The beaded curtain was flung aside and Turin stuck his head in. “Get ready, Cricket. You are up next,” he said, then disappeared.
Edric frowned. “You don’t suppose he heard?”
Cricket shook her head. “I do not think so. But it makes no difference. When the caravan leaves South Ledopolus two days from now, I am leaving with it, and nothing anyone can say or do will stop me.”
“That’s the spirit,” Edric said, as Cricket got up and adjusted her clinging black gown. “Now go out there and dance up a storm.”
“Yes,” she said. “That I can do.”
Chapter Three
The village of North Ledopolus was even more unassuming than Sorak had expected. It was little more than a scattering of small, flat-roofed, one-story adobe buildings clustered along a few narrow, dirt streets. The village was situated on a bend in the Estuary of the Forked Tongue, separated from its sister village, South Ledopolus, by about ten miles of ugly brown silt. In the middle of the estuary rose the craggy, volcanic peaks of Ledo Island, dominating the view for miles around.
North Ledopolus was smaller than its sister village, which had grown because of its position on a caravan route. The northern village was smaller in another way, too: it had been built by dwarves and for dwarves. South Ledopolus, on the other hand, had many structures built to human scale to accommodate caravan crews.
Sorak could see little reason for a village to be situated on the north shore of the estuary. There were no trade routes running past, no natural resources there. North Ledopolus stood completely isolated, bounded by the estuary on one side and the Great Ivory Plain on the other.
Its only reason for existence was the causeway the dwarves sought to build across the estuary. If they could complete the project and successfully defend it from the giants who lived on Ledo Island, it would open a new trade route, connecting Balic to Gulg and Nibenay. There was also the possibility of a second trade route, northeast to the gambling city of Salt View.
Though far removed from major trade routes, Salt View was a popular destination for adventurers and pleasure seekers. Situated in the southern slopes of the Mekillot Mountains, it was a freewheeling gambling mecca where virtually any sort of entertainment could be found—for a price. Those who sought its expensive, libertine diversions paid handsome fees to join small, well-protected caravans from Gulg or Nibenay to Salt View. Such a trip was not without its hazards, however. Aside from the dangers of the harsh and inhospitable terrain, there was the added risk of an attack by marauders, who lived in the foothills of the Mekillots and preyed on travelers and raided the caravan routes to the west.
A trade route from North Ledopolus could skirt the southern edge of the crystal plain and run across the desert to the oasis where they had camped the previous night. From there, it could continue around the great silt basins to the east, following their shores before turning north, toward the Mekillots, crossing the salt plain at its narrowest point. It would make for a much easier and safer journey to Salt View then approaching it from Nibenay or Gulg.
If the bridge across the estuary could be completed, Sorak was sure the governing council of Salt View would share the expense of establishing the new trade routes, and North Ledopolus would quickly grow from a small village to a large and thriving caravan town. Knowing this, the dwarves had labored ceaselessly for years to bridge the estuary, carrying the burden of the elaborate construction and doing battle with the giants.
The merchant houses of Altaruk could easily have supported the dwarven venture with additional construction crews and mercenaries. For that matter, Sorak thought, any of the great houses could have raised an expeditionary force to drive the giants out of Ledo Island. However, for undertaking such a costly enterprise, they would doubtless expect a proprietary share in the causeway, and that would reduce the potential profits to the dwarves.
It seemed to Sorak that the dwarves were going about it the hard way. If they had cut one of the merchant houses in for a proprietary share of the causeway, the estuary would have been bridged by now, and any losses the dwarves might have sustained from a merchant house taking a percentage of the tolls would have been offset by the increased revenues.
But dwarves were uncommonly stubborn, and once they had determined their focus, nothing would deflect them from it. They wanted full ownership of the causeway and would settle for nothing less. As a result, nothing was exactly what they had, even after years of struggling to complete the project.
Well, not quite nothing, perhaps. They had clearly made some progress. The construction that extended into the estuary from South Ledopolus reached almost halfway out to Ledo Island. From North Ledopolus, another section of the causeway stretched across the silt, extending about two miles from the shore.
The giants could not wade out from the island to attack the bridge at just any point. In some places, the silt would rise over their heads and drown them, so they could destroy only whatever sections they could reach. This meant the dwarves made progress with one section while the giants attacked another. Then the silt would shift along the estuary bottom and the situation would be reversed.
Where the sections of the bridge began, near either shore, the dwarves had widened the causeway considerably, not only to allow for the eventual passage of large caravan vehicles, but also to accommodate defensive fortifications, including catapult emplacements and towers for archers.
Those recently constructed sections of the causeway that extended farther out across the estuary were narrower and not yet fortified. Consequently, they were more vulnerable to attack.
For the dwarves, the trick was to take advantage
