Sound traveled four times faster through solid water-setting concrete and water than through the crisp mountain air.
To Giles Croft, a raised stone water chute was not merely a high-pressure channel. It was a two-mile sound wave-guide.
Every splash, scraping boot, and muttered curse at the Eagle Peak intake rang down the unbroken stone support pillars like shakes in a tuning fork.
“Linear pathfinding,” Giles muttered as he hastened along the lower check trail beneath the archways. “An open mountain water chute bounded by steep upright canyon walls offers only one traversable vector. The intruders can’t deviate left or right without plummeting fifty feet into the scree.”
Beside him, Captain Kenneth Drake trotted in silence, leading eight seasoned guard post archers and four husky quarry constables armed with heavy ash cudgels and weighted hemp casting nets.
Maeve Swift-Ear led the vanguard, her soft moccasins making no sound on the frozen gravel.
Every fifty paces, she pressed the bell of her brass ear-trumpet against the mortar joints of the stone pillars.
“They’re slipping on the algae,” Maeve whispered, turning her sharp fox eyes toward Giles. “Two miles upstream was thirty minutes ago. The flow carries them along at four feet per second. They’re approaching Pier Twelve right now.”
Pier Twelve stood where the aqueduct crossed the narrow neck of Dead Man’s Gulch.
Here, the channel entered an enclosed check barrel vault built of dressed cut stone, designed to shield the flowing stream from falling winter rocks.
Inside the vault, the walkway narrowed to a solitary narrow high walkway sixteen inches wide. It was separated from the rushing mountain current by a low concrete curb.
Giles signaled a halt at the foot of the access ladder.
“No shooting blindly into the dark,” Giles commanded in a firm whisper. “Sister Teresa has made it abundantly clear what happens if a glass vial shatters into the channel. Glass splinters and toxin will flush down into our storage water tanks within twenty minutes.”
Kenneth checked the string on his recurve bow. “We drop the drop-gate behind them?”
“Exactly,” Giles said. “The water gate upkeep gate at Pier Twelve has an iron-heavy timber drop-gate. When I trip the balance weight lever, the gate drops, blocking their forward movement. You take the rear with nets and cudgels.”
Kenneth grinned in the darkness, gesturing to his four burly quarrymen. “A rat-trap in a stone pipe. My kind of work.”
They climbed the outside iron rungs set into the concrete pier, moving with practiced discipline.
The air atop the narrow high walkway was bitterly cold. Hoarfrost glistened on the stone low roof walls. The water below ran black and swift under the pale moonlight.
Giles took position beside the heavy bronze winch that controlled the Pier Twelve upkeep barrier.
He waited in the shadows, his pocket watch ticking faintly against his woolen coat.
Three minutes passed in breathless stillness.
Then, faint splashing echoed from within the tunnel mouth upstream.
Six shadowy figures emerged from the dark stonework barrel vault, wading knee-deep against the biting ice-slow current.
They wore tight-fitting boiled leather coats dyed black, with greased wool wraps around their heads.
The leader carried a wicker crate strapped to his chest, padded with straw. Inside the crate, the dull clink of heavy glass jars was clearly clear.
“Almost to the open span,” the lead infiltrator hissed, his breath puffing white in the frosty air. “Once we crack these four jars into the drop, the whole town will be puking black foam by sunrise. Bronn will ride through the gates without swinging a sword.”
“Quiet, Varek,” another grunted, shivering wildly in the mountain water. “The ice water has numbed my knees. Move faster.”
They took three more sloshing strides toward the open water chute.
Giles pulled the iron trip-lever.
CLANG-THUMP.
A four-inch-thick oak drop-gate, clad in sheet lead, plunged into its upright concrete tracks directly in front of the intruders with the force of a guillotine.
Water backed up wildly against the timber barrier, foaming white around their hips.
“Ambush,” the leader shrieked, clawing at the barred gate. “Back. Go back.”
The six saboteurs spun around to retreat into the barrel vault.
From the tunnel mouth behind them stepped Captain Kenneth Drake and four burly constables, their ash cudgels raised and hemp nets spread wide.
On the narrow high walkways above, four guard post archers drew their bows to their cheeks, broadheads glinting in the moonlight.
“Drop the crate,” Kenneth barked, his voice echoing through the stone vault like thunder. “Drop the crate onto the dry ledge and raise your hands, or we ventilate your throats.”
The infiltrator named Varek snarled like a cornered beast.
He reached inside his tunic, pulling a bone-handled dagger with a blackened, venom-dripping tip.
“Die, frontier dog.” Varek lunged toward Kenneth.
Kenneth didn’t even draw his blade.
With the cold smooth speed of a veteran trench fighter, he swung his ten-foot iron-shod pacing rod in a tight, sweeping arc.
The iron tip caught Varek squarely across the kneecap.
CRACK.
Varek screamed as his leg folded sideways under him, collapsing into the freezing water.
Before the other five could draw their weapons, the two quarry constables cast their heavy hemp nets over the huddled men.
Lead weights dragged the thick mesh down around their shoulders, pinning their arms to their sides.
The saboteurs thrashed, cursed, and sputtered, tangled hopelessly in the coarse cords.
“Secure the crate,” Kenneth barked.
Two guards jumped into the shallow water chute, pinning the struggling raiders against the concrete wall with wooden poles. Meanwhile, a third carefully lifted the wicker crate from Varek’s chest.
“Easy with that,” Giles called down from the narrow high walkway as he dropped the iron rungs. “Set it gently on the dry flags. Inspect the glass for hairline fractures.”
The wicker basket was placed on the stone walkway under Kenneth’s lantern.
Inside lay four gallon-sized clay pot jars sealed with red bees-wax and stamped with the sigil of an open viper skull.
Sister Teresa arrived at the top of the pier ladder. She carried her heavy wooden apothecary satchel and a lantern.
Her face was pale and tight with fury.
“Stand clear, all of you!” Teresa ordered, crouching beside the basket.
She produced a bone scraper, carefully slicing a sliver of the red wax seal from the neck of the first jar.
She uncorked it with utmost caution, dipping a thin strip of lye-treated linen into the neck, then holding it close to her lantern flame.
The cloth strip blackened right away, giving off a sickly-sweet aroma of roasted almonds and bitter hemlock.
“Nightshade spirit-extract blended with black marsh bile,” Teresa declared, her voice trembling with righteous anger. “A single jar in our main water tank would have numbed the lungs of three hundred men, women, and children within an hour. Pure demonic wickedness.
She resealed the jar with a wooden mallet and glared down at the shivering, net-bound captives in the water.
“They should be drowned in their own venom!” Teresa said, clutching her heavy brass pendant.
“No,” Giles said calmly, checking his pocket watch. “They’re prisoners of war. We don’t poison people, and we don’t lynch captives in the water chute.”
Kenneth hauled the soaked, whimpering raiders out of the water one by one, binding their wrists behind their backs with tarred hemp twine.
Varek lay on the cold stone flags, clutching his broken knee, his face pale and twisted with agony.
Giles knelt beside the fallen leader.
“Who commissioned this operation?” Giles asked evenly.
Varek spat a glob of blood onto the gray concrete, glaring up at Giles with bloodshot, fanatical eyes.
“You think you’re clever, don’t you, Lord Master builder?” Varek gasped through gritted teeth, coughing wildly. “You built a pretty wall. You built a pretty water trough. But you can’t build your way out of winter.
He let out a raspy, shivering laugh that ended in a retch.
“Enjoy your water, lordling! Warlord Bronn has five hundred killers gathered in the pines! Two siege towers taller than your castle walls! And the heat gauge is dropping every hour!”
Varek bared his yellow teeth in a feral grin.
“By tomorrow night, the deep frost will take your precious river! The water will freeze solid as granite from bank to bank! Your grand moat will be nothing but a flat ice road for our boots! We will walk right across, burn your roofs, and hang you from your own derrick crane.
Kenneth stepped forward, raising his heavy fist, but Giles raised a calm, arresting hand.
“That will do, Kenneth,” Giles said.
Kenneth lowered his fist, breathing heavily through his nose. “He’s telling the truth about the frost, Lord Giles. The wind has shifted out of the northern peaks. It feels like thirty below on the ridges.”
Giles stood up, gazing down into the rushing current of the aqueduct, then out across the dark expanse of the valley.
“Bind their wounds and escort them to the basement holding cells beneath the south gatehouse,” Giles ordered. “Sister Teresa, set splints on this man’s leg and administer willow-bark tea for the pain. Give them dry blankets and hot broth.”
Teresa blinked, clearly startled by the order. “You would feed the vipers who came to choke our babes in their cradles, Lord Giles?”
“A prisoner who freezes to death can’t provide detailed intelligence on the enemy’s order of battle,” Giles replied in his steady, matter-of-fact tone. “Plus, starvation of captives violates basic camp discipline and induces severe morale penalties in the guard detail. We’re a town settlement, Teresa, not a bandit camp.”
Teresa pressed her lips together, then bowed her head slightly. “As you say, Lord Baron. The mercy of the righteous shall confound them.”
The guards dragged the six shivering captives down the ladder, their wet boots squelching on the frozen path.
Giles remained on the narrow high walkway for a long moment. He looked toward the north where faint campfires flickered on the distant ridge.
Beside him, Kenneth leaned on his pacing rod, his expression dark with worry.
“If the moat freezes into four inches of solid ice, Lord Giles, he’s right,” Kenneth murmured. “Our wet ditch becomes a highway. Five hundred men with ladders and two thirty-five-foot siege towers will roll across without wetting their boots. How do we stop a five-hundred-man assault when our greatest obstacle turns to stone under their feet?”
Giles pulled a brass heat gauge from his pocket and held it in the wind.
The red liquid silver column was already sinking past twenty degrees below zero.
“Phase change of water,” Giles said quietly, his eyes bright in the darkness. “Water doesn’t freeze in a heartbeat, Kenneth. It freezes according to heat-powered heat loss and flow speed. If they expect a static ice bridge, we’ll give them a heat surprise.”
He turned back toward the ladder.
“Come. We need to inspect the central water tank and prepare the overflow drain tube before the deep freeze sets in.”