The most obvious thing was to destroy the east bridge, the one connecting the larger and flatter of Andt-Kyl’s two islands to the eastern bank of the Black. There was nothing on that far shore but half a dozen miserable farms, the owners of which did some bitching and some moaning on the subject until Pyrre explained about the Urghul and their love for pain and blood. That got almost everyone across the bridge, all except for one stubborn old bastard who sat on his porch with a pair of sharpened felling axes and a great crock of whiskey, who spat on Gwenna’s blacks when she told him he had to move.

She started to go after the man, but Bridger held her back.

“Leave him be,” he murmured. “Pikker John’d rather die on his porch than run.”

“I’m here to make sure people don’t die,” Gwenna said, furious at the old man’s idiocy. She knocked Bridger’s hand off her shoulder.

“Plenty of folks left to save,” the young man replied, gesturing back toward the village. “Lot of work to be done, sir, and if you’re right about them horsemen, not much time to do it.”

They left Pikker John on his porch, honing his axes and taking the occasional pull on his crock. Gwenna told herself that at least the stubborn old bastard might kill one or two of the Urghul, but it felt like a failure. Long Fist hadn’t even arrived and she’d already lost a man.

“We’ve got to blow this bridge,” she said, sizing up the wooden span after they’d crossed back to East Island. The decking didn’t look like much, rough-sawn lumber tacked down with crude-cut nails, but the whole thing was held up by a dozen pilings, each as thick as a tree, sunk deep in the silt on either side of the channel.

“Blow it?” Bridger asked.

Gwenna grimaced. Kettral munitions weren’t exactly a secret—there were too many stories swirling around the world for that—but the Eyrie tried not to spread word of the explosives any further than necessary.

“Like burning it,” Gwenna said, “only a lot faster.”

“I’ll get it taken care of,” Bridger said.

“How?”

He smiled. “Those are logs. We’re loggers.” He jerked a thumb at one of the half-dozen men who trailed him. “Banders—get a group. Cut it down.”

The man nodded, then trotted off.

“What about the pilings in the middle?” Gwenna asked. Most were sunk in the mud flats flanking the channel, but four plunged straight into the swift current of the water.

Bridger frowned. “Sunk those twelve years back,” he said, “when winter froze the river hard enough to work. Probably can’t get at ’em now, but with the rest chopped and the decking out . . .”

“Good,” Gwenna said. “Do it.” She turned to Annick. “Think that’ll hold them?”