The descent from the upkeep work frames was a desperate, gravity-helped scramble as the iron rungs began shearing out of the crumbling stonework beneath their boots with high-pitched, metal snaps.
At the twenty-foot level, Toby Mallow’s left boot caught in a bent iron bracket. The boy let out a sharp cry as his ankle twisted, his heavy canvas ledger-satchel swinging out over the empty drop. Arthur was three rungs below him. Without pausing to balance, Arthur hooked his right arm through a cross-brace, whipped his 9.5-inch heavy dark metal razor knife from his sheath with his left hand, and sliced cleanly through the tangled bootlace.
“Let the boot go, Toby! Drop!” Arthur commanded.
Arthur caught Toby around the waist as the boy slipped free. He took in the driving force against his own chest before dropping both of them the leftover ten feet into the mud beside Titus. They hit the slurry with a heavy, wet thud that sent gray clay splashing over their faces. Valerie Koslov landed two seconds later. Her clockwork left arm took in the impact with an explosive hiss of high-pressure vapor that blew the mud away from her boots in a wide, circular spray.
“Under Titus! Get under the shell, now!” Arthur bellowed, shoving Toby and Morrigan into the heavy shelter bay beneath Titus’s rear belly shell. “Morrigan, secure the volatile broths! If an ether bottle fractures under pressure, we’ll all burn in this ditch!”
