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.
16
Even by traveling the post road, it took Third Regiment until the following Jeudi to reach the outskirts of Cloisonyt. Quaeryt worried for two days, until he could finally feel his ability to hold shields begin to return on Lundi evening. Yet by Mardi morning, holding them was no problem, and by Meredi, he realized he was barely aware of them, leaving him to wonder if stretching his imaging ability almost to the point of his own collapse was required in order to become a stronger imager. That was frightening, because he worried that going too far would lead to his death … and yet, he had the feeling that if he did not become a stronger imager, the failure to do so might also lead to his demise.
Consequently, he’d decided to say nothing about that to Vaelora, not until he was certain that the last episode had truly increased his capabilities.
In late midafternoon, under a clear sky with a cool wind at their back, he rode beside her, with Skarpa on her right, as they passed the as-yet-untilled fields and woodlots on the outskirts of Cloisonyt. Ahead, Quaeryt could barely make out where the fields and small cots gave way to the conglomeration of houses.
They rode on for another half glass, and the extent of the fields surrounding each cot dwindled as they neared the ancient city located on the north side of the River Acliano. Since the post road entered the city of hills from the northeast, their first view was that of stone dwellings scattered closely, but seemingly haphazardly, up a gentle slope to a low ridge topped by a line of far larger dwellings, also of stone. Unlike in the north, the roofs were of many different types-slate, shakes, and brown and red tile, creating the impression of different colored plaques thrown carelessly from a gambler’s deck.
“Is there somewhere for the men to stay?” Vaelora asked Skarpa. “Besides in barns and warehouses and stables and worse?”
“Yes, Lady. There is a post there. It is old, but well built, and can hold a garrison the size of a regiment. Most times, there is but a company stationed there.”
“One of Hengyst’s old posts built after his conquest?” asked Quaeryt.
“So it’s said.”
“Is it still the home of great artisans?” pressed Quaeryt, thinking of the graceful ancient vase of the innkeeper destroyed by the boorish patroller in Nacliano and wondering if such artistry still remained in Cloisonyt.
“There are many artisans. Their shops are everywhere.” Skarpa offered a sound between a laugh and a snort. “Many of their works are pleasant to look upon. Whether they are great, I could not say.”
“Where is the post from here?”
“On the other side of the ridge and to the north a mille or so. It guards the road to Montagne.”
“That’s a good road?”
“As good as the one we travel now,” replied Skarpa with a smile. “The road from Extela to Montagne is very good.” He paused. “Or it was before…”
“Mount Extel exploded?”
The commander nodded. “It’s likely to be good until we near Extela. Then…” He shrugged. “Who can say? The engineers may have much to do.”
Ahead of them was a pair of stone pillars flanking the road, signifying, Quaeryt suspected, the edge of the city proper, since immediately beyond it were houses with walled courtyards. The houses were not centered on the courtyards, as was the case in Solis. Instead, the stone walls enclosed a space behind the houses and appeared to encircle gardens and tiny orchards. Between the ground before each dwelling and the road were stone sidewalks, the first Quaeryt had seen since leaving Nacliano the summer before. Had it been less than a year?