The Tired Mercenary Just Wants to Farm in Peace, Vol II

The farm made it through winter and Kain his first full year. The debt didn't go anywhere.

Kain owes fifty silver on a horse and has four new plots that won't plant themselves. The east side of the property sits on a clay hardpan that nobody mentioned when he bought the place. Breaking through it is weeks of pickaxe work he didn't plan for.

His brother's son is almost a year old. The boy's mother runs the only tavern in town alone, and the back stairs are rotting, and the storage room leaks, and she won't ask for help. Kain finishes his farm work at midday and walks to town. Splits firewood, patches walls, holds the baby while she pours drinks.

A farmer's daughter on the west road knows more about soil than he'll learn in ten years. She brought him a seed catalog and told him his drainage was wrong. She was right. She keeps being right, and she keeps showing up to say so, and he hasn't figured out what that means yet.

Something has the wolf nervous. It won't go north anymore.

This is the story of showing up.