Shwick. Shwick. Shwick.
The rhythm was as regular as a swinging weight gear catch. With each stroke of the three-sided steel scraper, a fine, glittering curl of glowing-bronze peeled away from the inner bore of the sleeve, tumbling down into the puddle of gray river silt at Len’s boots. The metal shavings gleamed like fresh gold against the black mud, an incongruous streak of brightness amidst fifty years of heavy-duty grime.
Len’s right shoulder was screaming with nearby muscular fatigue.
To cut tool steel into glowing-bronze without a vise needs two sound arms—one to clamp the work against a bench stop, the other to guide the blade with bilateral pressure. Len had only his right arm. His left arm hung bound in its linen sling, a throbbing weight pinned against his ribs, the horsehair stitches pulling with a hot, rhythmic burn that sent icy tremors through his teeth whenever his collarbone bent. He had wedged the ten-pound bronze sleeve between his right knee and the upright face of the granite foundation block, using his Surefoot baseline to lock his lower joints into rigid, unbending anchors against the slimy floor.
His breath came in the long, disciplined cycles of his courier training. Four counts in through the nose, drawing the cold, sulfur-tainted cellar air into the lower lobes of his lungs. Four counts out through pursed lips, expelling the heat of hard effort before it could translate into the fine muscular tremor that would ruin the relief groove.
