Ironwood

Eastward

Laranna quickly took to traveling with the expanded Ironwood party. The road eastward from Sarronen was narrower than the Great Highway, but still comfortably fit two horses side-by-side, and naturally lent to horses walking in pairs. Brother Francis rode in front with Daniel, who sang hymns without care, happy to enjoy a day without responsibility. Behind her rode Ceann and Athena, and their conversation would occasionally run loud enough to carry to Laranna's ears. That left her to ride with Jacob, for which she was grateful. He was easy to talk to, and not unpleasant on the eyes.

The oddest thing about him, though, was his curiosity. She discerned soon enough that the swordsman was not a scholar. He had an appropriate respect for books, but limited patience for poring through them. However, his memory was surprisingly good, and he asked thoughtful questions, turning over each answer like a stone in his hand to find all its features. Each result, before he stored it away and moved on to the next, was finely polished. She found herself teaching things that she herself had not fully understood, and he seemed genuinely grateful for each gem they discovered.

She answered another of his questions now. "Yes, the Taran East Road is newer than the Great Highway. Scholars say Tara itself grew out of serving travelers on the Highway. It was a more defensible location, with a better water table, than the land just to the south. Miraka owned most of the land near the Highway itself, including dozens of inns and way stations, but they were supplied from Tara. Few of the travelers actually came into the city, and that was preferred. The villages nearer the road were actually more cosmopolitan. Tara just supplied water, wool, meat, and bread to the villages and way stations. The water traveled by aqueduct, and the supplies in miniature barges on the water. The Mirakans were a very clever people. Anyway, that's why the roads east and west are better kept than the south road, which leads more directly to the Highway."

"They would also be shorter routes to what is now Travan. Traveling straight south, then west or east, would be longer to the final destination," he replied.

"Right," she acknowledged, "Though I still would have expected Tara to expand further south, if they could have done so."

"How many of those aqueducts are left?" Jacob asked. "Have you seen one?"

"Yes and no," she began, turning toward him. She thought she saw Athena rolling her eyes: the woman had overhead Jacob's question. That was a reaction she was used to. She wouldn't let it get in the way of her pleasure at riding with someone who actually shared her interests! "Not the ones near here. I have read of them, but never had a chance to explore this far west. There is one near home, though, that I have seen, and the design is the same."

Jacob looked off into the distance for a moment, before returning his gaze to her. "Is that one still operational, or can it be repaired?"

"Not anymore," Laranna answered with a head shake that scattered her dark hair. "It could be repaired, but that one led to a bath house hundreds of years ago. There's no call for it now."

"I suppose not," the chestnut-haired man replied. "I forget sometimes just how rich Miraka was. That's what I love most about what we do in Ironwood, though. When the Kharshe horde attacked, millions of people died, but many more lived. It was the loss of trade and expertise that plunged Margon into darkness. Warring nations overcrowded with refugees, overrun by plague, and depleted of men left the economy shattered for hundreds of years. Trade routes and whole industries were lost. Ironwood is helping, slowly, to rebuild all of that."

"In Travan, it was similar to in Miraka, but we had better walls." The raven-haired woman lips pursed into a sad smile. "The barbarians had been our neighbors since long before, and we knew a little better what they were capable of, though no one could have predicted Khardum.