Railiana Monroe's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

Railiana came out at dawn to sow her thin seed. She found the plot torn open. Deep gouges ran through her fresh rows. Dirt lay tossed in heaps. Her new sprouts were ripped up and trampled. Tibble stood on the fence, his staff dark and useless. His green face was tight. "Boars," he said. "Two of them. Big ones. My magic turns away rabbits and mice. It does nothing to beasts that size." Railiana knelt in the wreck of her row. She had little seed left. She could not lose more to hungry animals. She looked at the trees where the boars had gone. "Then I need something Tibble can't give," she said. "I need a real guard." She crossed the property line to the healing pond. Levi sat on a flat stone by the water, his silver hair falling over red eyes. He had let her share his pond and walked her fence each morning. He was the only one nearby who could stand against something large. He looked up. "You're early," he said. "Boars broke into my plot," Railiana said. "They ate what I planted. Tibble can't stop them." She kept her voice steady. "I have almost no seed left. I can't ask you to fight them. But I don't know who else to ask." Levi was quiet. Then he stood and reached behind the stone. He drew a sword she had never seen. The blade shone clean and sharp. The grip was wrapped in dark blue cloth. "I don't hunt for sport," he said. "But I won't watch you starve over pigs." They waited past dusk in the ruined plot. Tibble crouched behind the stone wall, his small torch hidden. Levi stood still in the dark rows, blade low. Near midnight the boars came. They shoved through the brush, snouts down, coats bristling. The bigger one charged the soft dirt. Levi stepped in fast. He struck the lead boar across the shoulder and drove it back. The beast squealed and wheeled. The second boar rushed him from the side. Levi turned and cut it deep. Both animals broke and ran crashing into the trees. The plot fell quiet. Railiana came out with her lantern. The rows were safe. Levi wiped his blade and looked at the churned soil. "They'll remember pain here," he said. "They won't come back soon." She thanked him with both hands around his. But when the lantern lit the ground, her stomach dropped. The boars had rooted through her seed sacks by the wall. The last of her grain lay scattered and crushed in the mud. Tibble poked through it with his staff. He looked up at her, grim. "There's nothing left to plant," he said. Railiana stared at the ruined seed. The boars were gone. Her plot was safe. But now she had no seed at all, and the season would not wait.