12

Fifteen men and two women, painted in ocher to fend off the biting flies and armed with bows, spears, and nets, approach you, moving through the swamps with the ease of long familiarity. These must be locals. Which means you might be trespassing. But though they're moving to flank you along half-hidden bridges, their leader—a tall bald man with a scrap-metal necklace—holds up one hand in a sign of greeting.

"The Bridge Keepers," Vecla says. "I've heard of these people. Proud, woodwise, occasionally greedy, rarely murderous. They speak a peculiar dialect of the River Language."