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?”
“Well, as to that,” Bahzell gave her a smile of his own, “no doubt you’ve heard as how any father is after getting wiser and wiser as his son gets older?” She nodded, and he chuckled. “I’ll not say my Da’s gotten one bit wiser as I’ve grown older, but this I will say-he’s gotten a sight more patient than ever I realized he was when I was after finding every way as how I could try his patience.” He shook his head, his smile turning into a grin. “It’s a rare wonder, I’m thinking, that ever I had the chance to finish growing up at all!”
‹ Really? › Walsharno’s ears flicked in amusement. ‹ I wasn’t under the impression that you were particularly “ grown up ”!›
Bahzell laughed, but then his ears pricked as a hradani woman-tall, even for a Horse Stealer-in the green surcoat of the Order of Tomanak rose from the bench under one of the streetlamps at the ramp’s foot.
“So, here you are…at last,” she observed, folding her arms and looking up at him. “Taking your own sweet time about it, were you?”
“And it’s a joy as ever to be seeing you, too, Sharkah,” Bahzell replied mildly. He dismounted and cocked his ears at his older sister. “And would it happen as there’s a reason you’re biding here in the dark?”
“Oh, it’s not so dark as all that yet,” Sharkah replied, and opened her arms to him. He embraced her, hugging her tightly, and tall as she was, her head scarcely topped his shoulder as she hugged him back. There was nothing fragile about that hug, though, and ribs less substantial than Bahzell’s might not have survived it.
She gave him one last squeeze, then stepped back with a smile.
“As for how it happens I’ve been sitting here this last hour or so,” she said, “Harshan decided as how it might not be so very bad an idea to use one of Baron Tellian’s pigeons to give Da and Mother a wee bit of warning. Not”- she added innocently-“that I’ve the least idea at all, at all, what that warning might have been, of course.”
“And you a servant of Tomanak.” Bahzell shook his head. “It’s amazed I am that himself hasn’t fetched you a smart rap for such a fearsome lie as that!”
“I’ve no doubt he was too busy clouting someone else about the head and ears to be bothering with such as me,” she told him, and cocked her head with a quizzical smile as Leeana swung down from Gayrfressa’s saddle beside Bahzell.
“And this-” Bahzell began, but Sharkah snorted a laugh.
“You’ve no need to be telling me that, little brother! I told you Harshan’d sent word ahead. And even if he’d done no such thing, I’ve eyes in my head, you know!”
Bahzell’s ears pricked, but then he looked down, following his sister’s gaze, and shook his head. The bracelets about his and Leeana’s wrists had begun to glow-softly, at first, but steadily brightening, the opals shining like bright, tiny moons in the gathering evening.
“So you’re the woman as was daft enough to take him on,” Sharkah said, reaching out to Leeana. “It’s glad I am someone was, but truth to tell, I’m wondering if you truly looked before you leapt!”
“Oh, I looked more carefully than you might think,” Leeana replied. “And to be honest, I think I did fairly well out of it.”
She smiled as Sharkah clasped arms with her. Leeana Hanathafressa had never met the woman who could make feel petite…until now. But Sharkah Bahanksdaughter managed it quite handily. She was at least eight or nine inches taller than Leeana, and broad-shouldered for a woman even in proportion to her height. The hand-and-a-half
