The retreat through the service trench was faster than the approach. It was driven by the knowledge that water was vanishing from the system with every revolution of the kitchen clocks.
They moved in tight single file along the narrow concrete walkway. Ivara leading with the copper lantern held low before her boots, her single arm swinging in a short, rhythmic arc. Bram following behind her, his broad shoulders hunched beneath the clanking weight of the canvas tool sack. And Len bringing up the rear, his right hand gripping his sounding pole like a shepherd’s crook, the ten-pound bronze bearing resting against his hip in his courier satchel.
The air in the trench had grown thick with foul vapor. The opening of the southern bypass water gate had drawn thousands of gallons of stale heavy-duty runoff through the lower channel, disturbing twelve years of settled mud. The smell of rotting river weeds, rotten-egg coal tar, and sour tannery lye rose through the iron floor gratings, burning the back of Len’s throat like wood smoke.
Len kept his mouth shut, breathing only through his nose in the steady four-count rhythm of his Long Breath baseline.
His left forearm was in agony. The sheer physical torque he had exerted against the rope winch spoke—bracing the ash pole with his right shoulder. Meanwhile, his core twisted to hold his footing. Had pulled wildly against the torn muscle fibers in his injured arm. Beneath his wool coat and the stiff linen wrapping, he could…
