“I’ll ride back to the town and let everyone know what’s going on, and I’ll make sure you get some creature comforts up here,” Abi offered, and she headed for the horses. She managed to get hers (reluctantly) into a canter, but his reluctance turned to eagerness once he realized he was pointed in the direction of his stable.

She found a crowd of townsfolk and Mayor Rufous gathered at the edge of town, waiting anxiously for some word from the dam. She reined the horse in and held up her hand, commanding their attention.

“We’re releasing the water slowly, so the river is going to start to rise. The men will be coming back soon; we don’t need them now. We need to move the work on the floating bridge back about a dozen furlongs from the current riverbank. Steen plugged the hole under the dam with ice, and is going to stay at the dam and keep it plugged until the lake has emptied.”

Cheers, some a little hysterical with relief, rang out at this good news. She waited for the noise to die down, then continued. “He is staying up there to keep an eye on things; so are two of our men, who will ride to warn the town if for some reason the dam fails despite our efforts. They need provisioning and—”

Well, she didn’t get a chance to say anything else, as townsfolk scattered in every direction. One man brought his mule and cart, a couple of women brought what must have been their own family’s supper, and several more brought blankets and water flasks and what looked like a small tent. Without a word, the man with the cart hopped up on the seat and headed for the dam when the cart was full.

The men who’d come up from the town to chip out the spillway came trickling back; the last one arrived just as the sun dropped behind the hills. Abi waited, since she could see a clot of figures in the distance, which turned out to be the three Masters, Jicks, and the man with the cart.

“How is it looking?” Abi asked, anxiously.

“Stable,” Master Vance decreed. “I wish I knew how long it would take to empty out that lake, though.”

By morning, the river was appreciably higher, and the water was full of mud. Abi and Master Vance rode up to the dam to see what progress had been made.

The improvised spillway and the water level were both a lot lower. Steen looked as if he’d gotten some rest and at least two meals in. “The plug is holding, but I had to reinforce it,” he reported. “And last night I had to put in a temporary ice dam, but either the water has hit some harder soil, or the pressure against the dam is lower, because things slowed down again around dawn.”