Days—days to go back down and across to the other route. With the weather about to turn. If he went back now he wouldn’t get up to Tarmin Ridge until spring—and that left him sitting in Anveney territory all winter, with nothing done, nothing but using up his supplies, his account—granting money was there, of which he was not entirely certain if he failed Cassivey’s commission now. If the villagers found that shipment up there in the rocks—Cassivey and a lot of Anveney folk weren’t going to be damned happy with him.
He didn’t like losing, or explaining to a shipper why he’d failed; and failing what he’d promised himself and Aby, hell—it wasn’t why he’d come this far already.
He walked back off the bridge. <Sharp rocks,> Burn imaged as he made a risky, wind-battered descent off the roadway, holding on to rocks to take a look underneath at the supports. <Burn standing. Guil standing on road. Guil standing on ground.>
The supports were sound enough, run through with iron rods and huge metal plates bolting the whole together.
He climbed back up to the road and walked out on the bridge as far as the gaps. He stood looking at the far side, then shut his eyes a moment, and made his mind as quiet and confident as he could.
<Burn walking to Guil,> he sent. <Burn standing on bridge with Guil.>
<Burn in meadow. Burn eating green grass.>
<Burn on the bridge. Strong thick boards.>
<Sharp rocks. Holes in bridge.>
“Come on, Burn, dammit. It’s too far to go back.” He looked up at gray-bottomed clouds scudding above the peak. <Snow clouds. Burn. Burn walking. Now.>
<Guil with snow on him.>
“Burn, dammit! Come on!”
<Thicker snow. Guil in snow, standing on bridge.>
“Burn. Get your ass out here. <Now!>”
Burn moved, came step after slow step, the wind whipping his mane upward, trying each plank, imaging as he came: <Cold belly. Tail tucked. Fire and dark. Weathered, split boards.>
“It’s all right, Burn. Come on.”
Burn came up beside him, at the area of missing boards, stopped, and lowered his head to take a long, unhappy, dizzy look down into the depths below.
<Burn standing still.> Guil patted Burn’s shoulder hard, to be sure he felt it, laid his rifle and his gear down on the bridge planks, and with a hand along Burn’s side and rump, walked Burn a little distance out to where a number of planks were loose.
It wasn’t easy to free one. It was a plank sized to support a small truck. It weighed like hell and he could only lever it up from the end, looking out over a sheer drop down the face of the mountain, and the wind blasted his hat off, left it spinning and jerking at his back, held only by the cord. He got the plank up, turned it, dragged it back past Burn and, with slow maneuvering and a final, satisfying thump, installed it in the gap.
Burn leaned forward in curiosity and peered over that edge. Didn’t trust that board. But Burn was amazed, preoccupied with the gap, when Guil walked back by him, hand on Burn’s side.
He worked and worked, freed the next plank, and dragged it along past Burn.
Then Burn caught on what he was doing, <planks missing behind him.>
Burn backed up in a panicked rush. Guil let the plank fall crashing to the deck and grabbed a double fistful of nighthorse mane to stop him. <Burn backing, putting foot into gaping hole. Burn with cattle tail!>
<Kicking Guil,> Burn sent, <biting.> But Burn didn’t do it.
Burn stood there shivering, with a clear imagination of the bridge unraveling behind him.
“You don’t move!” <Burn standing. Guil fitting plank.> Guil hurried as best he could, picked up the plank and dragged it into place.
He went back and got another one. Burn was still standing, shivering. Burn could cross a single missing board. Guil dragged the third board up to Burn’s position.
But Burn was far from certain that any board he’d just seen moved was going to stay put. Burn grew confused about directions, and started to back up in great haste.
“You fool,” Guil swore, threw himself under Burn’s rump and shoved with all the strength he had. <Gap behind us,> he argued, until Burn bent his neck around and took a confused, misgiving look back.
Burn didn’t trust <migrating holes.> Burn wasn’t going back. Burn wasn’t going forward. No.
There were two of them shaking now. Guil retrieved the plank he’d dropped, a quarter over the edge of the decking where it had bounced. He jammed his hat back on and swore and wrestled it up to the two-plank gap.
He dropped it in. He was exhausted and his headache had come back, but he wouldn’t ask Burn to accept a hand-span gap in the planks that were there—Burn’s estimation of gaps wasn’t so reliable at the moment. He dragged and wrestled with it and got it butted.
Then he got up and stamped loudly over the repaired section, while Burn watched in horror. Stepped across the single missing plank. Did a kickstep across it, back and forth and twice more, like a lunatic.
Then he went back to Burn, and with his hands constantly on Burn’s neck, patted and cajoled and argued, with the wind blasting up out of the gorge at both of them, rocking even Burn on his feet. He imaged <Burn walking on bridge.>
When that didn’t work, he tried <Burn standing on bridge in snow. Snow falling thick.> He was cold. The wind cut like a knife. Burn was cold. <Frozen Burn. Ice crystals on hide. Guil covered in frost. Boards falling, carried away on winter wind. Us standing on the last few lonely boards.>
The last was only half a lie. It spooked Burn. Burn jumped forward, <going forward> with a thunder on the new, loose planks, imaged the gap as <gaping hole,> and spooked across it.
Right for the next gap.
<“Burn!”>
Burn cleared it. Thump-bang!.—and stopped, scared and confused.
Guil grabbed up his gear and ran, heart pounding, as far as the gap Burn had jumped, before his knees wobbled and gave out.
He squatted down. Burn was standing sideways on the bridge, looking back in distress.
It took a considerable while of catching his breath before Guil slung his rifle to his back, threw the two-pack across the gap, and crossed it, astride the support boards, with the wind out of the gorge blasting up under his coat and whipping his hat this way and that.
<Guil on bridge,> Burn imaged to him, wanting him safe.
<Burn standing still! > he flung back, scared, and with his teeth chattering. He was mad, he was furious with himself for going ahead, but back wasn’t any easier than forward right now.
Something white flew across his vision. Several more followed.
Snowflakes, scattered, few, and from a partially cloudy sky. But it was a warning. It was a clear warning.
<Snow.> Burn saw it. <Cold wind.>
“I’m trying,” Guil muttered, and tried to will the headache into some inner dark. Let his temper and the headache go off together and trade insults. They’d this bridge to cross. He didn’t know how many more. He didn’t know this road except by Aby’s image, and that was the way an experienced rider killed himself and his horse, just too damn good, too damn cocky with the weather and an unknown road a junior wouldn’t think of trying.
Burn deserved better. Wasn’t going to leave Burn to freeze on a gap-toothed bridge.
Two more gaps. More laborious board-movings, a twice-mashed finger, a bashed knee, a splinter through his right glove, that he couldn’t get all of with his teeth and he didn’t want to take the glove off for fear of losing it, the wind was blowing so and his fin-gers were so numb. Cold helped the headache, only thing he could say for it.