Master Nerlav had three projects in the works at any given time; Dago had been tasked with guarding the most recent one. They were building a crane against the side of a bridge; the local Mage King had hired the company to repair the structure that crossed the North Fork in the Low Dales District of Ith. It was a tricky project, for the bridge was bordered on both sides by two-storey houses.
Dago’s day job was to patrol the work site, watching out for three things: safety risks, slave risks, and outside risks. The former was the most boring. He had spotted nails on the ground, and picked them up. He kept a stout eye on the ropes and pulleys the workers navigated, though they seemed entitle to many dangerous stunts of engineering. The second task was a dirty job, in Dago’s opinion, and one he didn’t often accept. He had to watch out for escaping slaves or theft from the workplace. He had only caught one man so far, a worker who had shoved a small splinter of saw blade into his trousers to use for some later escape plan—he had turned that poor fellow over to the project overseer for lashing. Distasteful.
The third task was the most familiar to him. He paced the perimeter of Nerlav’s worksite, and put his hand on the hilt of his sword to scare off anyone got too close. Nerlav had even allowed Dago to use a weapon from his own armoury for the duration of his employment, so long as the blade be used well. It wasn’t a remarkable weapon, just a slashing sabre made out of bronze and varnished wood.
The Low Dales were one of the more aesthetic of regions in Ith. Though it still lay within the outside palisades, this part of the city were a region of beige grassy rolling hills. Small clusters of buildings, like miniature villages dotted the countryside, and Fork Crossing was one of them. It was no more than a dozen houses, a few shops, and an open town square against the waterfront across the river from the work site. Though it was a tiny joining of families, the bridge was often packed with crossers, and Dago kept busy watching out for any apparent threats.
He hadn’t received more pay than those three coins, and he often had to gamble to earn his dinner, but he didn’t mind. It only crossed his mind once, when he saw a man in an expensive set of silvery chainmail walk past. He hadn’t seen armour like that since Saanazar, the year after his work in Sheld was complete. From there, he’d gone north into poorer lands.
As long as the millwright’s crew worked at the bridge in the Low Dales, Dago was content to guard them. It had been a few weeks, though, and he started to wonder what would come next.