Many Words

Sif looked on in wonderment. Alfhilde floated smoothly over the edge of the water, stock still, as though she were standing on solid ground. She reached the far bank as quickly as she would have by walking, then fell to the ground, landing hard. Sif blinked and looked to Falthejn, the question forming on her lips stolen away as the magiker collapsed to one knee, breathing hard.

“Are you okay?” she asked. He gritted his teeth and nodded, standing. He swayed, then caught himself.

On the far bank, Alfhilde pulled the rope taut and tied it off. A little at a time, Falthejn put his weight on it. It held, and the second rope drew tight four feet above it.

Sif regarded it with some skepticism.

“It’s safe,” Falthejn reassured her. “If you fall, I can catch you. Loop your arm around the top rope and step carefully, and you won’t fall.”

Still uncertain, Sif nevertheless stepped up onto the foot rope, and put her arm over the hand line. Slowly at first, she edged out over the water. The rope swung beneath her, but she found herself anticipating it, moving faster, needing only the lightest grip on the hand line to steady herself, even with the weight of her pack throwing her off. Before she knew it, she had reached the far bank. She dropped from the rope to the dirt, landing lightly. Alfhilde looked on with some combination of surprise and confusion, but before she could say anything, Hrothgar, Jakob tied to his back, mounted the rope. Alfhilde bounced nervously from foot to foot as he inched along. The rope sagged beneath his weight, and Alfhilde’s gaze shot to the tree behind her as the rope creaked. Hrothgar, only a few inches above the water, looked straight ahead. His foot touched the bank a tense minute later, and Sif let out a big breath.

Alfhilde tucked the knife into her boot, then found the ends of the rope and set about tying one to a stout tree which leaned out toward the far bank. Falthejn knelt and did the same. He tested his knot, leaning back against the rope, and rose to found Alfhilde doing the same. Satisfied, she looked to him, and said, “I am ready.”

Falthejn nodded. He cleared pine needles away from the ground on which he stood, then drew with his finger, inscribing circles into the dirt. He planted his feet, spoke a few syllables in aelfish, and held out his hand. Invisible tendrils of force unwound from his fingertips, some weaving together beneath Alfhilde’s feet, and others wrapping themselves securely around points in the sky. The two groups came together, knotting to each other. Falthejn turned his wrist and focused on one of the symbols in the dirt. The tendrils pulled tighter, and Alfhilde’s feet left the ground.

They came to the end of a gentle rise, and the abrupt change in the terrain struck Falthejn, as it always did when he traveled this part of the world. He stopped. Before them was a steep descent, the road cutting back and forth amidst the rock outcroppings dotting the hillside. Patches of sunlight pierced the canopy where even the conifers couldn’t grow, though the trees still stood so densely that Falthejn couldn’t see more than fifty yards down the slope. The sound of rushing water was prominent, now more than the birds.

“Grevdarsflod,” Hrothgar said. “The first lodge is three leagues beyond the bridge. I do not come this way often.”

Falthejn rubbed his chin. “I doubt the lodge will still be open, and in any case, it is a target.”

“A logging camp stands a league further, if it has not been torn down.”

Falthejn thought it over. They’d made good time so far—almost a league per hour, by his reckoning. The terrain only grew rougher from here, though, and it would be past midday by the time they crossed the river. Another four leages in the afternoon was not an easy walk. “We will aim for the logging camp,” he decided. “If we do not reach it, we will make camp away from the road.” Falthejn waited, but against his expectation, Hrothgar raised no objection. “Very well. We have a long walk ahead of us,” he said, unnecessarily, and set off down the hill.

Fifteen minutes saw them to the base of the gorge. As they descended, they could, at intervals, see the river between the trees. As the road drew alongside it, its rapid, turbulent flow became evident. Grevdarsflod ran in a course thirty yards wide at the bottom of a steep-sided gully, some five yards below the level of the road. For the whole length of it they could see, its surface foamed over obstacles and into eddies. The sound it made was tremendous, a thunder that made conversation impossible.

A few minutes later, the road turned in toward the river.

“Where’s the bridge?” Sif shouted.

Falthejn wondered the same thing. The road reached out toward the river, but the massive edifice he’d crossed on the march south was simply missing, leaving a twenty-five yard gap. He doubted it had collapsed; the road ended in a sharp edge just past the river’s bank, the sort of precision he expected from magiker. Nobody had yet seen an ontling work the earth with their brand of magic, in the manner of the jordenmagiker, but Falthejn supposed it was a possibility. He was more concerned that he hadn’t seen it coming. Either someone had destroyed the bridge on a whim, some plan put into motion since he had taken the time to look forward in the morning, or he was faced with an enemy more dangerous to him than any other—one who knew he faced a diviner, and knew how to hide his actions from Falthejn’s sight.