Chapter 76 — Out There
They set out from Greyhaven at dawn, the northern road unfamiliar to Arlen in a way the eastern trade route hadn’t quite managed to be — narrower, less maintained, the terrain shifting within the first day from open farmland into denser, older woodland that carried none of the well-worn comfort of the outer forest’s more traveled trails.
"Coalition’s hunting grounds sit roughly four days out," Fennis said, consulting the rough map the hunters had provided, "assuming the weather holds and we don’t lose time to bad terrain. Disputed section’s another day beyond that, where their usual routes have gone strange."
"Strange how?"
"Vague, mostly. Game thinning in areas that used to be reliable, tracks appearing where they shouldn’t, that sort of thing. Could be natural. Could be something worth actual concern. Part of why they wanted proper guild eyes on it rather than just sending their own people back out."
They fell into a steady traveling rhythm over the following days, Fennis setting a pace that tested Arlen’s endurance without ever quite pushing past what Enduring Vitality comfortably supported, and he found himself, watching her work, genuinely impressed by the quiet precision of her tracking instincts — reading terrain in ways that reminded him of Yorin’s old lessons from the boundary expedition, though considerably more refined.
"You read ground better than anyone I’ve traveled with," he said, on their second afternoon, watching her crouch beside a faint impression in the soft earth.
"Family trade, more or less. Grew up tracking game before I ever held a bow properly." She rose, brushing dirt from her knees. "This print’s older than it should be, given how fresh the trail otherwise looks. Something’s been moving through here inconsistently — present, then absent for stretches, then present again."
"Migratory, maybe?"
"Maybe. Or something’s disrupting the pattern rather than the animal simply choosing to leave." She studied the surrounding terrain with careful, methodical attention. "We’ll know more once we’re deeper in."
They reached the edge of the disputed territory on the fourth evening, making camp at what Fennis judged a defensible distance from the terrain’s more uncertain stretches, and Arlen found himself falling into his now-familiar routine of preparing a proper meal despite the day’s accumulated travel fatigue.
"You never skip this," Fennis observed, watching him work. "Even exhausted."
"Feels wrong to just eat cold rations when there’s time to do it properly. Small thing, maybe. Matters to me regardless."
"Not small," she said. "I’ve traveled with plenty of adventurers who treat food like fuel and nothing else. You treat it like it’s worth doing right. Different mindset, and a better one, I think."
They spent the following two days working the disputed territory’s boundary methodically, cataloguing the same inconsistent pattern Fennis had noted earlier — game present in some stretches, conspicuously absent in others, with no obvious predator or environmental cause immediately evident.
On the sixth day, deep into a particularly dense stretch of old growth, they encountered their first genuine complication — a sudden, violent rustling in the underbrush ahead that resolved, moments later, into a boar considerably larger than the ordinary variety, tusks longer and more jagged than Arlen remembered from any bestiary entry he’d studied.
"Territorial, and it’s noticed us," Fennis said, already nocking an arrow with practiced speed. "Don’t engage unless it commits. Might just be posturing."
The boar didn’t posture long. It charged with sudden, explosive force, and Arlen met it with the same careful discipline Garrett’s months of training had instilled — sidestepping the initial rush, driving a clean Edgeline Strike into its flank as it passed, while Fennis’s arrow found a second, decisive mark along its exposed throat.
It went down quickly, the combined strikes proving more than sufficient, and the two of them stood over the fallen creature a moment, breathing steady despite the brief flare of adrenaline.
"Good coordination," Fennis said, retrieving her arrow. "Didn’t even need to discuss the approach. Just happened."
"Feels that way with you," Arlen admitted. "Like we’re already thinking the same thing before either of us says it."
Something in Fennis’s expression shifted at that, a flicker of genuine warmth beneath her usual reserve. "Not something I say about many partners."
They made camp that evening near the site of the encounter, and Arlen found himself, preparing a portion of the boar meat alongside their usual provisions, turning over the day’s events with quiet satisfaction — not just the successful engagement, but the easy, unspoken trust that had carried them through it.
"This territorial aggression might explain some of what the coalition’s been noticing," Fennis said, once they’d settled by the fire. "If boars this size are pushing into new ground, smaller game would naturally thin out avoiding them."
"Worth documenting properly, regardless of whether it’s the full answer."
"Already planning to." She glanced at him, something considering in her expression. "You approach every problem like it deserves careful thought before action. Not everyone does that. Most people I’ve worked with either overthink until the moment’s passed, or charge in without thinking at all."
"Old habit," Arlen said. "Learned early that acting without understanding costs more than the delay of asking a few careful questions first."
"Good lesson." Fennis settled back against a fallen log, studying the fire with quiet contemplation. "I think that’s part of why this week’s felt different than most contracts. You don’t just do the work. You actually think about it, the way I do."
They talked a while longer that evening, the conversation drifting comfortably between practical observations about the disputed territory and quieter, more personal exchanges — Fennis mentioning, almost in passing, that she’d turned down an offer to train under a more prestigious eastern guild branch the previous year, choosing instead to stay with Crimson Jackals despite the modest opportunity it represented.
"Why stay?" Arlen asked.
"Wasn’t ready to leave what I’d built here yet. Reya, Dorn — we’re good together, even if none of us are chasing quite the same ambitions." She shrugged. "Maybe I will leave eventually. Just wasn’t the right time, when the offer came."
"I understand that better than most," Arlen said, thinking of his own careful, patient timeline, the promise he’d made himself about eventually leaving the Ashen Frontier behind, the sense that everything he was building here mattered precisely because it prepared him properly for whatever came after.
They settled into a comfortable silence after that, the fire crackling low, the forest’s night sounds providing a familiar, grounding backdrop to the quiet space between them. Arlen wrote briefly in his journal before finally allowing himself rest, the entry short but genuinely reflective.
Good work today. Territorial boar likely explains at least part of the coalition’s concerns, though we’ll confirm more before finalizing the report. More than that, though — good company. Fennis approaches everything with the same careful thoroughness I try to bring to my own work. Rare to find that kind of matched pace in a partner.
Two more days of survey work ahead before we start back. I find myself, oddly, not eager to rush through them.
He closed the journal, the fire’s glow settling warm across the small campsite, and let sleep find him slowly, the quiet, easy companionship of the day settling comfortably into something he hadn’t quite expected to value this much.