BECMI Chapter 92 – The Forgebridge
“There will be a short delay,” I informed everyone as I glided past the guards on the Forgebridge, trailing a bunch of men and dwarves on black Disks edged in roses and skulls.
“Lady Edge?” the baron asked carefully, as I looked around.
“Quiet, Baron,” Prince Ukker said softly, armor creaking as the dwarves glanced over the side and smiled knowingly. “She bin fixing stone.”
The man blinked in confusion, then looked over the side as well.
The stones of the bridge were shivering, trembling, and orienting themselves. Gaps and gouges, scrapes and pits were filling in with visible speed. Shocked, his eyes moved to the rails on either side, and he blinked several times.
“Is the bridge getting wider?” he asked the dwarven leader softly.
The dwarf nodded slowly. “If you look back, you’ll see the road bin rising, und the bridge, too,” Ukker said softly, confidently.
The nobleman and his guards did just that, looking back to see that the ramp coming off the bridge was indeed extending out and up the hillside there, except the bridge didn’t seem to be moving.
“We’re rising, sir!” his guard captain murmured in disbelief, watching the railing. “What, what is she doing?”
“She bin pulling stone up off of the bottom of the river, flowing it along the bridge to where it’s needed, und lifting it higher while reinforcing the foundation, I think. If you look ahead now, the bridge there seems lower, because we bin rising up… und don’t fret, she bin getting to it,” Prince Ukker informed them.
The silent guards watched, the men at the ends of the bridge being waved to silence when they realized what was going on.
Baron Torwell could see the ripples as the bridge was somehow ten feet wider already, the rails were thicker, set closer and higher, all of stone now.
He jerked as suddenly stone flowed out and above them, enclosing them in a covered roof a good twenty feet above, plenty of room for the highest wagon, aye, and someone to stand atop it, too!
Biting his tongue to remain silent, he just watched as they finally inched forward, and ahead and around them, the bridge rose up, a cover was added to it to keep out the rain and snow, and they were slowly moving higher above the water, granting more room for boats to pass below them.
Slowly and gradually, the bridge rose up to greet them. He looked over the side, realizing they were forty feet above the water and slowly rising further, and that was before reaching the islet at the middle of the river which was supposed to anchor the far end!
There was no downward arch at all. The bridge leveled out fifty feet above the river, and never descended at all to meet the island, staying straight and true and continuing on.
“She’ll bin putting in additional foundations beneath, have du no worry, Baron,” the dwarven prince said sagely. “This one, she doesn’t do a job slipshod at all. When she be done, ‘twil bin a wonder of engineering for the age, du’ll bin able to charge money to folks to inspect it.” Ukker’s eyes twinkled merrily. “I imagine the bridge helps du control traffic on the river. Is it deep enough to allow the high-masters in?” he inquired calmly.
“There are too many shallows and bars upriver for the ships of the sea to make their way up river here, it’s mostly coracles and shallow-draft vessels, along with barges,” the baron shook his head. “The Forge is steady and fairly wide, but it is not very deep in many places.”
“Mmm, a shame. She’d probably put in a counterweight span that would open for du,” Prince Ukker mused aloud, watching new stone flow up on this newly widened, shaded bridge, now more than large enough for three wagons to travel abreast. “Job she’s doing, cost du a hundred thousand gold coins or more, Baron. Best du value it, for all that she bin making it look simple,” he warned the man.
The somewhat awed nobleman could only nod helplessly. “I had no idea elven magic was so impressive,” he admitted quietly.
Prince Ukker just sat back with a hard smile. “Most elves, no, they’d not hold a candle to this one, Baron. But this one works stone like a master sculptor und master builder. ‘Tis a guilty pleasure to watch her do so. Hah, lazy I bin.” With a grunt, he slid off his personal Disk, landing on the bridge, and stomping on it firmly. “Oh, lads, feel that…”
The other dwarves rapidly followed suit, as did the humans, curious.
There was no give. None. It felt like they were walking on the side of a mountain.
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“She bin right down to the stone underneath the mud of the river,” Ukker whistled, stepping over to the edge and looking over. “Bah, haven’t the angle. Columns probably designed to flow the water around them more smoothly, too.”
They were passing by the small islet in the middle of the river, and Lady Edge waved her hands negligently to the sides. The bridge bulged outwards in a great circle there, with seats folding out of the sides of the rails, and the roof extending out to cover what was either a large turnaround or a resting area for walkers, complete with two extra half-circles for smaller numbers bulging even further out the side.
The view of the river and the island from them was excellent.
A flowing column rising up divided into a doorway going down, and the Baron looked over, to find a curving and railed stone stairway curving down towards the island below, if anyone cared to walk down it.
“Ho, build a nice outpost there to command the river, if du were of a mind to,” Ukker pointed out, stepping along and clearly enjoying every single step he was taking, watching everything with a keen eye. “Lean shields against those rails, easy put a thousand men on this bridge against an attacker coming from up the river, and not have to worry about arrows from above.”
Baron Torwell swallowed, aware that he was going to be hugely in the debt of this strange elfin, and not knowing what to do about it.
“Relax, Baron. She’ll not charge du for this, nor demand a favor. If she wanted to do so, she’d have traded for it ahead of time. This bin something du’d not do because the time, will, and money be not there, und it costs her little but time and concentration, so she bin doing it for du. Du must have made a good impression on her.”
He had no idea how that had happened, as his table hadn’t been that rich, and surely the wealth and prosperity of his territory was no greater than Darkmoor… and what would an elf find impressive in a human city, regardless?
“The guards at the door said that she straightened out the streets, fully repaired and leveled them, from the gates to the mansion, too!” his guard captain said softly to his lord as they walked slowly behind the advancing elfin, who was standing on the air a few inches above the bridge, the spiked end of her crimson Staff with the black star sapphire Orb the size of a fist atop it gently inserting into a seam of the stonework with every step she took. She’d just been gliding earlier, so the walking had to be a way to maintain control easier at a slow speed…
“Aye, und from the mansion to the bridge as well, though it bin under und behind us, and du saw it not,” Prince Ukker said sagely, just enjoying the sight of stone flowing like water and then settling into smooth, geometrically-precise arcs that were at once artistic and load-dispersing and resilient in all the best ways. “Paved Darkmoor City all in one night the same way. Would have paved the road all the way to the Weirwood Court, but we bin in a hurry und moving too quickly.”
“This…” Baron Torwell was at a loss. “Why would she do such a thing?” he asked the dwarf quietly.
“Because she can, und because du can’t pay her enough to do so. Or perhaps a simpler reason,” he mused, nodding to himself.
“And what would that be?” the Baron Torwell asked curiously.
“Good things should happen to good people,” the dwarf replied, hiding his smile as the nobleman stopped in astonishment, and the dwarves and elf kept right on moving.
Such… a simple reason?, the Baron Torwell thought, staring after her, and only belatedly remembering he had to move when the line of silent black Disks, ominous with their skulls and roses, began to drift past him.
If this was the way she treated an honorable man who wasn’t her enemy, Baron Torwell had to wonder how she treated those she might name as friends and allies… and with this level of power, what she might do to her enemies?
“Sir, if I recall correctly, this manner of magic isn’t supposed to be able to affect worked stone, but she clearly is doing so,” Captain Rugert murmured to him. “That means she could do it to, say, the town walls, the castle walls…”
He could not help turning to look back at the walls of Torwell, his ancestral holding. He had weathered many attacks and sieges from the tall and well-made palisades there, and he could still see the scoring from several attacks in the past here and there.
In front of her, they were piles of sand, ready to wash away with a wave of her lace-gauntleted hand.
She was reputed to have rescued the King of Darkmoor, was considered an ally of the King’s Council, and supposedly had been very key in the seizing of the Batrachian Basilica, breaking its defenses and erecting new ones about the place, rapidly turning it into a fortified outpost of Darkmoor on the far side of the Fens, territory normally ceded to the Empire and the Duchy of Elb!
Word had it they’d secured a source of the otherworldly magic the Froggers used, too…
“The situation in the North is changing very rapidly, indeed,” he said to Rugert, resuming his pace along the bridge. “The strength of the rebels is going to increase every day that this elf is around, judging by the way she works and the level of her power. She has great magical strength… and she is willing to use it, unlike so many wizards who are so aloof and natter on about secrets and the burden of power and such things.”
“Elves are basically born to use magic, so that is not surprising, sir. But I’ve never heard of an elf using magic this powerful, and so easily…” his guard captain murmured.
The Baron Torwell could only nod agreement. “The Iron Graf must be rolling in his sleep, having nightmares of her coming down and reducing his camp in Russof to spreads of clay.” Which was an extremely amusing idea.
“She could build a castle and a keep in a day, with the ability to move this much stone. She could put up a fort every mile along the Greenway and turn it into a nightmare for any invader.” Rugert was awed by the implications. “My lord, there is no way that the Empire can re-take the North with this woman around…”
“Which means that all of the Iron Graf’s efforts will soon be bent to try and get rid of her, without implicating himself in the matter and attracting her attention if they fail.” After all, you didn’t try a military solution when dealing with an archmage. “He might have no choice but to call for magical help from the capital to deal with her…”
And would that be enough? He knew of no Imperial mage who could do what she was doing so simply and quickly.
And this woman was going to find out the truth of what happened at Torford Abbey. He felt a slight flash of sympathy for whoever would be revealed as the culprit…