The round iron manhole cover in the center of the tannery carriage bay had not been lifted in five years. Its outer edge was sealed with a solid crust of congealed lime slurry, frozen mud, and rusted iron scale that had bonded the casting into the surrounding dark rock lip like lead solder.
Bram Ash knelt in the dirt, unhooking his heavy weighted baton from his wrist. He wedged the narrowed steel shoe of the baton under the lifting notch of the iron plate, using his thigh as a pivot point.
“Hold the rim, Len,” Bram whispered, his breath whistling through his teeth as he threw his full body weight against the oak handle.
Len planted his boots in the hemlock bark. He reached down with his uninjured right hand to grip the cold iron pipe rim. His left forearm gave a sharp, vicious throb beneath its cedar splints as his shoulder muscles engaged. But his Surefoot balance held his balance point unmoving over the stone.
Bram heaved upward.
The frozen seal cracked with a sound like a rifle shot muffled by dry dirt: crack-clack.
A wave of air surged out of the dark opening into the freezing bay. Not the foul, rotting reek of the sewage channels or the sulfur stench of the street chimney pipes, but something entirely different: dry, warm air smelling of vulcanized natural rubber, spark ozone, machine oil, and the hot copper casing of heavy signal lines.
