“Why would they get hung up? Don’t you drive the logs through those pilings every year?”

Bridger nodded bleakly. “But we usually have men and women on the bridge with poles to make sure they don’t get stuck. To break up a jam before it starts. Now . . .” He gestured helplessly. “There’s no bridge.”

“How long?” she asked, but even as she watched it was happening, the logs bumping up against the others the Urghul had floated in place. A few nosed over, forced on by the press behind. Others spun with the current, then ducked beneath the surface, driven down and replaced by still others. There seemed no end to the logs. As far north as Gwenna could see the river was packed with them. And there was no way to stop the river.

“Those,” Pyrre said, raising her eyebrows, “are going to be a problem.”

“They’ll fill the whole river,” Gwenna said, the horror mounting inside her. They would fill the river, and then the Urghul would cross. That was what they’d been waiting for.

“The other channels,” Bridger said. “We’ve got to divert the logs down the other two channels, the ones that aren’t blocked.”

Gwenna stared at the mass of logs, the sheer, unstoppable tonnage. “And how in Hull’s name do we do that?”

“We have to . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t explain. I have to go! Miller!” he bellowed. “Franch!” Two men from the line of archers turned. “Two drive crews. Get ’em up, get ’em going. Now!”

“We need poles and dogs!”

“Then get them!” Bridger shouted. “Get them, and get to North Island.”

“Well,” Pyrre observed as the logger sprinted away, “he certainly seems excited.”

It was a shocking transformation. Bridger had been nothing but deference since the Flea killed the two head men in the town square, asking questions and jumping to do as he was ordered. Now that he had a task that he understood, however, all hesitation vanished. The problem was, the drive crews were pulling men and women from the line; the toughest men and women, by the look of it, and this while the Urghul were riding out of the trees on the far bank, shrieking and bellowing, horses pawing at the ground as the logs piled up. One ksaabe, a good bit bolder than she was smart, kicked her horse into a charge. It was an ill-fated attack; her horse bogged in the mud, buried to her knees in the soft silt. Screaming, the young woman leapt from the beast’s back, charged laboriously through the rest of the silt, then tried to run across the logs. Gwenna watched as a trunk shifted beneath her. She teetered for a moment, then disappeared, the weight of wood shifting closed before the splash had even subsided.

“They can’t cross yet,” Annick observed.