## Chapter 469 — One Road-Mark

Morning began with another cart of earth.

Lethira heard the wheels before she saw them: the change in rhythm at the northern turn, the brief murmur of a driver to the horse, then the heavier sound of the load reaching the rise. She was already dressed for the road. Her bow and quiver rested near the door, and a small pack sat open on the scarred table beside yesterday's list.

Food, water, cloth and a spare bowstring had gone in first. The rest still waited on paper: rope, two lamps and fuel, chalk, marking cord, a small hammer and something to keep notes dry. At the bottom, in her own hand, was the line she had considered overnight and retained in daylight.

*Turn around while turning around is still easy.*

Outside, the earthworkers spread another load across the broad base of the future backstop. Lethira walked the edge once, checked the mature trees and the softer ground towards the stream, then left them to the job they plainly knew how to do. By the time she came back inside, the pack was closed and the house required nothing from her.

She rested one hand on the back of a chair and looked at the expedition list again.

“Someone looks pleased with themself.”

Lethira's mouth moved before she turned.

“I am going into town to ask a clerk whether I am permitted to investigate a hole in the ground. Apparently this is enough to make me happy now.”

She touched the folded list. Yesterday the cave had been information supplied by Ian's reality engine: a substantial limestone system somewhere roughly forty miles north, hidden behind a seasonal water-cut, with an underground stream and something territorial deeper inside. Today there would be road, rope, mud and whatever the ridge actually chose to reveal.

“I prefer it when a place has the opportunity to disagree with the description.”

“Then let's be on our way. Guild first or supplies first?”

“Guild first.” Lethira settled the pack over one shoulder. “If Brannock tells us the ridge belongs to somebody else, or that another branch owns the problem, I would rather learn that before buying enough rope to look professionally foolish.”

She headed for the door. “After that, supplies. Then one road-mark.”

Ian and Lethira headed into town and to the Guild.

Merrowford gathered around them by degrees: farm traffic on the western road, smoke above the roofs, baskets being unloaded near the gate and enough people moving through the morning streets that a Wood Elf with a bow and her foreign human aide drew little more than passing notice. The Guild hall was already busy. One pair of adventurers occupied the end of the counter with something unpleasant wrapped in oilcloth; farther along, a man was trying to persuade a clerk that a damaged boot belonged on somebody else's account.

Brannock looked up from her records when Lethira reached her.

“Back already.”

“The mill failed to kill us.”

“I had noticed.” Brannock's ink-marked finger stayed against the line she had been reading. “What now?”

“I need to know how you want an unrecorded site handled.”

That earned her full attention.

“What sort of site?”

“A substantial natural cave system, if the information is right. North of Merrowford. Not beside a settlement or known road. Ordinary cave life, probably. Something more dangerous deeper in.”

“And you know about an unrecorded cave because?”

Lethira had expected that question. “Information from a source I trust enough to investigate and not enough to put into your ledger as fact before I have seen it.”

Brannock regarded her for a moment. “I dislike that answer.”

“Yes.”

Brannock pushed one sheet aside and folded her hands over the next.

“The Guild does not acquire every hole in the ground because an adventurer finds it. If the ridge belongs to a household, village, forestry right, grazing ground or other recognised use, that matters. If you find people using it, you find out whose ground you are standing on.”

Lethira nodded.

“If it is genuinely unrecorded and you are not trespassing on somebody's work, you are B-rank. I do not need to issue you permission to discover that geology dislikes you.” Brannock's gaze shifted briefly to Ian and back. “What I want afterward is a report useful to the next person. A route from something people already know. Entrances. Bad stone. Water. Creatures, where you can establish them without becoming stupid. Signs of current or older human use.”

“And if it should be closed?”

“You tell me before somebody finds the entrance, sees a dark hole and decides it ought to be an E-rank adventure.”

“That was the plan.”

“Good. If it turns out to fall outside this branch's useful reach, I can send the report to whoever owns the problem.” Brannock pulled her previous sheet back into place. “Try not to make the problem larger while identifying it.”

Lethira's expression suggested that advice had been received before.

Ian nodded, and when the Guild visit was done, they went to get supplies.

Merrowford required several shops rather than one obliging expedition merchant. The rope came first. Lethira rejected the lightest coil after running it through her hands and examining the twist near one end. The second was heavier, tightly laid and plainly intended for work. She asked what people normally trusted it to hold, heard quarry baskets and roof beams in reply, and bought enough for their survey without buying enough to resent carrying it.

“Rope becomes less useful when the person carrying it begins to hate the rope.”

Chalk and marking cord came from a smaller shop nearer the market. The lamps took longer. Lethira wanted enclosed flames, stable bases and shutters; one design was rejected because the handle became part of the hot metal body, another because the seller described a loose hinge as easy to repair. They eventually left with two compact metal lamps, spare wicks and more oil than Lethira expected to use on a first survey. The hammer was simple. For notes she chose a waxed-leather document wrap with a folded cloth inside, large enough for paper and charcoal without becoming another bag.

By the time they finished, the pack had acquired real weight. Lethira adjusted the straps, walked several paces and accepted the balance.

Nothing administrative remained between them and the ridge.

“One road-mark?” she said.

“Yes, let's find somewhere discreet to leave from.”

They moved away from the market and the busier streets, eventually finding an empty stretch screened from the road by stacked timber and a high hedge. After moving, Ian took her hand because he enjoyed holding it.

Then they appeared one road-mark from their destination.

Merrowford vanished.

Woodland stood around them instead. It was not the deep Elven forest: the trees were younger, the canopy lower, the ground uneven with pale limestone breaking through thin soil. Beech and ash held the slope, hazel crowded beneath them and moss softened the exposed stone where it could. Somewhere downslope, water moved intermittently through rock.

Lethira's fingers tightened around Ian's once at the abrupt change, then her attention went outward.

“No road.”

A faint animal track crossed the slope. She dismissed it after a glance. There was no recent cut timber, no wall, no charcoal platform, nothing that immediately declared ownership or regular human work.

The sound of water came and went through the trees.

“The machine said a seasonal water-cut hid the usable entrance. I would find the drainage and follow it against the flow.”

She glanced at Ian. “Unless you have noticed something I haven't.”

Ian shook his head.

“Good.”

Lethira faced downslope again, tested the broken ground with one boot and chose a shallow diagonal rather than the quickest route. “Then we do this the ordinary way.”

Ian followed, perhaps one step behind so he would not get into her view, and looked around at the landscape more broadly.

The ridge was less dramatic than the machine's summary had made it sound. No cliff advertised a convenient black entrance. Limestone surfaced in shelves and scattered ribs, sometimes no larger than paving stones, sometimes broad enough to interrupt the slope. Water had shaped more of the ground than first appeared. Dry hollows ran between the trees. One narrow stream crossed pale gravel and disappeared beneath roots; another channel contained only damp leaves and rounded stone.

There were signs of animals rather than people. Deer had crossed a softer patch. Bark had been rubbed from a young trunk. A dark opening beneath a fallen tree proved to be roots and shadow.

Lethira stopped at a shallow runnel and touched damp stone where water had passed recently. Her gaze went uphill.

“This one is seasonal.”

The channel barely existed beyond the next trees, becoming a scatter of rounded limestone and darker leaf mould.

“That is more interesting.”

She changed course and followed it uphill.

Ian looked at the water-cut, following its line and trying to see what she could see while he followed her.

Once he stopped looking for water and looked for continuity, the marks became easier to recognise. Small stones had rolled until their upper faces were cleaner than the ground around them. Leaves collected behind roots in hooked little dams. Moss thickened along one edge of a limestone shelf and vanished where seasonal flow had scoured it away.

Lethira slowed enough for him to study the same patch.

“There.” She pointed with two fingers. “The water is only one part of it. Look at what it keeps doing to everything else.”

A few paces farther uphill, the cut narrowed between low limestone shoulders and seemed to end against a broken shelf. Lethira crouched.

“No.”

The gravel continued beneath it. A dark seam under the stone was only a handspan high in places, choked with leaves and washed twigs, but the debris had been drawn towards the gap rather than piled away from it.

“It goes underneath.”

Her mouth curved. “We're following the right water.”

Ian let her continue working.

Lethira studied the low gap for a while, then stood and traced the rock shelf sideways instead of forcing anything. The limestone rose through roots and moss. For several dozen paces there was nothing but cracks and shallow hollows. Then the ground dipped and the seasonal channel appeared again as a broad washed scar through the leaves.

Gravel had collected in a fan at the base of the ridge. Hazel roots hung over a recess which looked shallow from their approach and became depth from three paces to one side. A faint breath of cool air moved the nearest leaves.

Lethira approached around the edge. She checked the soil, the loose stone above and the roots holding part of the overhang before crouching at the threshold.

The usable entrance was low and irregular. Seasonal water had worn a groove through the floor, carrying loose debris inward. Moss stopped where daylight weakened. Small animal tracks disturbed the damp margin, too degraded to give her much more than repeated traffic.

She looked back at Ian. The pleasure she had been carrying since breakfast had finally stopped pretending to be restraint.

“We found it.”

“Great job, do we widen it, secure it, or just go in?”

“Not widen it.”

Lethira touched the stone beside the washed channel, not the overhang itself. “If we start cutting before we know what is carrying weight, we may make a safe entrance worse. We would change the drainage too.”

She studied the roots again. “And I see nothing that needs securing simply because it makes us nervous. We mark the entrance, record it and go in carefully. If the first section tells us the roof is bad, we come out.”

She slipped off the pack, took out one lamp and checked the shutter, wick and fuel before lighting it.

“We do not improve a cave before we've met it.”

“Let me know if I can help, but this looks like expert-level work.”

“It is mostly slow work. Expertise teaches you what deserves slowing down for.”

Lethira opened the pack again and offered him the chalk. “You can help. Mark the entrance somewhere rain is unlikely to erase immediately. One clear sign we will recognise. Keep the second lamp with you, unlit for now.”

Ian took the chalk and the second lamp, then looked for a suitable stone to mark. A weathered limestone face stood just outside the washed channel, visible from their approach but above the obvious runoff. He checked with Lethira before marking.

She followed his choice with her eyes and nodded. “That one. High enough to last, low enough that we will see it when we're tired.”

Ian marked it with a cross.

The pale chalk stood clearly against the darker surface.

Lethira checked it once, lowered her lamp and entered first. The initial passage forced her to bend almost double. Rounded gravel shifted underfoot, and damp staining followed the lower walls. Roots showed briefly through cracks near the entrance, then disappeared as the daylight weakened behind her.

After several body lengths the ceiling rose. Lethira stopped before committing farther.

The lamp revealed a small natural chamber ahead, pale limestone folding into irregular walls. Damp gravel covered part of the floor. Two continuations were visible: one roughly level and drier, the other descending until its floor disappeared beyond the light. Water sounded somewhere below.

“Entrance is sound enough so far,” she said quietly.

“Shall I come in?”

“Yes.” Lethira moved farther into the chamber to make room. “Keep the lamp unlit for now, watch the gravel, and do not put your hand on the ceiling because it happens to be close.”

Her mouth shifted. “I would prefer our first discovery not to be which stone was waiting for a human to lean on it.”

Ian carefully followed the path she had taken, trying to avoid the ceiling. The first few paces were awkward rather than difficult; then the passage opened enough for him to straighten beside her.

The air had changed. Outside had smelled of leaves and soil. Here there was cool stone, mineral damp and moving water somewhere beyond the lamp's reach. The entrance behind them was already a much smaller patch of daylight.

Lethira moved the lamp across the fork. Near the descending route, damp sediment carried old animal marks: narrow toes, a longer impression behind, overlapping traces too softened to identify with confidence.

“Animal,” she said. “Not fresh enough for much else.”

The level passage was drier. No obvious track marked it.

She listened to the water below, then took out the chalk and made a short mark at the junction pointing back towards daylight. A second mark identified the descending route.

“Not because I expect to become lost this close to the entrance. Because this is where we begin the habit.”

The lower route had water and traffic. Lethira turned towards the level one.

“I would rather learn what the cave does before following the part trying hardest to draw us deeper.”

“Are we drawing a map, or something like a map, as we go?”

“Yes.”

She opened the waxed document wrap and took out paper and charcoal. Crouching near the fork, she sketched the low entrance, the short rise into the chamber and both continuations.

“Not a surveyor's map. Enough that we can return, or Brannock can hand it to somebody competent and they understand the shape we actually found. Junctions, rises, descents, water, bad footing. Counted paces where counting helps. Estimates where pretending precision would be stupid.”

She added the chalk marks.

“If we find another entrance, a shaft, or somewhere excellent for dying while confidently believing you are somewhere else, that goes on too.”

They took the level passage.

It remained easy for a while. Lethira counted rough paces between changes of direction and stopped only when the route changed enough to matter. Pale droppings lay near one wall. Tiny bones gathered beneath a crack too narrow for either of them. Something with many small feet retreated from the edge of the lamplight before Ian could make out more than movement.

A first side passage tightened quickly into an upward crack. Lethira looked far enough to establish that and crossed it off the useful map.

“Not everything deserves exploration because it exists.”

The main passage bent again and began sloping down. The change was subtle until loose grit started favouring the same direction beneath their boots. Water returned, stronger now, a continuous sound beyond the next bend.

Lethira slowed.

The passage opened onto empty space.

Lethira stopped abruptly. Ian checked himself behind her. Her lamp found the edge of a broad limestone ledge overlooking a much larger chamber. The far wall remained outside its reach. Below, perhaps two or three house-heights down, an underground stream crossed the darkness between shelves of pale stone. Water flashed when the light caught it and vanished again.

“Now that is a cave.”

Lethira crouched well back from the edge and moved the lamp across what she could see. A natural descent followed the right-hand wall in broken shelves. To the left, the ledge narrowed behind hanging limestone.

Then the light stopped on something beside the stream.

Bone.

A long section of rib cage lay on a lower shelf, stripped nearly clean. Part of a broad skull rested farther away. The remains were old enough to have dried pale, but not old enough to belong to the cave itself. Three deep parallel scratches scored damp stone above them, each longer than Ian's hand.

Lethira's pleasure did not vanish; it narrowed into field attention.

“The machine said something territorial lived deeper.” She kept the light on the scratches. “I think we have found where *deeper* begins.”

“We continue?”

Lethira considered the lower shelf, the stream and the route down.

“Yes. But not by following the scratches.”

She examined the broken descent along the right wall. “This is still a survey. We find whether we can reach the stream cleanly, mark the route and learn what uses the chamber. If the sign tells me the animal is close, we do not go looking for it merely because we came here hoping for adventure.”

Her mouth curved faintly. “I can be excited and sensible at the same time.”

“I'm glad one of us can retain sense and excitement.” Ian smiled at her and let her continue to lead them forward.

“I said I *can*. I did not claim the proportions were equal.”

The first shelf was broad. The second was narrower, rounded by old water. Lethira tested each surface before trusting it. A pale limestone projection above the route failed her first serious pull as a rope point; a thicker rib farther back did not move. She looped the rope around it and fed the loose length down.

“I am going first.”

She used the rope for balance rather than hanging her weight from it and descended one shelf, then another. On the lower section she stopped.

The stone at roughly shoulder height had been rubbed smooth across a broad patch. Coarse hairs clung in a crack beside it. Below, damp grit carried old displacement from something heavy using the same line.

Lethira looked back up.

“Stay there a moment.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.”

She lowered herself another shelf. From there a protected hollow in the grit held a clearer print: broad, four forward toes, claw tips impressed beyond them, the pad behind wider than her palm. Older impressions overlapped it.

“Large predator. Regular route.”

The next shelf shifted under a testing foot. Lethira withdrew immediately.

“No.”

She moved the lamp right. Behind a projecting rib, a narrow traverse continued towards a broader shelf descending at a gentler angle. “There may be a better way down. Ian, light your lamp now.”

Ian lit the lamp.

The second flame changed the chamber. Light from above caught the traverse behind the limestone rib and showed that the ledge continued farther than the first angle had suggested.

“Better.”

Lethira climbed back one shelf, shifted the rope and worked sideways. The traverse narrowed to little more than a boot's width in places, then opened onto a broader sloping shelf with rougher footing. No rubbed wall marked it. No obvious prints crossed the first stretch.

She went down far enough for the stream to become clearer. Dark water moved quickly through a channel several strides wide and disappeared beneath a low downstream arch. The old carcass lay upstream, partly screened by a fallen slab.

Then Lethira stopped.

Large droppings sat on the shelf. They were fresh enough that the surface had not dried pale; hair and tiny pieces of bone showed where one had broken against the stone.

“These are fresh.”

The stream seemed louder once she said it.

A scrape came from beyond the low arch. Heavy against stone. Then another.

“Yes,” Ian whispered. He prepared to prevent any serious injury.

Nothing visible changed. The rope remained rope; wet limestone remained capable of poor footing. Lethira stayed crouched, her bow coming off her shoulder slowly without being drawn.

A shape entered the edge of the lamplight downstream.

At first it was a head held low: blunt-muzzled, dark-furred and broader through the skull than a wolf, with small rounded ears. One forepaw came onto the wet stone, large enough to make the earlier print immediately plausible. The animal moved farther from beneath the arch without hurrying. Its body was long and heavy through the shoulders, grey-brown fur darkened with water, somewhere between a great mustelid and a low-built bear without being either. Old scars crossed the muzzle. One eye reflected the lamp. The other did not.

It stopped beside the stream and watched.

Lethira did not raise her bow. She held the lamp low rather than shining it into the animal's face.

“Cave mauler,” she said, barely above the water. “C-rank. This one is old.”

Ian kept still and let Lethira lead.

For several breaths she did nothing except watch the mauler and the ledge beneath her own boots. Then she began to retreat, one careful step at a time. The animal's head followed. It did not advance.

When she had several more paces between herself and the water, Lethira stopped.

“It is guarding this route, not hunting us.”

Her bow stayed low. “That is enough surveying for this chamber. Back up the way we came.”

Ian nodded.

Lethira climbed first, retaining the same unhurried pace she had used to withdraw. The cave mauler remained below, watching from beside the stream. At the traverse she turned sideways and worked back behind the limestone rib. Only when she reached the upper shelf did her shoulders ease by a degree.

“Good. It is letting us leave. Let's respect that.”

She shifted aside. “You first. I'll watch below.”

Ian walked on carefully, checking for chalk marks as he went. The first pale mark appeared where they had left it at the upper junction, simple enough to recognise even under uneven lamplight. Behind him, Lethira waited until he had reached the upper junction before leaving the ledge herself.

The mauler did not follow.

At the smaller chamber, Lethira resettled her bow and looked towards the small rectangle of daylight beyond the entrance passage.

“I would like daylight now.”

Ian and Lethira exited.

The low entrance was more awkward on the way out. Ian ducked beneath the stone, followed the washed groove through the gravel and emerged beneath the hazel roots into woodland light. Lethira came through behind him with her lamp almost shuttered, straightened and looked back at the recess in the ridge.

The chalk cross remained clear.

“Well.” A slow smile returned. “We found the cave. And we found the part of it that belongs to something else.”

“That felt quite different from sheep and badgers.”

Lethira laughed once, then looked back towards the entrance.

“Yes.” Her excitement had sharpened into respect. “The sheep wanted rescuing. The badger wanted us to stop making its life difficult. That thing wanted us to understand where its ground began.”

She adjusted the pack. “I think we did.”

“Shall we walk a little way towards civilisation so we can provide more useful directions that don't involve teleportation?”

“Yes. Brannock asked for a route another competent person could actually follow.”

Lethira began following the seasonal drainage downhill rather than retracing their exact approach. “If we can connect this to a road, holding, bridge or anything people already recognise, the report becomes useful instead of *walk north until reality becomes helpful*.”

She looked along the slope. “And I would like to know whose ground this becomes.”

Ian reached out to take her hand. Lethira gave him hers without breaking stride, their fingers lacing as the ground eased.

“Better than the cave?” she asked after a few paces. “No claws.”

Ian smiled. “Oh I don't know, you can be quite dangerous.”

“That is true.”

Lethira considered him sideways, then returned her attention to the slope. “I generally give more warning.”

“One I'd find sharing a confined space with significantly more enjoyable.”

That earned him a longer look.

“That depends very heavily on the confined space.” Her mouth curved. “A bedroom, perhaps. A collapsing culvert, less so.”

They carried on through less deadly nature.

The water-cut broadened gradually. Damp leaves became a stony runnel, then acquired enough water that stepping across it was preferable to walking through it. Bare limestone appeared less often as the ridge softened into deeper soil and more ordinary woodland undergrowth. Birds became the most conspicuous inhabitants again. Something small crashed through bracken ahead of them and fled with considerably more urgency than either Ian or Lethira felt.

Lethira kept his hand on the easier stretches and released it only where both of hers were more useful.

Eventually she stopped beside a tree whose lower bark had been cut cleanly years before. Moss softened the edges, but the mark was deliberate.

“Old boundary blaze.”

Another appeared farther downhill. Then a narrow path emerged among the trees, too consistent for an animal trail and too lightly used for carts. Somebody had cut a fallen branch from it recently enough that the exposed wood had not greyed. A shallow muddy place had been reinforced with fist-sized stone.

“This is useful.”

Lethira added the path to her field map where it crossed the drainage.

“Should we carry on a bit? If she asks for more local knowledge, we'll not be able to answer like people who walked here.”

Lethira looked along the maintained path.

“Yes. We have enough cave to report. We do not yet have enough countryside.”

They followed it downhill. The old blazes continued at irregular intervals, some nearly swallowed by bark growth. The trees eventually opened onto a narrow strip of rough grazing and a small timber shelter with a stone lower wall. No smoke rose from it. A fenced enclosure beside it stood empty, the rails repaired in several ages of wood.

Lethira stopped beneath the tree line. The gate had been hooked open, grass inside stood nearly as high as the grazing beyond, and a small bundle of cut hazel rods was stored dry beneath one rail. An upside-down trough beside the wall had been turned deliberately against the weather.

“Seasonal,” she said. “Not abandoned.”

A broader track left the shelter downhill, wide enough for a small cart. Through breaks in the trees, worked fields showed farther below.

“If we can find whoever uses this, I would rather ask before we report. They may know the spring cut, winter stonefall and what normally comes down from the ridge.”

“Let's do that. The rest of the journey I doubt she'll ask about.”

Ian and Lethira followed the broader track downhill.

“I agree. Brannock needs directions to the place, not proof that we walked every road-mark between here and Merrowford.”

The first worked field appeared beyond another line of trees, followed by a low stone wall and a small holding tucked into the lee of the hill. A few sheep grazed behind a rough fence. Split wood stood beneath an awning. An older human woman was repairing a wicker hurdle beside the yard and noticed them before they reached the gate.

Lethira stopped outside the fence.

“Good morning. We're trying to identify the grazing shelter uphill from here.”

“The stone-bottomed one?”

“Yes.”

“Varren grazing ground. Three households use it when the upper grass is worth taking. Not much this early.”

“The path through the woods?”

“Mostly ours. Hunters use it. Goes as far as the pale ridge, though there's little reason to climb after the spring-water cut.”

Lethira's attention sharpened. “The seasonal cut above the shelter?”

The woman nodded. “Runs hard after snowmelt and long rain. Dry enough to cross most of summer. Ground above gets bad when it's wet.”

“And the cart track?”

“North grazing road. Varren turning downhill.”

That was enough to make the location useful. Lethira thanked her, and they left.

Once the holding was out of sight, she opened the map again and added the local route: Varren turning, cart track, seasonal shelter, maintained footpath, spring-water cut, entrance uphill.

“Now Brannock has directions people can use.”

“Shall we go home first, so we don't have to ask questions about how a human managed to keep up with an Elf running at full speed both ways?”

Lethira considered the route they had just written and the morning in which Brannock had seen them leave.

“Yes. Home first.”

She folded the map into its waxed wrap. “The report waits two nights. If Brannock asks, I'll tell her we did not walk the whole road. How we travelled is private.”

And they were home. Ian held Lethira's hand as they went.

The unfinished archery bank had grown while they were away. More clean soil now stood across the broad base in compacted layers, with fresh wheel marks returning through the northern approach. The trees remained intact.

Lethira inspected the result almost automatically as they crossed the holding.

“Cave found. Predator not offended. Directions acquired. House standing. Trees still alive.”

She squeezed Ian's hand. “Respectable.”

Inside, she set the pack on the scarred table and took out the waxed document wrap.

“I want to copy the notes while they're fresh. Then we can decide what to do about Brannock.”

Her gaze travelled over the cave dust on both of them.

“And at some point we should stop looking like evidence.”

“If you need your attendant to help with the washing, let me know.”

Lethira's hand paused over the wrap. She looked at Ian.

“Oh, I understood.”

Her smile was slow and private. “Copy first. After that, I may discover I require very thorough assistance.”

Ian smiled. “I shall clean the boots and equipment whilst you do that.”

He knelt beside her and removed her boots. Lethira lifted each foot when needed and watched him with open amusement. Ian gathered her boots with his own and took both pairs outside to clean the worst of the cave dirt from them.

By the time he began knocking dried mud and pale grit from the leather, charcoal was already moving across fresh paper inside.

He returned and gently eased off Lethira's cloak, trying not to disturb her work too much. He took it outside and beat some dirt from the wool. When he came back, he removed her belt a little more slowly than necessary, set the knives safely to one side and began cleaning the leather.

Lethira stopped writing once and glanced down at his hands.

“You are being very thorough about equipment maintenance.”

She returned to the map while Ian cleaned the belt.

He then headed upstairs to fetch clean outerwear for both of them. It took about ten minutes. When he returned, he left Lethira's clothes at the edge of the table, well clear of her work. He drew warm water from the range, removed his top and washed the worst of the grime from his head, face, neck and arms.

“How's the mapping going?”

“Better than the first version.”

Lethira turned the sheet enough for him to see without bringing wet hands near it. The field sketch had become a cleaner route: seasonal water-cut and entrance, first chamber and fork, upper passage, large stream chamber, the first descent, the safer traverse and the area used by the mauler. Surface directions ran from the Varren turning to the grazing shelter and maintained path.

“The distances are still estimates. Sitting at a table does not make them more accurate.”

Her eyes travelled briefly over Ian's bare, recently washed upper body before returning to the page.

“The useful part is that Brannock can now begin from somewhere people actually know.”

Ian summoned a fluffy white towel because he preferred the softer towels he knew from Earth, and dried himself. Lethira noticed the towel immediately.

“That looks offensively soft.”

Ian removed his dirty trousers and went outside to bash the worst of the dirt from them before returning and putting on a clean shirt and trousers. He emptied the dirty water, then sat at the end of the table with Lethira's clean clothes and waited for her to finish.

For a while the room held charcoal on paper, the stream beyond the windows and the distant movement of another earth cart upslope. Lethira finished the surface route and read the whole report from entrance to retreat.

“Done.”

Ian moved to stand next to her. He paused briefly, giving Lethira a clear chance to object, then removed her dirty field shirt. He took the shirt outside, beat it briefly and left it with the other things waiting to be washed. Then he collected fresh warm water and a cloth, brought over a small stool because he was shorter than her, and set it where it would not threaten the table.

“Stand please, my Lady. Away from the maps.”

Lethira's gaze moved from Ian, to the stool, to the safely wrapped report.

“All right.”

She stood and stepped away from the table. “The maps are safe. Try not to fall off your equipment.”

Ian briefly gazed at her topless beauty before washing her. He started with her arms, careful and diligent on the hands, which carried the worst of the grime around the fingers and nails. Lethira shifted when needed and turned her back when he reached her shoulders.

He made sure her hair stayed out of the way while he washed her back, then stood on the stool for her neck. He worked around her neck, cheeks and face, gentle but attentive to the dust and grime. He kept her hair clear. At her ears he became hesitant and overly gentle, unsure of an Elf's tolerance for pressure.

Lethira noticed.

“You can touch them.” She tilted her head slightly to make the nearer ear easier to reach. “Gentle is good. Afraid of them is unnecessary.”

Ian adjusted and continued. He brushed her hair to her back and cleaned her shoulders, chest and breasts, trying hard not to linger there, then her firm flat stomach.

Lethira watched him become conspicuously careful across part of the task. She let him finish before saying, “You know I can tell when you're trying not to linger.”

Ian magically cleaned the towel and dried her, patting gently. When he finished, he helped her put on a clean shirt. Lethira drew her hair free from the collar and ran her fingers through it once.

“That was pleasant.”

Ian moved the clean trousers closer to her, then pulled open the leather-cord lacing on the front of her worn dirty trousers and drew them down and off. His eyes followed the line of her calf, her thighs and her arse before he picked up the clean trousers and helped her into them. He took a step back.

“There, my Lady is presentable in town without criticism of a failed attendant.”

Lethira looked down at the clean clothes, then back at him.

“Presentable.”

She tightened the front lacing herself, fingers quick and practical.

“And your record as attendant appears safe.” Her eyes held his for another moment. “Your motives remain less well concealed.”

After her reply, Ian took the dirty trousers outside, beat them and added them to the pile.

When he returned, he kissed her.

“Do you think enough time has passed for us to take a slow walk into town, or should we maybe eat first?”

Lethira kissed him back, then looked towards the wrapped report.

“No.”

“We left Brannock's counter this morning. The cave is about twenty-two road-marks north of Merrowford. Even if I ran the whole way like an idiot, you could not plausibly have kept up there and back, explored the place, found the Varren ground and returned before supper.”

She tapped the report once. “Two nights. Then I give Brannock the route we actually walked. If she asks about the rest, I tell her how we travelled is private.”

The report would wait until the third morning. Lethira's attention moved towards the kitchen.

“Also, I am hungry.”

“Pizza?” Ian smiled, returning to the summoned food from their first date.

Lethira's expression changed immediately.

“Oh.”

The smile arrived more slowly than the recognition.

“Yes.” She glanced towards the kitchen. “We found a hidden cave, met something capable of leaving claw marks in stone, came home sensibly and removed half a ridge from our clothes. Pizza is acceptable.”

Her eyes returned to him. “If you make the same kind, I may become sentimental.”

With Lethira's help, Ian cleared the maps and table to avoid pizza-based disaster. The copied report went back into its waxed wrap; loose charcoal moved well away from food. Only when the scarred table was safe did Ian summon pizza of the same kind as their first date.

A warm cardboard box appeared between them. Inside, one half carried pepperoni, the other sliced mushrooms, the whole already cut.

Lethira looked into the box and laughed softly.

“You remembered.”

She reached for the mushroom half, then glanced at the pepperoni.

“Although the first date established that dividing it does not reliably protect your side.”

Ian smiled and took a piece.

“I enjoyed today. Did you? Was it OK to use reality to find that place?”

Lethira took a slice of her own and ate before answering.

“Yes. I enjoyed today.”

She looked towards the waxed report at the end of the table.

“And yes, I think what we did was acceptable. Reality gave us a direction. The ridge still made us find the entrance, choose our route and decide when to leave.”

She pulled a mushroom loose where the cheese had stretched.

“I would do that again. I would not ask it for all the answers.”

Ian leaned against her and kissed her shoulder before looking up into her eyes.

“I love you.”

Lethira held his gaze.

“I love you too.”

She put down the pizza slice and slipped an arm around him, settling him more comfortably against her side.

“Very much.”

The pizza cooled gradually between them. Outside, another cart crossed the holding, wheels briefly audible through the trees before the sound faded. The unfinished bank would still need more earth before it was ready for an arrow. At the far end of the scarred table, the waxed report waited for the third morning.

Lethira reached for another slice without moving her arm from around Ian.