Princeps

15

South of Ayerne, the ice-covered snow of Tilbor and the north gave way to softer snow that was little more than calf-deep and soft and slushy. Even so, only by concentrating could Quaeryt make out the snow-covered remnants of the towns that Rhodyn and the other holders north of the Ayerne River had leveled years earlier. Progress for the regiment was slow until they reached the small town of Sullys, three days south of Ayerne, where they turned west on the solid stone-paved post road built generations earlier in the time of Hengyst.

Roughly at midmorning on Samedi, under high gray clouds, Quaeryt and Vaelora were riding beside Skarpa near the front of the column when a scout headed toward them from around a wide curve in the road. The scout reined in his mount, then drew alongside the commander.

“Sirs! The bridge is covered with water. It’s deep, more than head-high. The water’s running too fast to cross, even if we could see where the bridge is. There are chunks of ice everywhere.”

“We might as well see how bad it is before we decide,” said Skarpa, looking to Quaeryt.

Quaeryt nodded.

“I’d like to come, too,” said Vaelora.

Quaeryt wasn’t about to deny her, not when she was a far better rider than he was.

Skarpa turned in the saddle and raised an arm. “Regiment! Halt!”

As the command rippled back along the column, Skarpa, Quaeryt, and Vaelora rode forward with the scout. The road between two tree-covered ridges was level all the way around the curve, then descended gently to an expanse of murky gray water, dotted with chunks of grayish ice, that covered the bridge. The four reined up beside another scout, some ten yards back from the edge of the water, and surveyed what lay between them and the road on the far side.

The river ran between two long ridges, neither more than fifty yards above the road, and less than a hundred yards apart at the level of the road, before plunging over a barrier of frozen vegetation, branches, and tree trunks, at the top of what was likely the top of a moderate cataract most of the year, but the barrier formed a dam that had lifted the water level well above the road leading to the submerged bridge, and whatever eroding effect the frigid water might be having was more than outweighed by the vegetation and chunks of ice piling up behind the existing tangle.

“It could be days…” said Vaelora quietly.

“Is there any way around this?” asked Quaeryt.

“From the maps we have, and from what I recall from when I was here before, we’d have to go back more than ten milles to take a more southern road, and it’s not paved.” Skarpa looked at Quaeryt. “You know what that means, sir.”

Quaeryt did. The southern road would be even less passable in spots, besides taking much, much longer.

After a time, he said, “Let me take a closer look.” Before either Vaelora or Skarpa could say anything, Quaeryt eased his mount off the road, southward along the lower part of the hill on the east side of the slowly rising water, trying to let her pick her way over the soggy ground between dampened and flattened bushes and leafless trees.

As he neared a point opposite the tangle that comprised the barrier, he could see that part of the hillside had collapsed, perhaps because of rain or melting snow, if not both. The combination of the rocks and soil and trees that had slid into the river and the debris carried downstream and snagging on who knew what else below the surface of the water, not to mention the ice, had created a temporary but effective dam.

But temporary could mean it lasts for days or weeks.

He tied the mare to the exposed root of a tree partly ripped out of the hillside by the landslide, then took his half-staff from its leathers and slowly made his way downhill to the end of the debris, a mass of ice, soil, and twisted branches and roots. He put one foot on the end. The debris did not budge. He took three more careful steps, using the staff to probe for solid footing, but when he tried to extend his boot for the fourth, he could feel the makeshift dam shift, if ever so slightly. Less than three yards from where he stood, water poured over the middle part of the barrier, almost as if it were a spillway, and then cascaded down over and around icy rocks and huge boulders, dropping a good thirty yards over a distance of less than a hundred.

He glanced back upstream. The torrent of murky gray water and ice chunks seemed endless. He looked at the face of the “dam,” trying to pick out places where the water was seeping through in more than mere tricklets. Finally, he located a streamlet of water almost as big around as his wrist, shooting out from the front, some two yards down and possibly four toward the center of the twisted mass from where he stood.

He bent and began to wiggle a root, not that his efforts did so much as even cause a stir in the debris, but none of those around Skarpa could have determined that from where they watched. Then he concentrated on trying to image away some of the debris above the streamlet.

He could sense that he’d moved something, but the flow of water remained the same. The second time, he concentrated on an area to the far side. He could feel himself begin to sweat, despite the cold and clammy air around him.

He waited and watched. The streamlet seemed larger, but not much.

The third time, he visualized removing debris and soil behind the last place from which he had removed matter, and the size of the streamlet again grew … but not that much.

Quaeryt made another effort. The streamlet tripled in size, and the entire dam shuddered, if slightly.

Quaeryt retreated several steps and waited. While the streamlet continued to expand, he could see that the increased flow still was far from enough to lower the water level. He bent and grabbed another branch, but that was for effect only as he attempted to image away more, visualizing the removal of a large cube of material.

Everything around him seemed to flash, and sweat poured from his forehead. For a moment, he could see nothing because of the flashes, while the makeshift dam shuddered more. At that moment, he lost control of even his lightest shields. Then a cascade of water poured through the area Quaeryt had enlarged, and the barrier began to shake.

Carefully, but quickly, he eased himself back off the end of the debris and took several unsteady steps back uphill toward the mare.

A dull rumble seemed to shake the air around him, and he tottered where he stood, trying to keep his balance on the slippery ground where the staff was of little use. He glanced back at the makeshift dam, where a small section began to sag into the dark waters. Then, after several moments more, another part of the debris broke away, and spray cascaded upward before the ice-filled waters began to pour through the gap. The debris at each end of the opening continued to break away.

He took one step, then another, until he was close enough to the mare so that he could untie her. Mounting took almost all the strength he had left, and by the time he was in the saddle, with the staff back in its leathers, he just sat there for several moments. When he looked down at the torrent, the gap in the debris dam was almost ten yards across and deepening.

Quaeryt rode slowly back northward to the road where Skarpa waited with Vaelora and the scouts.

“What did you do?” asked Skarpa, his forehead furrowed.

“It wasn’t that solid. I just tried to wiggle things and hoped I could loosen holes in it.” The last part was true enough. “Just have everyone rest for a bit. It’s beginning to give way. The water is breaking it apart now.”

“That didn’t look like just ice, sir.”

“It isn’t. It wasn’t, but the ice was what was plugging some of the gaps. I levered some of it away, and the water is beginning to work.”

Sparkling lights flashed before Quaeryt’s eyes, once more, and he felt so weak and dizzy that he had to lower his head, almost to the mare’s mane.

“Dearest…” Vaelora edged her gelding over beside Quaeryt. “You worked harder than you let us believe.” She extended a flask. “Take a swallow of this.”

The cordial in the silver flask burned its way down his throat, but after several moments, the worst of the flashes before his eyes began to subside. Then she handed him a hard biscuit.

Quaeryt ate it slowly with another swallow from the flask, before he took several swallows from his own water bottle-that held watered lager.

“Are you all right, Princeps?” asked Skarpa. “What did you do?”

“I just worked at opening a hole in that mess.”

“It looks like the water’s getting lower,” admitted the commander.

Almost two quints later, the water had dropped below the solid stone surface of the bridge except at one end. While the torrent had ripped away parts of the walls and railing, the bridge itself, built of massive slabs of stone, remained untouched, and Skarpa had the engineers working on clearing the debris away from the upstream side of the bridge.

Vaelora turned in the saddle to look at her husband. “Dearest … look at that boulder, the one near the middle of the stream where everything was piled up.” Her voice was low.

Quaeryt looked. In the middle of the smooth and massive boulder was a channel in the shape of the bottom half of a square running through the stone, and through that channel ran murky water. No wonder I feel so rotten.

“I doubt that the water cut that channel,” Vaelora added. “You do need to eat more after doing something like that.”

Quaeryt didn’t protest either her assumption or the biscuits that she handed him.

Skarpa rode back from where he had been surveying what the engineers had been doing, and his eyes drifted to the fragments remaining of the debris. After a moment he shook his head.

“What is it, Commander?” asked Vaelora.

“I don’t recall that water channel in the middle of those boulders. It’s so odd that I’d think I would.”

“You probably didn’t notice it before because the water level was much lower,” replied Vaelora.

“That might be … but … why would they have cut that there?”

“Maybe the river used to run higher,” suggested Quaeryt.

After a moment the commander shrugged. “I’m just glad you could loosen all that. I wasn’t looking forward to retracing our path or waiting for days.”

“Neither was I,” admitted Quaeryt. He just hoped he could regain enough strength to carry his shields before they ran into more trouble.