Baldor spoke then. “Why do the canals feed into Aroughs? It doesn’t look as if they’re used for watering crops.”

“You don’t need to water here, lad, any more than a northman needs to cart in snow during the winter. Staying dry is more a problem than not.”

“Then what are they used for?” Roran inquired. “And where do they come from? You can’t expect me to believe the water is drawn from the Jiet River, so many leagues away.”

“Hardly,” scoffed Brigman. “There are lakes in the marshes north of us. It’s brackish, unwholesome water, but the people here are accustomed to it. A single channel carries it from the marshes to a point about three miles away. There the channel divides into the three canals you see here, and they run over a series of falls, which power the mills that grind flour for the city. The peasants cart their grain to the mills at harvesttime, and then the sacks of flour are loaded onto barges and floated down to Aroughs. It’s also a handy way of moving other goods, like timber and wine, from the manor houses to the city.”

Roran rubbed the back of his neck as he continued to examine Aroughs. What Brigman had told him intrigued him, but he was not sure how it could help. “Is there anything else of significance in the surrounding countryside?” he asked.

“Only a slate mine farther south along the coast.”

He grunted, still thinking. “I want to visit the mills,” he said. “But first I want to hear a full account of your time here, and I want to know how well provisioned we are with everything from arrows to biscuits.”

“If you’ll follow me … Stronghammer.”

The next hour Roran spent in conference with Brigman and two of his lieutenants, listening and asking questions as they recounted each of the assaults they had launched against the city walls, as well as cataloging the stocks of supplies left to the warriors under his command.

At least we’re not short of weapons, Roran thought as he counted the number of dead. Yet even if Nasuada had not set a time limit upon his mission, the men and horses did not have enough food to stay camped before Aroughs for more than another week.

Many of the facts and figures that Brigman and his lackeys related came from writing on scrolls of parchment. Roran strove to conceal the fact that he could not decipher the rows of angular black marks by insisting that the men read everything to him, but it irritated him that he was at the mercy of others. Nasuada was right, he realized. I have to learn to read, else I cannot tell if someone is lying to me when they say that a piece of parchment says one thing or another.… Maybe Carn can teach me on our return to the Varden.

The more Roran learned about Aroughs, the more he began to sympathize with Brigman’s plight; capturing the city was a daunting task with no obvious solution. Despite his dislike for the man, Roran thought that the captain had done as well as could be expected under the circumstances. He had failed, Roran believed, not because he was an incompetent commander, but because he lacked the two qualities that had granted Roran victory time and time again: daring and imagination.

Upon finishing his review, Roran and his five companions rode with Brigman to inspect Aroughs’s walls and gates from a closer, but still safe, distance. Sitting in a saddle again was incredibly painful for Roran, but he bore it without complaint.

As their steeds clattered onto the stone-paved road next to the camp and began to trot toward the city, Roran noticed that, on occasion, the horses’ hooves produced a peculiar noise when they struck the ground. He remembered hearing a similar sound, and being bothered by it, during their final day of traveling.

Looking down, he saw that the flat stones that formed the surface of the road seemed to be set within tarnished silver, the veins of which formed an irregular, cobweb-like pattern.

Roran called out to Brigman and asked him about it, whereupon Brigman shouted, “The dirt here makes for poor mortar, so instead they use lead to hold the stones in place!”

Roran’s initial reaction was disbelief, but Brigman appeared serious. He found it astonishing that any metal could be so common that people would squander it on building a road.

So they trotted down the lane of stone and lead toward the gleaming city beyond.

They studied Aroughs’s defenses with great attentiveness. But their increased proximity revealed nothing new and only served to reinforce Roran’s impression that the city was nigh on impregnable.

He guided his horse over to Carn’s. The magician was staring at Aroughs with a glazed expression, his lips moving silently, as if he were talking to himself. Roran waited until he stopped, then quietly asked, “Are there any spells on the gates?”

“I think so,” Carn replied, equally subdued, “but I’m not sure how many or what their intended purpose is. I’ll need more time to tease out the answers.”

“Why is it so difficult?”

“It’s not, really. Most spells are easy to detect, unless someone has made an effort to hide them, and even then, the magic usually leaves certain telltale traces if you know what to look for. My concern is that one or more of the spells might be traps set to prevent people from meddling with the gates’ enchantments. If that’s so, and I approach them directly, I’ll be sure to trigger them, and then who knows what will happen? I might dissolve into a puddle before your very eyes, which is a fate I would rather avoid, if I have my way.”

“Do you want to stay here while we continue on?”

Carn shook his head. “I don’t think it would be wise to leave you unguarded while we’re away from camp. I’ll return after sundown and see what I can do then. Besides, it would help if I were closer to the gates, and I don’t dare go any nearer now, when I’m in plain sight of the sentinels.”