The bridge had not fallen.
That was the first thing Iven saw when the road cleared the quarry wall. The second was a wagon tipped across its far end, one wheel hanging above the ravine. Men were throwing sacks from its bed onto the road. Another group worked at the near abutment, where a metal charge case smoked beside a fractured stone.
The bridge spanned a narrow channel cut through red rock. The stream at the bottom was no wider than a cart, but the drop would kill a falling mule. A pipe ran beneath the bridge on brackets fixed to the stone piers. One bracket hung loose, and hot water hissed from a joint where the pipe had bent.
Orla saw it at the same moment. “That line supplies Red Hollow’s lower pump.”
“Can you close it?” Iven asked.
“From the station, not here.”
Pella’s spear guard, a woman named Cett, pointed to the men at the abutment. “They’re setting another charge.”
Four of them. Two carried long guns; the other two were handling a squat iron cylinder and a coil of fuse. On the far bank, the men unloading the wagon had paused to watch. A pair of drivers lay beside the wagon, wrists bound. One was struggling to sit upright.
