“Well,” Leeana said after a moment, “I’d always heard dwarves had a way with stonework and machinery. To be honest, though, I always thought the tales had to have grown in the telling. Apparently I was wrong.”
“As to that, I’m thinking as how one day you’d best come with me on a visit to Kilthan in Silver Cavern. I’ll not call this a minor undertaking, lass, but the Dwarvenhame Tunnel, now-that’s after being an impressive little trip.”
Even the long, northern summer’s day had drawn to a close by the time Bahzell and Leeana reached Hurgrum. The western horizon was a pile of blue cloud against a sea of copper coals as the sun disappeared at last, and lanterns and streetlamps gleamed along the embankment which had been erected to protect the city of Hurgrum from the rippling blue waters of the lake of the same name. They glowed against the gathering dark like lost stars, their reflections dancing on the nighttime mirror of the lake, and the sound of gentle wind and moving water filled the world.
The Hangnysti River had been dammed well downstream from the city, but the water it had impounded stretched at least five miles above Bahnak’s capital, as well, and Kilthandahknarthas’ engineers had designed and constructed the embankment along the lake’s western shore-over six miles long, thirty feet wide, and twenty feet high-not simply to protect the city but to serve as the foundation and base for the huge docks and the warehouses they would serve when the Derm Canal was finished, as well. Not that there wasn’t already quite a lot of traffic on the lake. As they approached the roadway along the crest of the dam, Bahzell, Leanna, and the coursers had seen the sails and running lights of work boats and barges of bricks and mortar and other construction supplies moving north, up the lake towards the Balthar, while still others moved south, laden with supplies for the Ghoul Moor expedition.
Now, as they rode out across the dam itself, Leeana shook her head in fresh bemusement. That dam was broad enough for two of the enormous freight wagons to pass abreast along its top, and it was a single, seamless-looking expanse of gleaming white stone.
“More of the dwarves’ ‘concrete’?” she asked Bahzell, and he laughed. She cocked her head at him, and he shook his own head.
“No, that it’s not,” he said wryly. “Mind you, it’s what I was after expecting when Da first showed me the plans. But Kilthan and Serman were of the opinion as how that wouldn’t be strong enough. It’s stone, lass. Solid stone, top to bottom.”
“What?” Leeana blinked, then turned in the saddle, surveying the bridge. It had to be at least a mile in length, she thought, and it rose the better part of thirty feet above the land behind it-closer to forty, where it crossed the riverbed.
“Stone,” she repeated carefully, turning back to Bahzell, and he flicked his ears at her.
“Stone,” he agreed. She still looked skeptical, and he shrugged. “The bedrock’s not so very far down hereabouts, which comes as no surprise to those as spend their lives plowing the rocks and finding places to be sticking seeds between them.” He grimaced. “It’s not such wonderful crops we Horse Stealers manage to grow, Leeana, and not for want of trying. There’s things the Axemen can be teaching us where that’s concerned, and Father’s teachers from amongst them showing our farmers how it’s done, but it’s never farmland like Landria’s or Fradonia’s you’ll see in Hurgrum. Still and all, there’s some good in almost anything, I’m thinking, and it wasn’t so very deep a trench Serman had to be digging before he hit rock. He ran it clear across the river valley, and after he’d finished, and after he’d built a wooden form betwixt one side and the other, my folk and his were after spending a full year entire filling it with gravel and crushed rock. A mortal a lot of sweat it took us, but once we’d done, why, Chanharsa and two more sarthnaisks told all that loose rock as how it was one solid piece, and it decided as how it’d best take their word for it. It’s as solid as the East Walls themselves this dam is, lass.”
Leeana drew a deep breath, thinking very carefully about what he’d just said, then exhaled.
“You know, Father had more than a handful of dwarves in the West Riding when he hired them to make his new maps. I didn’t see much of them, but they seemed pleasant enough. Polite. Yet I always had the feeling that, despite their courtesy, they were looking down their noses a bit at Hill Guard and Balthar. Now I suppose I see why.”
“Were they now?” Bahzell smiled at her. “Well, I’m thinking you’ve probably the right of it. Still and all, for all their way with rock and metal and earth, they’ve not the least notion of woodworking, farming, or horses. And it’s in my mind as how most of the world is after offending their notion of neatness and order. They’ve a way of burrowing through rock and stone and bidding it do as they say, but I’m thinking they’ve less skill when it comes time to deal with things as they can’t command.”
Leeana nodded, but her expression was still bemused, almost awed, as they continued across the mighty dam. Stout stone bridges crossed the thundering spillways, and the spray rising chill and damp from below only drove home yet again the audacious scale of the project Prince Bahnak and his allies had undertaken.
The coursers’ hooves thudded on heavy wooden timbers as they crossed the drawbridge spanning the barge locks built into the Hurgrum end of the dam. One of the supply barges destined for Trianal’s expedition had just passed through them and headed down river, and the water level in the lock chamber was thirty feet lower than in the lake above it. There were two sets of locks, actually-cavernous affairs with canyon-like sides, extending well out into the new lake-and once the entire route from Derm to the Spear was open, each set of locks would pass four or five barges at a time.
Bahzell had been home often enough to see all of the mammoth construction as a work in progress, yet he’d been away long enough between visits to be constantly surprised by how much things had changed during his absences. Now, as he and Leeana rode along the top of the embankment (sarthnaisk work, like the dam itself), he found himself looking down on Hurgrum from above, seeing the new houses spreading out far beyond the original city wall as the town in which he’d been raised expanded by leaps and bounds. It was hard for him to imagine, even now, what was going to happen to Hurgrum’s size and wealth when it became the essential anchor and transfer point for all of the trade which would pass through those new docks and spacious warehouses. Despite the way Bahnak’s capital had already grown, some of his fellow Horse Stealers obviously found their prince’s predictions difficult to credit, but Bahzell had seen the Purple Lords’ capital of Bortalik. He knew firsthand how much wealth passed through that city every year, just as he knew his father had actually understated his own predictions because none of his people would have believed the numbers he and Kilthan and Tellian were truly projecting.
‹ He’s an impressive man, your father,› Walsharno said quietly as he and Gayrfressa started down one of the several ramps leading from the embankment’s crest into the city proper.
“Aye, so he is,” Bahzell agreed. “And a patient one, too.”
“Really?” Leeana gave him a crooked smile. “Is that the truth? Or are you just trying to encourage me before I meet the rest of your family?”