooting pocket and path on the back of the contract sheet, and added a note that the bank should be repaired before crews worked inside the reeds again. She washed her hands with water from her flask and ate lunch in the willow's shade: bread, cheese and dried fruit packed before any of the morning had acquired blood. By the time she finished, the tightness of the engagement had drained out of her shoulders. What remained was the satisfaction of work that had asked for things she knew how to do. The walk back to Merrowford took less time than the outward search. She did not need to read every verge now; the road could simply be a road. --- Brannock was still at the records counter when Lethira returned in the later afternoon. Her eyes went to the mud, the scored sleeve and the two proof bundles before settling on Lethira's face. "How many?" "Five by sign. Three young dispersed. Mature sow and adult male killed. No den. They were feeding in an undermined bank, and the bank needs work before you send crews back into the reeds." The clerk opened the proof bundles, confirmed what she needed and pulled the report sheet closer. Lethira gave her the sequence in order: track count, blood location, observation from height, feeding pocket, engagement site, direction of the younger animals and the unstable stone courses. She laid the rough sketch beside the written report. Brannock read it once, then tapped the drawing. "Closure on the reed-side path until repair?" "Yes. The open field edge is usable if somebody keeps watch. Once the bank is rebuilt, check for fresh sign before you call the problem finished." The clerk wrote two short notes, stamped the completion line and pushed the payment token across the counter. "B-rank completion accepted. Follow-up after the drainage crew goes in." Lethira took the token and stepped aside for the adventurer waiting behind her. Nobody appeared to care that this was the first unrestricted B contract she had completed from Merrowford in the current stretch of her life. The board had said B when she walked in that morning; it still said B now. Outside, the market was turning towards evening. Shops that had opened at dawn were closing shutters while food stalls and inns began their second life of the day. Lethira paused beside a public trough to scrub the worst mud from her boot and inspect the scored sleeve. The leather would want oil and a small patch later. The Reed and Wheel's common-room windows were already warm against the cooling street when she reached Bridge Street. Lethira went inside, chose a table with a view of the door and set her bow safely against the wall beside her chair. Caswick noticed the mud before offering the evening board. "Successful day?" Lethira glanced at the shallow score in her sleeve, then at the clean B-rank tag at her belt. "Yes." She ordered a drink and settled in to wait for dinner.