Free Warrior (The Key to Magic) by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

factor's warehouse before dusk or they won't want to unload the corn until tomorrow."   With a final wave, Czlemheng cracked the reins and the eight mules lumbered off the pavement of the coastal highway and onto the packed clay of the side road.
    Ghorn turned east and continued walking, moving easily into the ground covering stride that had carried him day after day for nearly four hundred leagues.   It was still almost a third of a league to the Ice River and then another ten after that to Mhajhkaei, but the nearness of The Greatest City in All the World leant extra vigor to his legs.
    Here along the western bank of river, the highway followed a low, stony ridge that ran more or less parallel with the shoreline a league and a half to the south, giving it broad, sweeping curves that would not have concerned a wagoner but caused him considerable grumbling.   Impatient, he left the pavement as required to chart a more or less straight course toward his goal, the remains of the Grand Bridge at the Bottleneck Narrows, and determinedly cut across fruit groves, woodlots, and turnip fields to shorten his path.
    His imminent homecoming did not ease the burning purpose that drove him.  Mhajhkaei was only another waypoint on his journey.  He still had the many long days of a sea voyage ahead of him.  Over the last few days as the city neared, he had felt the temptation to tarry in his liberated home and to reveal himself to friends and foes alike, but the old man had made it clear that any deviation from the events that he had foretold would irrevocably and negatively alter what must come to pass.
    Nearer the river, Ghorn had to hold exclusively to the highway in order to make use of the bridges, some the original imperial stonework and many wooden replacements, over the numerous fingers of the massive river's estuary.  In the main, the elevated ridge remained intact, acting as a causeway, but the river had often carved its way through in past millennia and as he got closer to the main channel, these gaps grew wider and the bridges that crossed them grew longer. 
    Here, also, he began to encounter more traffic. 
    No wagons, of course, for those all had to use the ferries or unload, like farmer Czlemheng, at warehouses on this bank.  In the golden days of the Empire, the highway had crossed the wide main channel of the Ice unbroken, but the Great Flood had carried away the two center spans of the Grand Bridge forty years before Ghorn had been born.  Now, only foot traffic and hand carts could cross using a cable bridge that swung between the orphaned standing sections.
    Most of the pedestrians were men, peddlers, itinerant tradesmen, or dust worn travelers such as Ghorn with no obvious profession, though an occasional couple escorting children or multi-generational family group walked from a side road to join the flow.  These last were likely going to join family on the heavier populated eastern bank for the remembrance festivals that were common in the smaller towns at this time of year.
    Most of the land to the west of the river was held by large agricultural estates owned by various merchant houses.  Those and the commercially oriented towns on the western bank that served them offered plentiful opportunities for employment, thus attracting many from the opposite side of the river.  East of the waterway were fens and marshes where only a few fisher folk lived, but many bustling villages lay on the higher ground closer to the city.  The Empire had retired its legions in that area and to this day the small plots of land were dearly held by the same families.
    The highway rose as it neared the head of the Grand Bridge and the vista of the broad and slow waters of the Ice came fully into view.  Ghorn had seen the great river on untold occasions from hundreds of perspectives, but this time the sight of the mighty course lifted his spirit in a way that a long journey finally ended only could.
    There were a number of