"How do you expect to cross it, then, sire?" Schillan asked.
"Strictly speaking, we cross it not, but float down it. We cross the Tegula at Upper Ford, not Lower...."
"Upper Ford, sire? Above the terrible gorge of the Low Umpasseurs?"
"Yea. That gorge, undefended, is passable. 'Tis rugged, but passage can be made. Once through the gorge our way to the Lake of the Spiders, from which springs the Middle Branch of the Sarlo, is clear and open."
"But 'tis held, sire, that Middle Valley is impassable for troops," a grizzled captain protested.
"We traverse it, nonetheless. On rafts, at six or seven miles an hour, faster by far than any army can march. But 'tis enough of explanation. Lord Sciro, attend!"
"I listen, sire."
"At earliest dawn take two centuries of axemen and one century of bo
