Ikelos (The Ephemeral: Book 2)

Chapter 46

Our company stood outside the giant walls of Havenbrooke, waiting for the sentinels to conduct a security check.  Made of debris and concrete from ancient cities, the patchy barrier rose forty feet above us, and it looked to be several Grismonds thick.  Like Belgate's wall, an arched aperture allowed the city's river to flow out of the district and into the valley beyond, and I could spot several other outlets along its perimeter. 

Obviously, I was no stranger to staunch fortifications, but the age and structure of these walls pointed to the capital's resilience. This place had never been touched by outside forces. 

It had never been conquered.

When the guards finished inspecting our wagons and Claus's chest of combustibles, we were permitted entry to the city's outer ring, but I barely made it through the gate before I had to step aside and absorb its magnificence.

Fields of wheat and produce spanned the grounds for miles, and despite the winter months, I could make out the radishes and potatoes among chards and other greens.  Grow lights cast pink and blue colors over the crops, charged by the massive hydropower dam in the center of the city.

A dam that put Rhea's outpost to shame.

Sky-tinted water flowed from its concrete base into a meandering river, and while I couldn't spot the reservoir from my vantage point, I knew the lake above was a sight to behold—it had to be to both irrigate and quench a capital like this one.

On the hills that hugged the dam, several timber homes branched off a paved, switchback road, like little castles overlooking the valley—farmhouses, if I had to guess.  And past that lay the heart of Havenbrooke and its elevated inner ring.

A true city on a hill.

As we made our way through the lower valley, the soldiers fell quiet in awe, mesmerized by the sheer size of the grounds. Except Victor and Koji. Their expressions were more akin to repulsion, and I remembered Koji's insane asylum was located here in the citadel. If I were him, I'd probably want to burn this place to the ground.  As for Victor, I was pretty sure he just had a bad case of geographical narcissism.

I didn't blame him; envy churned in my own gut at the quality of the soil here, the healthy greens it cultivated.

We crossed a beam bridge straddling a canal that had to be over ten feet deep. The bone-dry channel ran from the river's edge to an outlet in the wall—only the spillway had been blocked off with a slab of concrete.

"What's the purpose of these trenches?" I asked Beckett, who'd visited the capital several times in his life.  "Are they just for irrigation?"

The soldier gestured to the shallow canals fringing every acre of farmland, each of the ditches less than a meter wide. "The laterals divert river water to the crops.  I'm sure you've seen something similar in Belgate."  He turned his attention to the concrete trench beneath us.  "But the deeper ones are meant for flood control.  Some winters, the valley gets too much snowmelt for the reservoir, and they need to let extra water out of the dam.  To avoid oversaturating the farmland, the city built these canals to direct the water elsewhere."

My gaze slid to the thick slabs covering the outlets.  "How do they let the water out?"

He grinned, and I appreciated him for indulging my relentless inquiries.  "Once the river floods the riparian zone and pours into the canal, the sentinels along the curtain," he nodded to the men standing guard at the battlement, "lower a chain with giant hangers at the end, like fish hooks.  Some folks at the bottom of the wall fasten these hooks to the access gate and yank it up.  Pull the plug, release the water."