At Mile 8 of the northern descent, the roar of the mountain river rose from a muffled rumble into a hollow, echoing thunder that shook the granite bluffs. Kezra, Yseld, and Paxa emerged from the lower hemlock forest onto an open bench of tiered limestone. There, the ancient road swung toward the great deep gap dividing the Empty Choir massif from the rolling northern foothills.
Here, spanning the white-water torrent fifty feet below, stood the Mile 8 bridge. It was an extraordinary work of old survey-corps building. A single, soaring stonework arch forty paces long, built of massive keyed arch stones of dark gray granite pinned together with cast bronze cramps. The abutments on both sides were bedded directly into living limestone cliffs, fortified with flared wing-walls that directed roadway runoff into rock drainage channels.
Kezra stopped on the approach apron. She took off her leather gloves to rest her bare palm against the southern low roof wall. The stone was cold and fully still, showing none of the tremors that agitated the loose gravel near the canyon lip.
“Look at the stonework joints,” Kezra said. She leaned over the low wall to inspect the curve of the arch. “The mortar was raked back and pointed with lead ribbon. After eighty years of snowmelt floods, there isn’t a single spall or wash-out along the spring-line.”
