## Chapter 473 — In Company Mirelen found Lethira behind the house, carrying a basket of washing towards a line strung between two trees. She had arrived by the western road that afternoon, dusty to the knees, with her short bow in its travelling cover and a bedroll beneath her pack. Her note had come ahead of her with a trader. Lethira had been watching the lane since midday and had somehow missed the actual arrival. “Your directions work,” Mirelen said. “Although the man at the last turning thought I meant the other Elf.” “There is another Elf?” “Apparently. Or he has seen you in two different shirts.” Lethira put down the basket and embraced her. The pack got in the way until Mirelen shrugged one strap loose; then they held each other properly, laughing a little at the inconvenience. When they separated, Lethira kept a hand on her shoulder and looked at the road dust, the loosened knot of dark hair and the familiar repairs at her collar. “You made good time.” “Dry roads. One very slow flock of sheep.” Mirelen glanced past her towards the house. “And you have actually bought a building. I was beginning to think you had bought a list of things wrong with one.” “The roof is repaired now. Come inside.” Mirelen left her pack in the hall and followed, looking around with the frank interest of someone who expected to be shown the cupboards. She tried one of the new chairs, examined the grain of the scarred table and opened the kitchen window a little wider to hear the stream. Upstairs, the room Lethira had cleared for her still bore the old ceiling stain. Mirelen looked from it to the folded bedding waiting below. “Recently repaired?” “Recently. You may sleep on the other side of the room if that improves your confidence.” Mirelen tested the dry plaster with the back of her fingers. “I’ll decide when I see the clouds.” They went outside again after she had washed the road from her hands and face. Lethira finished hanging the clothes while Mirelen sat on a low stone with a cup, supplying news from the settlement. A pair of younger Wardens had requested another western circuit together. Mirelen liked them both and had refused the pairing because they spent the entire journey trying to arrive before each other. “They find every shortcut,” she said. “They can tell me almost nothing about the ground between them.” “Separate them for a circuit.” “I have. Now each one wants to know how quickly the other’s group came back.” Lethira laughed, shaking out a shirt. She could imagine the two of them from Mirelen’s account: dutiful enough to ask the question casually, insufficiently experienced to conceal why. Mirelen was annoyed with them, but she had begun describing their individual merits before the cup was half empty. One could remember a route after walking it once. The other had noticed a damaged crossing which two older members of the patrol had missed. “I’d still rather have them than the one who agrees with everything,” she added. “I can never tell whether he’s understood.” Lethira passed her a loose peg which had fallen near the stone. “Give him someone worth disagreeing with.” “I thought of you. Then I remembered I’d eventually have to take him back.” The washing finished, they wandered through the grounds. Mirelen liked the stream immediately. She stayed beside it while Lethira went back for their cups, crouching to examine the growth around a small fall. By the time Lethira returned, her friend had taken off her boots and put her feet in the water. “Long walk?” “New sole. Old boot. They disagree at the heel.” Lethira sat beside her and unfastened her own boots. The water was cold at first, then pleasant around her ankles. For a while they watched a twig caught against a stone, shifting each time the current found a different hold beneath it. Mirelen stretched her toes and sighed. “I should get the boot looked at while I’m here.” “We can go into town tomorrow. There’s a cobbler who may be able to help. I need bow wax, too.” “Today, if there’s time. I’d rather leave it with him overnight.” There was time. Lethira had imagined spending the rest of the afternoon at home, but the walk would give Mirelen a look at the town as well. She drew her feet from the stream and let them dry while they discussed where to eat. Mirelen wanted something she had not carried in a cloth for the last several days. Lethira knew where to find it. They passed the unfinished archery bank on the way back to the house. Its broad shoulders had become more convincing as the earth rose, although the bare surface still carried the workers’ marks. Mirelen stood at the firing line and looked along it. “For Ian?” “For both of us. Mostly for him to learn.” Mirelen stayed long enough to sight along the angle, then looked towards the sun above the house. The shadows had lengthened while they were beside the stream. “Come on. Before your cobbler shuts.” They went indoors for their things. --- The cobbler found the troublesome edge inside Mirelen’s boot and offered to ease it before closing. She left both boots with him, borrowed the shop’s wooden overshoes for the few steps to a bench outside, and sent Lethira to buy the wax. By the time Lethira returned, Mirelen had established that the woman beside her sold wool, that the young man across the street owed that woman money, and that the cobbler’s youngest daughter wanted to work on boats. “You’ve been busy,” Lethira said in Elven. “I’ve been sitting.” Mirelen accepted the little cake of wax and put it away. Across the street, the debtor had become interested in a stall well beyond the wool seller’s view. The two women remained on the bench until the repaired boots came back, then walked towards the market with Mirelen testing each heel. The Guild lay on their way. Lethira stopped to check the board while Mirelen looked around the hall. The armed sweep north-west of town was still posted, though somebody had added a departure day at the bottom. Tomorrow. Lethira read the amendment and went to Brannock. “The road crew finally has its stone,” the clerk told her. “They want to start opening the damaged lengths in the morning. Three adventurers are already down for it, but they need somebody to lead the woodland work while the men are spread along the road.” “What have they seen?” “Greybacks, at least. The last pair who went to mark the work were followed back to the open ground. There are several hollows above and below the cutting, and the crew won’t spend a day bent over shovels until somebody has looked through them.” Mirelen joined Lethira at the counter. She read the notice, then looked at the rough route sketch attached beneath it. Her finger stopped at a bend where the broken woodland narrowed against the road. “Day’s work?” “If the ground behaves,” Brannock said. “The repairs will take longer. Tomorrow is the sweep and cover for their first day.” Lethira looked at Mirelen. She was already studying the woodland marks with the same still attention she gave a new patrol route. “Would you like to?” “Yes.” Mirelen shifted her weight in the repaired boots. “Provided we still eat tonight.” Brannock waited while Lethira introduced her properly. There was a short discussion of Mirelen’s Warden service; for this job, the clerk accepted Lethira’s attestation and entered her as an attached Warden, leaving the contract in Lethira’s name. The others would meet them near the west gate after first light. Outside, Mirelen rolled her shoulders and looked towards the cooking smoke beyond the market. “Something with gravy,” she said. “I’ve decided.” --- Another three beds were completed by hand during Ian’s next visit to the Lifegiver, bringing the outstanding balance to thirty-five. The Lifegiver had become better with the tools. She changed her footing before levering the fork and spent less of the day fighting soil which needed breaking from another direction. Her pleasure in the work still had sharp edges: an impatient glance sent a climbing stem racing beyond its support, and she spent several irritated minutes tying it back. But she had begun planning what to put in the finished ground. Packets of seed waited beneath a flat stone beside the path, rearranged twice as she considered the beds, and a space she had once filled merely by wanting now held her attention for what might grow there next. --- Dessa was waiting by the gate with her shield resting against one knee when the two Wardens arrived. She was a compact human woman with thick dark hair cut at her jaw and a sword whose grip had been replaced more recently than its sheath. Beside her stood Tavian, a lean man with grey in his beard, carrying a spear and a coil of rope. The third member of the party was younger, freckled across his nose, with a crossbow under one arm and a bag of bolts slung high at his hip. Dessa recognised Lethira’s name from the contract. Her eyes moved to Mirelen, then back. “Both of you?” “Mirelen Brookshade. She’s visiting.” Dessa straightened. “I was expecting one Warden and your aide. This is Tavian. Senn’s the one trying not to stare.” Senn looked abruptly at Dessa, which made the accusation considerably worse. Mirelen gave him a brief nod and adjusted the strap of her bow cover. Lethira was more interested in their equipment. It was used, kept sound and arranged so its owners could reach what they needed. The point of Tavian’s spear wore a plain leather cover, and the rope sat high on his pack, clear of his hands. “I’ve worked with Wardens,” Senn said. “Not two together.” “Then you can settle something for me later,” Tavian told him. “Whether they disagree more or less than the rest of us.” Dessa picked up her shield. The road beyond the gate was beginning to fill with outward traffic, and their work crew was already ahead with the stone carts. They made introductions properly as they walked. Dessa and Tavian were C-rank; Senn was D, more experienced with a crossbow than his age first suggested, and had worked with both of them before. Tavian knew the repair road from cart journeys. Dessa had been one of the two people followed out of the cutting. “Three we saw clearly,” she said. “I heard more below us. We kept together and walked back. They stopped when we reached the fields.” “How far beyond the fork?” Lethira asked. “Past the old loading place. I’ll show you.” The countryside opened around them in strips of worked ground, hedges and scattered trees. Mirelen walked beside Tavian for a while, asking about the road. Lethira stayed with Dessa. Senn moved between the conversations until the ground began to rise and he chose to listen instead. It was an easy enough pace that Lethira could enjoy the morning. The bow rode comfortably against her shoulder. Mirelen had tied her hair high again, leaving a few short strands loose at her temples, and was walking cleanly in the repaired boots. At a bend she looked across at Lethira, then towards the first deeper trees. Lethira knew that look. She felt an answering anticipation low in her chest. The carts had stopped in an open stretch below the cutting. Workers were unloading tools and eating the last of their breakfast. Their foreman showed Lethira the limits of the first day’s work: a failing road edge, two blocked drains and a shorter stretch where runoff had stripped the surface down to larger stone. Once the men began digging, they would be spread too far apart to watch the woods properly. Lethira left them there until the first sweep was done. She asked Dessa to show them where the greybacks had appeared, then followed her into the trees. --- The loading place was a wide notch cut into the uphill side of the road. Broken stone lay at the back of it, half buried under leaves. Opposite, the ground fell through hazel towards a shallow gully where a beech had come down, bringing a mass of roots and earth with it. Dessa stopped beside the road edge. “One stood there. Another was farther along, watching us go. The third came up from below.” Lethira went down on one knee. The mud had dried since the passage of the surveyors, preserving several overlapping prints in a crust. Senn crouched beside her, careful of the cleanest patch. He found the broad paw first, then another which appeared smaller. “Different animal?” he asked. “Perhaps. This edge broke away when the foot came out.” She indicated a little shelf of dried mud beyond the print. “Find it again before counting it.” Senn followed the line towards the next softer patch. Lethira left him to it and looked across the gully. Mirelen was already examining the fallen beech from above. She raised two fingers towards the hollow, then pointed farther along the slope. “I’m taking the upper side,” Lethira told the others. “Mirelen’s going around the fallen tree. Stay where you can see this opening; we’ll come back before going farther.” She moved uphill through the hazel. A low branch bent beneath her palm as she passed, then lifted behind her. The next few strides took her above the loading place. From there she could see into the gully through several separate gaps, and she slowed, letting the pieces join. Grey fur moved beneath the roots. A heavy-jawed head emerged, ears turning towards the road. The animal stood with its forequarters higher than its narrow hips, bony ridges showing beneath the rough hair along its spine. Another shifted behind it. Below them, pale scraps lay among leaves around what remained of a deer. Lethira waited until she had seen five. Across the hollow, Mirelen reached a narrow shelf beside the fallen trunk. She barely disturbed the fern at its edge. One glance took in Lethira’s position. Then she lowered herself out of sight and returned by the way she had come. Lethira met her on the road. Senn had found the smaller print again and was brushing dirt from his fingertips. Dessa watched the gully while Tavian kept his attention on the road behind them. “Five,” Mirelen said. “One larger than the rest. They’ve been feeding below the root plate.” “Any young?” “No sign.” Lethira considered the two approaches from the road. The animals had noticed their presence; one was already shifting through the hazel below, trying to find a better view. This was where they had learned to follow people. The open loading place gave the party better footing than anything below it. “I’ll take the bank above the stone,” she said. “Mirelen, the lower end?” “I’d go farther down. Otherwise they’ll have the trunk between us.” “And leave you climbing back through that?” Mirelen looked at the fallen beech, then at Lethira. “Yes.” Lethira accepted the correction with a small tilt of her head. She showed the others the lines she wanted covered. Dessa and Tavian would hold the mouth of the loading place, where the ground let them stand properly. Senn could shoot from behind the old stone heap, with a clear view across the nearer approach. Mirelen would cover the lower flank. Lethira could see the gully and both routes from above. Dessa looked along her suggested position and moved it a pace back. “This is better. There’s a loose stone under the leaves.” She kicked it clear. Tavian tested the ground beside her, then set his feet. Senn placed his spare bolts where he could reach them and settled behind the heap. His mouth was tight now, but his hands were steady. The largest greyback appeared at the lower edge of the road. It stopped when it saw the party, lifting its head. Another came out farther along. They watched the two people standing in the opening, while a third body disturbed the undergrowth below. Lethira had her arrow on the string. Through the branches, she saw Mirelen reach her position and turn her bow clear of the trunk. The larger animal advanced. Lethira’s arrow struck as its forefoot touched the road. It fell heavily across the verge, and the greyback behind it broke sideways. Senn’s bolt caught that one high behind the foreleg. It stumbled back down the bank. The third came quickly. Dessa met it with her shield angled across the opening. Its jaws closed on the rim with a hard scrape. Tavian’s spear entered behind the shoulder as she turned it away from his legs. He kept his footing while the animal’s weight dragged against the shaft; Dessa pushed it clear of her shield, and together they brought it down. Below, Mirelen was moving. She crossed the fallen trunk in three quick steps, dropped onto the far side and loosed before her landing had quite settled. The wounded greyback collapsed among the leaves. The remaining two fled along the gully, pale tails flashing once through the hazel before they disappeared. Lethira kept her bow raised until the movement had gone beyond the next rise. Then she lowered it. “Clear here,” Dessa said. Tavian freed his spear and checked the shaft. Senn had reloaded. He was watching the place where the survivors had vanished, breathing through his open mouth. “Hold this opening a little longer,” Lethira told them. “We’ll check where those two have gone.” Mirelen was already climbing towards the far shoulder. Lethira took the higher line and caught sight of her again beyond the beech. There was space now to move. She lengthened her stride, crossed a shallow wash on its narrow upper edge and used the next trunk to turn downhill. The ground passed beneath her in roots, leaf mould and broken light. Farther below, Mirelen kept the fleeing animals’ line while Lethira watched for a turn back towards the road. They followed until the sign continued down into deeper woodland and the sounds of the road had gone. Neither greyback circled. Lethira stopped at the last clear crossing, catching her breath while Mirelen examined the soft ground beneath a log. “Still together,” Mirelen said. Lethira nodded. She could feel the work in her legs now, a pleasant warmth. Mirelen looked up and grinned at her. On the return, they took their time checking the hollow beneath the fallen beech. There were old droppings, deer bones, torn hide and several flattened resting places. Lethira found no occupied burrow beyond it. They completed the circle before going back up to the road. Dessa had dragged the nearest carcass out of the way with Tavian’s help. Senn was cleaning his recovered bolt. “I didn’t see her go over the tree,” he said to Lethira. “I looked down to reload, and she was on the other side.” “You needed to reload.” “I know. I would still have liked to see it.” Mirelen came up behind him with leaf fragments caught in one sleeve. She pulled them free while Tavian looked at the route she had taken. “I saw it,” he said. “I wouldn’t try it with my knees.” “Nor would I,” Mirelen told him. Dessa laughed, then showed Lethira a fresh scrape on the shield rim. The animal had reached exactly as far as she expected, though it had left more of a mark than she wanted. She would have to dress the damaged wood before it caught on things. Lethira examined it with her, then helped move the last carcass clear of the working ground. The rest of the sweep took longer than the encounter. One side hollow led nowhere useful. Another contained a small spring and enough old animal traffic to keep Senn occupied while Mirelen checked the ridge above it. Tavian recognised a disused cart spur and showed them where it returned to the road, saving a climb through thick thorn. By the time they came back to the waiting crew, Lethira had a better account to give than five greybacks and a fallen tree. The men should keep their meal sacks covered. The gully below the beech was to stay out of their working route. The two surviving animals had withdrawn into the deeper woodland; the party would continue watching that side while the road was opened. The foreman listened, asked which drain he could start on and sent his first pair forward with shovels. --- By midday, the cutting sounded of tools. Lethira worked the upper side with Senn while Mirelen ranged below. Dessa and Tavian stayed nearer the men, moving as the work shifted along the road. From time to time a labourer straightened to watch one of the Wardens pass between the trees, then bent over his work again. The first drain had begun to carry water properly. The second contained a root which was resisting every opinion expressed about it. During the meal break, Senn sat beside Mirelen and asked about her bow. She showed him the short limbs and the worn places on the grip. He was interested in how she carried it through the undergrowth; his crossbow caught whenever he tried to keep both hands free. Mirelen looked at his sling, adjusted the way it lay over his shoulder and had him reach for the weapon twice. “The stock will still catch if you turn that way,” she said. “You can carry it closer, but you have to remember where the end is.” He tried it once more, then stopped to eat. There was nothing reverent about the discussion. He liked his crossbow and defended its usefulness at a distance Mirelen thought would seldom remain clear in woodland. Dessa interrupted to say that he could hit things she had difficulty seeing, provided nobody asked him to do it while walking through a hedge. “Once,” Senn said. “I caught one hedge.” Tavian looked at him over his bread. Senn revised the number, and Mirelen laughed into her cup. Lethira stretched her legs out on the sun-warmed ground. Beside her, Dessa was wrapping the last of her lunch. They watched Mirelen listen while Senn explained the spanning mechanism. She asked to examine the catch more closely, and he handed the crossbow over after showing her it was unloaded. “She always that quiet?” Dessa asked. “Until she has something worth saying. Then she can be very inconvenient.” Mirelen did not look round, but Lethira saw the corner of her mouth move. She knew it would cost her something later and found herself looking forward to discovering what. In the afternoon they changed sides. Mirelen took Senn along the upper slope, and Lethira worked the gully with Tavian. He knew the road in bad weather and pointed out where water would cross it when the ditch filled. One washed hollow which had looked like an animal run from above proved to be part of the drainage. Lethira followed it to the road edge and called the foreman down to look. He wanted another man and a longer shovel. Tavian went to fetch both. There were no more greybacks near the work. Once, a deer broke through the lower trees and sent two labourers upright with their tools held awkwardly before them. Mirelen identified it from the slope, and the men went back to digging. Later Lethira found the survivors’ trail continuing away from the road beyond the spring. She left it there. The last hour was mostly watching people finish a job while wishing they would finish it faster. Senn grew restless first. Tavian sat on an upturned basket with his spear within reach. Mirelen found a comfortable place against a tree, and Lethira knew from the angle of her head that she was listening to the lower woodland despite appearing almost asleep. Lethira joined her. “Pleasant visit so far?” Mirelen opened one eye. “The food was better yesterday.” “I’ll remember to tell the road crew.” “Please don’t. They might improve the cheese and expect us every morning.” Lethira sat beside her, resting her bow across her knees. Beyond the trees, the men had begun gathering tools from the opened drain. Dessa was helping move a heavy length of timber out of the cart line. Senn stood where he could watch the road bend, his sling sitting more comfortably now beneath the crossbow’s weight. For several minutes the two friends said nothing. Lethira could feel the rough bark through the back of her shirt and the tiredness settling into her feet. It had been a long time since an entire working day with Mirelen had followed an evening spent together. Usually one of them was arriving just as the other prepared to leave. Mirelen nudged her knee when the foreman raised his arm. The work was stopping. --- They escorted the last cart back to open ground before turning towards Merrowford. The foreman’s acknowledgement would be enough for the day’s payment. Lethira gave Dessa the few notes to carry with it, adding the direction of the two surviving greybacks and the gully that still needed watching on future workdays. The repair itself would continue tomorrow. Nothing in the crew’s departure suggested they expected the five of them to return before breakfast. Dessa asked whether they wanted a drink before going home. Mirelen looked at Lethira. The repaired boot had survived the day; there was mud up both trouser legs and a scratch across the back of one hand. Lethira was hungry, pleasantly tired and in no hurry to leave the others. “Yes,” she said. “Somewhere with chairs.” Dessa knew a place near the market. By the time they reached it, the afternoon trade had thinned and someone was carrying benches outside. They found a table just within the open doorway, where they could leave their weapons against the wall and still catch the air from the street. Mirelen sat beside Lethira. Tavian ordered first, then discovered he had given the server his meal choice before anyone else had even looked towards the kitchen. “I know what they have,” he said. “It saves time.” Senn was still thinking about the fallen tree. He asked Mirelen how she had known the trunk would hold her, and she described where she had placed her feet. Lethira listened until the account became just a little too tidy. “You didn’t test the far end.” “I could see it resting on the bank.” “You could see part of it.” Mirelen turned towards her. Across the table, Dessa stopped reaching for her cup. Lethira recognised her friend’s expression an instant before the answer came and began to laugh. “Dawnleaf once had a very firm opinion about a birch over a stream,” Mirelen told the table. “The bow stayed dry.” “I haven’t reached that part.” Tavian settled back in his chair. The server arrived with their drinks, and Lethira made room for hers while Mirelen began at the beginning.