“Damn.” Draelin shook his head. “I’ll send my scouts deeper into the Pass, and double the guards on the camp.”
“Good. That should give us plenty of warning.”
“A warning may not mean much.”
Alcinor lifted his hands and let them drop. “We’ll do our best.”
The two men walked back through the maze of rocks that led to the camp. Neither would enjoy their supper much tonight.
Alcinor wondered if Lord Eskkar and Lady Trella had cut the time to finish the job too close. Draelin had told the engineer that the first Elamite invaders into the Land Between the Rivers would use this route. Their goal, according to Trella’s spies, was to ravage the lands north of Akkad, and hopefully draw Eskkar’s cavalry northward into a fight, weakening the city’s defenses.
A good plan, Alcinor had decided, as soon as he grasped the implications. Faced with so many threats, Akkad just did not have the manpower to fight the Elamites coming through the Jkarian Pass. Eskkar would be hard pressed to hold off the invaders’ main army.
Still, all of this meant little now. Alcinor had a task to do, and that was all that mattered. He glanced at the cliffs towering all around him, and wondered if he would get out of this place alive.
Chapter 15
The next morning, Alcinor led all five of his craftsmen up to the slope. He wanted each of them to see the first beam set into its place, so they would understand what they had to do next.
As he spoke, the day’s first crew of soldiers arrived, grunting under the weight of another log. Alcinor wanted all the beams carried up to the cliff face today, since he didn’t know when he might need one. Soon all the artisans were at work.
“You know what we need to do, Jahiri.” Alcinor had whispered the news of the approaching Elamites to his master apprentice last night. “We may have to take more chances than we planned.”
“I’ll work them as fast as I can, Engineer.”
Alcinor and Jahiri returned to finish their work on the first beam. Using a plumb bob made from a smooth cord and a pointed, finger-sized length of polished bronze, they made sure the beam stood perfectly straight. Once again they used the half circle tool, this time tapping gently with the hammer, to adjust the base of the log. The hammer struck with a ringing sound, again and again, until the plumb bob, attached to a small nail at the top of the beam, hung down in a straight line and nearly touched the ground.
Satisfied at last, Alcinor and Jahiri moved onto the second beam, locating this one exactly five paces from the first and deeper underneath the cliff wall. Before midday, the second log had been fitted into position. The crews managed to get a third beam in place before darkness fell.
For the next three days, Alcinor’s men labored from earliest light until the sun set in the west. He worked as hard as any of them, moving from crew to crew, helping or making suggestions, and ensuring that they accomplished every task as soon as possible. Nevertheless, setting the beams required an unusual amount of precision. Any mistakes would be costly in both time and effort, or even take a man’s life.
That resulted in many delays, but Alcinor insisted that every task be done with all the skill each man possessed, exactly as he and Jahiri had demonstrated. His craftsmen labored and sweated in the heat of the rocks, but they never stopped their efforts. They, too, understood what was at stake in the Jkarian Pass.
The morning of the fourth day, under Alcinor’s watchful eye, Jahiri tapped the twelfth and last beam in place. This one, smaller than the others, stood over sixty paces from the first, near the deepest recesses of the overhang. A few paces farther, and the overhang curved down and merged with the rock floor. Alcinor told his men to drag the four unneeded logs aside, out of the way.
The twelve beams formed a portico that stretched overhead and in as straight a line to satisfy any rich merchant in Akkad.
“Well, that’s done, then.” Jahiri climbed onto the ladder, stretched up, and unfastened the plumb bob. Coming down, he wrapped the cord around the bronze, and handed it to the Engineer.
Alcinor shoved the plumb bob into his pouch, retrieved a piece of chalk, and turned to face the cliff wall. He marked an outline on the rock about two paces wide, directly behind the twelfth beam. “Start the men working here.”
Jahiri, standing beside him, studied the rock face, his hands on his hips. The cliff wall, where it merged into the overhanging shelf, already had multiple cracks and even a few open rifts. “This section will be the most dangerous. If the cliff is going to come down by itself, it will be here. I’d better start the chiseling myself.”
“Take care, Jahiri. Stop at the first sign of danger.” If this were any other task, Alcinor would have let some less experienced man take the risks. But his master apprentice understood the danger, and the need.
“I’ll start my crew chipping away at the rock face. As soon as I’m sure they know what they’re doing, I’ll move back toward the slope.”
Alcinor nodded. Each blow of a chisel would weaken the rock face, and his men understood all too well the peril hanging over their heads. If part of the cliff faced collapsed prematurely, at least Jahiri would have a chance to scramble back to safety. Most of the laborers would not.
All the same, they put aside their fears as much as possible, and continued on with the work. Only Alcinor and his master apprentice, however, knew exactly how dangerous it really was.
The two men returned to the staging area just outside the overhang. The crews stood ready with their hammers and chisels. Alcinor ordered all the unneeded workers away from the cliff, and told Jahiri to start.
With a crew of four men, Jahiri disappeared under the overhang and went to work. Using hammers, chisels, and pry bars, they began to attack the back wall of the cliff, where the overhanging portion met the ledge. Soon chunks and splinters of stone flew off the rock face, weakening the cliff wall with every stroke.
Alcinor stood well away from all of this, watching. This was indeed dangerous work. The stone cutters might chip away too much of the cliff, and part of the rock face might collapse on Jahiri and his men. While Alcinor didn’t expect that to happen with the first effort, the risk would grow as they chipped away more and more of the limestone.
Jahiri and his crew spent the rest of the day weakening the cliff wall behind the twelfth post. The men all gave sighs of relief when Jahiri led them out into the fading sunlight.
The first part of the overhang had been chipped away. Alcinor ordered the crew out and back to camp. Then he and Jahiri went back to inspect the work before the last rays of the sun disappeared.
“It looks deep enough.” Jahiri rubbed his jaw as he studied the rock face.
Alcinor examined the last beam, the one farthest from the opening. At the top and bottom, the tiniest trace of splintering had appeared. He touched the top of the log, where a small crack had appeared. “This wasn’t here this morning.” He knelt down and studied the ground, where the beam rested. “Give me the hammer.”
Jahiri hesitated. “Are you sure you want to do that? Anything could shake the cliff loose.”
“I don’t think so.” Alcinor took the hammer from his assistant’s hand and tapped the base of the log, softly at first, then harder. “It feels different from the other logs, denser. It’s holding some of the weight of the rock.”
Jahiri glanced upward, then shivered. “Then let’s get out of here.”
“Yes. Tomorrow, before we start work on the next section, have your crew bring in the fire wood. Better to get that out of the way. Use only two men, ones you can trust.”
“I’ll do it myself. I don’t want anyone making a mistake now.”