“Probably both,” said Vance, getting up on the hill to look at the lake. “Looks like the lake isn’t as big as I feared.”

“But what are the townsfolk going to do once the lake is drained?” Abi asked.

“That’s going to have to be up to them,” Vance replied. “We can’t stay here forever. They’ll have to decide if they want the dam back or are willing to do without it. If they want it, I’ll have Beyrn draw up plans and explicit instructions for repairing the old dam, but they’ll be on their own unless they have decided to join Valdemar.”

Abi was of two minds about that; it didn’t seem fair to leave this town on its own with regards to the dam on the one hand—but on the other, Vance was right, and there were more towns and villages to be seen to, and they couldn’t allow this one to take up all their time.

On the whole she was glad she wasn’t the one in charge of the group; this was not the sort of decision she was comfortable with making.

•   •   •

The floating bridge was complete by the time the lake had finally drained. The river was still a bit muddy, but Master Beyrn assured everyone that eventually it would clear. Not that it mattered; no one in the town used river water for anything; there was a well on every street. Virtually everyone from the town had gone up to marvel at what the receding waters revealed—which included the remains of another town! This one looked about half as large as Ellistown, but the buildings must have been much taller, given the fact that the ruins were three and four stories tall. No one from Ellistown quite knew what to make of it; there had never been so much as an old tale to tell them the place had ever existed. Abi hadn’t seen it in person yet; she’d been too busy helping with the construction of the floating bridge and the scaffolding for what would become the stone bridge.

Master Vance and Abi would have loved to have crawled all over those ruins, as they were in a style neither of them had ever heard of—but the mud on the floor of the former lake was at least waist deep, and it wasn’t going to dry up any time soon. Beyrn was just relieved that the crisis was over so far as he was concerned. He’d been happily drawing plans and explicit instructions, complete with pictures, of how to repair the existing dam or build a new one.