now? Yes, eight days since we started overland, and we've gone but some seventy miles-'
'A third of a league short of twenty-three,' amended Phais.
'Right, then, sixty-eight miles. And so I ask you, are armies always this slow?'
'They are when they drag a great train behind,' said Melon Phais nodded in agreement, then said, 'Yet I have heard from Loric that the Vanadurin-'
'Who?' asked Beau.
'The Vanadurin, riders from the Steppes of Jord.'
'Oh.'
'Loric says that they can cover enormous distances in a remarkably short time.'
'Like what?'
Phais looked down at the buccan. 'On open plains, fifty miles a day for days on end, without remounts.'
'Fifty-?'
'I have heard it, too,' interjected Melor. 'Something to do with varying the gait. It's called a long-ride, I believe.'
'Aye,' agreed Phais. 'Loric says that they have superb horses as well, and they keep them in fine trim-rich grass and choice grain, good water, and they ride them into splendid fitness and school them well in the ways of war.'
'Fifty miles a day,' said Beau, yet dwelling on the figure given by Phais. 'And we go, what, ten?' He looked up at Melor and grinned. 'We need a new army, eh what?'
Far out front, another twenty-five miles or so, Tip looked with dismay at another ravine, this one with a raging stream racing through. 'Oh, my, they'll never get the wagons across at this rate.'
Loric stood and glanced at Vail. 'They are yet two or three days behind, given the softness of the soil.'
'Mire, you mean,' growled Tip. 'A regular Muddy Flats.'
'Muddy Flats?' asked Vail.
'A crossing along the Wilder River: a ford when the banks are dry, a quag when it rains.'
Loric gestured southward. 'The land behind is not quite as bad as you would have it, Tipperton. Even so, by the time the train arrives, this river will yet be raging, for it comes down from the Rimmens, where the bulk of the storm fell, and will take days to run dry again.'
'On the morrow we will look for a crossing place, a ford,' said Vail, 'and wait for outriders to come and show them what we've found and let them bear word back to the train.'
'But what if there's no crossing?' asked Tip. 'What then?'
'Then we and the train will wait together for the water to subside and cross as we did at the last gulch.'
Tipperton growled in frustration.
Loric scanned about. 'Let us look for a place to set camp out of this weather.'
And so they mounted up and rode toward the mountains, where perhaps they would find a cave, a woodland, an overhang.
The rain let up during the night and by next morning was reduced to a blowing mizzle. And when the wagon train set out, the wains well separated laterally, the cavalcade and vanguard rode even farther wide. As Bwen had barked at Ruar, 'It's troublesome enough rolling across these drenched hills without having you churning it up ahead.'
And once again the spare great horses were harnessed in six-horse teams to hale any mired wagons free. And ere they had gone half a mile the first of the wains became bogged.
Above the roar, Tip shouted, 'Lor', I think I could jump my pony over this.' He looked across the gap of the narrow stone gorge, no more than twenty feet wide. Fifty feet below, a rage of water thundered through the long, narrow slot.
Loric turned to Vail and called, 'Can we find timber, this is the place to cross.'
'A bridge, you mean?' shouted Tip.
'Aye. The timbers will have to be sturdy.'
Vail peered 'round. 'There is none heavy enough easterly. Mayhap among the valleys of the Rimmens we will find a stand.'
'Trees need water to grow tall,' called Tipperton. 'And if this stream flows each time it rains, then somewhere near the headwaters is where I'd look.'
Loric grinned down at the Waerling and nodded. And the trio mounted and rode westerly up the land.
Nigh mid of day the mizzle stopped, and Beau looked up in gratitude and cast back his hood. And as the day wore on, the grey skies lightened and were finally riven with slashes of blue, and when the train came to a halt for the evening, puffy white clouds drifted overhead.
Even so, through the soggy land the train had covered only five miles in all.
As they ate, Phais said, ' 'Tis Autumnday this day, when dark and light are in balance. A night we celebrate.'
From across the fire, Melor looked up and nodded, but Beau at her side blanched. 'Oh, my, but what a sinister thought.'
Phais looked sideways at him in puzzlement. 'Sinister?'
'Oh, Lady Phais, it's just that from now on, the dark will outweigh the light. I do hope it's not an omen of things to come.'
Phais reached over and hugged the buccan to her. 'Fear not, wee one, for it marks but the change of seasons and the celebration of harvest.'
Beau nodded, but the frown between his eyes slackened not.
That night the Baeron watched in wonder as a thousand Dylvana and one Lian stepped out the stately rite of Autumnday. And down among the gliding Elves, the pausing Elves, the turning, chanting Elves, there paced and paused and turned and glided one wee Warrow as well.
And some twenty miles farther on, in a stand of tall pine cupped in a mountain vale, three others stepped out the ritual 'neath the three-quarter waning moon.
'Abridge?'
'Aye, Lady Bwen,' replied Ruar, 'if within these wains there is the wherewithal to construct such.'
'Oh, we have the axes and saws, right enough.'
Ruar turned to Gara. 'Thy horses are better suited to drag the timbers unto the narrows.'
Gara nodded. 'I will gather a company and we will follow Lady Vail back unto the stand.' He turned to Bwen. 'By the time you reach the gorge, the bridge should be in place.'
Bwen scratched her head and glanced at the sun overhead, then patted the side of the mired wain at hand. 'Make it sturdy, Chieftain. Make it sturdy.'
Within six candlemarks, and following Vail, two hundred Baeron rode out, the company bearing axes and saws and awls and augers and ropes as well as other tools.
By that evening the train had moved only another six miles in spite of the heat of the sun.
And the next day they moved another seven miles altogether.
The following day they moved seven miles again, hindered primarily by stony, rugged terrain rather than by soggy land. And when evening came, they had reached the gorge.
A bridge awaited them there.
'Coo,' breathed Beau, standing with Tipperton, surveying the span.
Great logs, nigh forty feet long and bound together with ropes and crossbeams, bridged the gap. All was pinned with long, heavy pegs driven through augered holes. Atop the logs and pinned as well was rough-hewn planking thwartwise. Shallow ramps led up and onto the bridge on the near side and down and off opposite. Some fourteen feet wide was the bridge, with no side rails whatsoever.
And a torrent of water yet raced through the ravine below.
'Lor',' called Beau above the rush, 'how did you do it so fast?'
Tip smiled. 'With two hundred of these great huge Baeron plying axes and saws and other such, how could we not?'
