Fall of Angels

LXXX

“THAT’S IT.” NYLAN tapped the last wedge into place, ensuring that the fourth fir trunk would remain in place over the stone culvert. Ryba had declared that food and planting came first. So he’d done the bridge and culvert backward, putting the heavy rock riprap in place on both uphill and downhill sides of the culvert first, doing everything he could do alone until Saryn and the others could fell and bring him the trunks he needed.

“Last year, this was just bushes and grass,” said Huldran, setting down a heavy stone just beyond the footings that held the bridge timbers. She looked down at the stone-lined channel. “Do you think we need this big a bridge?”

“I hope it’s big enough,” the engineer answered. He gestured toward the tower and the bathhouse behind it. “We’re changing the land, and the guard will keep expanding-according to the marshal. The more hard roads and buildings, the more runoff. This is to keep it channeled from the fields.”

“What if there’s no rain?” grunted Cessya, mixing water into the dry ingredients of the mortar.

“That’s next year’s project,” laughed Nylan, slightly nervously. “See that swale down there? If we dam it at the north end, then we can put a spillway, a little one, in the middle, and run a ditch from the south end down to the fields.”

“The Rats’d have your head, Engineer, for all this landchanging,” Huldran commented.

“They’d do the same if they were trying to survive here.”

“They like hotter places.”

“They can have’em,” snapped Cessya. “Mortar’s ready.”

The three lugged the battered and leaking mortar tub up to the flat spot beyond the end of the timbers. Huldran andNylan began to fill the spaces between the heavy rocks, the wedges, and the timbers.

Once the mortar dried and held the trunks, then Nylan could complete the bridge’s roadbed, not so wide as he would have liked, but wide enough for a good-sized wagon and a wall on each side.

As he paused before taking another trowel of mortar, he took in the short stretch of paving stones that extended from the west end of the unfinished structure toward the causeway before the tower. Westwind was looking more and more permanent.

Nylan eased the mortar into place, while Huldran took the cart back up beyond the tower and to the base of the rocky hills to bring back more stones for both the bridge roadbed and for fill.

In the low-walled flat beyond the causeway, blade practice had begun again. Ryba had handed the carry-pack with Dyliess in it to Selitra. Facing her was Blynnal, and the local woman cowered once she held the wooden wand.

Saryn stood beside Blynnal, correcting her.

Behind Saryn, Hryessa and Murkassa practiced, already, from what Nylan could tell, making good progress toward achieving Ryba’s standards for all the guards, whether originally angel marines or local refugees.

The engineer pursed his lips as he bent for more mortar. Results-Ryba got them. He just wasn’t fond of the tactics.

“Working hard again, I see.”

Nylan glanced up to see Ayrlyn standing there. “What else do obsessed engineers do?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning …” The redhead let her words trail off.

“All right.” This time, Nylan understood. “Can I finish up this batch of mortar?”

She nodded.

The engineer turned to Cessya. “I’ll finish here. Would you go find Huldran and tell her just to unload the stones and then take the cart back. I need to talk to Ayrlyn about what we need from her next trading trip.”

“Yes, ser.” Cessya grinned. “Walking’s easier than moving stones.”

“We’ll make up for it after the noon meal,” Nylan promised, returning her grin, then looking back down at the stone in front of him.

“I’m still looking for an anvil?” Ayrlyn asked as Cessya started uphill, toward the tower and the rock-strewn canyon beyond the stable canyon.

“We need spikes, and nails, almost any kind of hardware. A set of hammers, I’d guess, big ones for the forge.” Nylan troweled the mortar smooth in the joints between two stones. “And some circular saw blades for the sawmill.”

“We don’t have one,” the redhead pointed out with a smile. “We don’t have a forge, either.”

“We’ll have both, before the end of the year.” The smith extended the trowel for more mortar.

“Nylan … why do you drive yourself so hard?”

“Because … what else can I do? Ryba wants to change this world to one where women rule, and she’ll leave the ground soaked with blood, including mine, if I try to stop her. Besides, she’s right about the way women are treated, and you can’t change that without even greater force.” He paused and wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm.

“Building things won’t change that,” Ayrlyn reflected. “You’re just allowing her to do more.”

“What am I supposed to do? I’ve got three children, and I only knew about one of them until they were born. Am I just going to condemn them to a short and nasty life? If they have strong walls and warmth and clean water, that leaves them less at the mercy of this friggin’ world. I don’t like it, but Ryba’s the only ship in port.”

“What do you want?”

The smith finished the joint, and extended the trowel to the battered tub for more mortar. “I don’t know. I know what I don’t want. I don’t want killing after killing. I don’t want to be cold and dirty and hungry. I don’t want that for Dyliess or Weryl or Kyalynn.” He shrugged, then applied the trowel again.

“You want to be appreciated, but you don’t want to force people to appreciate you. You want to be loved, but not used.”

“You might say that,” he admitted. “But that’s true of most people. Don’t you feel that way?”

“Yes”-Ayrlyn smiled warmly-“but I thought we were talking about you. You feel responsible for all your children, and yet you feel used. And you won’t say anything about it. You don’t like to talk about your feelings, not directly, and you try to avoid it. Was it that way growing up?”

“My mother always said there was no use in complaining. No one cared, and we might as well save our breath. So Karista and I didn’t. The older I got, the truer it seemed.” He set down the trowel as he finished the last of the mixed mortar. “What about you?”

“There you go again. Two sentences about you, and switch the subject to me.” Ayrlyn laughed. “My father was the warm one, and he joked a lot. He was quiet about it, but he also made it known, like your mother, that outside the family, no matter what people said, most didn’t care.”

“It sounds like he cared.”

“Your mother didn’t? I’m sure she did.”

“Oh, she did,” Nylan admitted, “but she felt it should be obvious, and why belabor the obvious? Actions speak louder than words-that was her maxim.”

“So you keep trying to make your actions do the speaking?” The redhead shook her head. “Most people don’t read actions very well. They need words as well, lots of them, preferably words that say how wonderful they are.”

“You’re more cynical than I am.”

“You’re not cynical at all, Nylan.” Ayrlyn reached down and touched his arm gently, her fingers warm and cool at the same time. “You’re a caring man who’s never allowed himself to express what he feels. You feel guilty and selfindulgent when you even think about what you feel. So you keep doing things and hope people understand.”

“Probably.”

Ayrlyn snorted and squeezed his arm.

“What about you? After last fall, aren’t there going to be armsmen out there looking for a trader with flame-red hair?”

“It’s getting cut shorter, and I’ll be wearing a hat. If they notice, well, it takes time to send messages in this culture, and we’ll try to stay ahead of Lord Sillek’s authorities.”

“I’m not sure I like that.”

“What else can I do? We need the goods, and now is better than later.”

The engineer nodded reluctantly, then stood as the bell rang for the midday meal.

“Time to eat? You headed my way?” asked Ayrlyn.

“Is there any other way?” Nylan swallowed. “Don’t answer that.”

“I won’t, but I’ll remember that you asked it.” She smiled gently, and Nylan smiled back.