Brian Kittrell - The Immortals of Myrdwyer

Laedron, though he knew nothing of bows, took her comment and apparent surprise as signs in favor of the bow’s quality and construction.

Paldren nodded. “It’s lower on the draw weight, but that was the way I needed it. I used that one in the past when I thought I may have had need to shoot from horseback. Since I don’t travel much anymore, it’s yours.”

“Draw weight?” Laedron asked.

“The power of the bow.” She pulled the string taut. “The harder it is to draw, the harder the impact of the arrow.”

“Perhaps I underestimated you,” Paldren said. “Would you care to try it?”

“I’d rather save the arrows if it’s all the same.”

“Here.” Paldren pulled one from his own quiver. “Don’t worry about breaking that one. That hay bale is your target.”

She nodded, nocked the arrow, and drew, the bow and string creaking under the strain. Releasing the string, she squinted past the bow at her target.

“Not bad,” Paldren said, walking over to the bale and pulling out the arrow. “At least you hit it.”

“I wasn’t aiming at the bale.” With the others following, she joined Paldren, then tugged at the string wound around the straws of hay and frowned. “Missed my target.”

“It was close, though. Surprisingly close.” Paldren examined her, as if impressed by her competence. “How long have you been shooting?”

“For a few years, on and off. Each time the university hosted a new batch of men for the militia, I’d be sure to visit and pick up anything that I could.”

“University? What university trains archers?”

“The Arcanists of Azura.”

“The Arcanists? My, my.” A smile creeping across his face, Paldren gave her the arrow. “Keep that one. And good luck on your endeavors outside these walls.”

“Thank you for letting us in for the night,” Laedron said. “If you’ll be so kind to open the gate, we’ll be off.”

“One last thing. We used to send smaller shipments of lumber west when requested, but the last one returned and reported that the ancient bridge was damaged. We’ve sent word to Navarine, to the king, but with the fighting in the east, he’s yet to send aid.”

“Ancient bridge?”

“The valley makes a sharp turn west of here and has long marked the divide between the east and the west of Lasoron. The Uxidin built a bridge-well, they built most of the ones we still use today-but this particular bridge was quite long indeed, a marvel of ancient engineering by any standards. One of the sections has fallen out, so you’ll be forced to find a way across it or travel down the valley and up the other side.”

“I think we can handle that. Thank you.”

With little more than a nod, Paldren returned to the top of the wall and turned the crank to open the gate. Slamming shut behind them, the gate was a symbol of what Laedron anticipated for the rest of the trip. From this moment forward, we shall see no security, no shelter, until our journey has concluded, he thought, glancing one last time at Sir Paldren atop the palisade.

Through sparse forest, they trekked until Laedron spotted the columns the knight had described, two marble pillars that had been there so long that they seemed to have sprouted from the earth. Only pine straw and undergrowth surrounded them, as if the trees refused to encroach upon the columns.

Laedron climbed down from his horse. He crouched beside one of the stones and dug into the ground with his hands. A few inches down, he felt smooth rock against his fingertips. “Here it is.”

Marac glared at Laedron from his saddle. “Must we crawl along the ground to find this road? There had to be another way.”

Laedron cleared away more of the thick straw-dirt mixture. “No. If I go along and find a few more in a line, we can merely follow the spacing between the trees. The stone’s been placed with a tight fit, where trees can’t grow up between the blocks.” He searched the ground for another piece of the road. Finding one, he smiled and pointed to the west. He mounted his horse, then brushed his hands together, dusting off the bits of pine straw and mud. He pulled on the reins and led the way deeper into the forest, keeping an eye on the spacing between the trees as he went.

Brice slapped his neck, then examined his palm, as if he had killed a mosquito. “How much farther do we have?”

“We follow this highway until its end. At most, two days by Sir Paldren’s estimation.”

“Two more days,” Marac said, then quaffed a mouthful of water from his canteen. “I’ll be glad to be done with this damned forest.”

They rode on through the rest of the day and came to the start of a stone bridge late in the afternoon. Beneath the bridge, the valley extended deep and long, and Laedron couldn’t see the end of the vale no matter how hard he strained. Wide enough for five horses to cross walking side by side, the bridge was a sight to behold, a miracle of the ancient world still standing in the present. Neither nature nor age had been mighty enough to fell the stonework, but he remembered what Paldren had said about a section missing.

“This should be interesting.” Laedron cleared his throat. “Ready?”

Marac stood in his stirrups and stared at the river far below. “Is it sturdy?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Do you think it’ll hold, Lae?” Marac asked.

“A bridge that massive and thick? We’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.”

Reluctantly, Marac and the others followed Laedron onto the bridge, all of them silent, as if even a whisper could rattle the foundations and cause them to plummet into the chasm. The gusts of wind through the trestles and the patter of hooves against stone were the only sounds Laedron heard. He kept his eyes focused on the path ahead. Don’t look down. The simple act of looking down could be enough to pull you over the edge.

He slowed to a halt when he spotted the break, stopping about a stone’s throw away from a huge section of missing bridge. “Hold up here.”

“Creator! How can we get across there?” Leaning forward, Valyrie hugged her horse as a child might her favorite toy. “It must be a hundred feet or more to the next landing.”

“A little magic goes a long way.” Laedron drew his scepter. “I’ll send each of us-horses and all-across the gap.”

“Do you know nothing of horses?” Marac asked.

“What? I know enough-”

“If you lift a horse off the ground, there’s a good chance that it will panic. You may be able to save one, but the other will fall to the bottom. Since we want to lose neither people nor mounts, we’d better come up with a better solution than that.”

“A bridge of air, then?”

“Tell me, then: what do horses do when you drive them over the edge of a cliff?”

Laedron shrugged. “They fall?”

“Unless frenzied and ignorant of the edge, they stop, Lae. A bridge could work, but it has to be something that the horses can see.”

“Good thought.” Scratching his chin, Laedron considered the options. Conjure air, but change the color? Or summon the illusion of stone? The latter would be more difficult, but it may be safer. “I’ll try to conjure a replacement that looks just like the bridge, but it could take some time. It would be best if I test it before anyone else.”

Marac nodded. “Take your time. We have that in abundance.”

Laedron hopped down from his horse, crouched, and examined the stonework. It’s almost as if it’s woven together magically. Such small stones fitted together in such a precise fashion… one would face some difficulty to find masonry of this quality even in Sorbia. Crawling along, he tried to find a pattern, something he could duplicate on a scale large enough to cover the gap, but no matter how close he came to finding one, he couldn’t.