Foreman Geth Marr drove the heavy iron chisel deeper into the split heartwood of the cedar drafting table, burying the hardened steel bit two inches into the grain. The sudden shock split Ansett Rill’s math sheets down the center crease, the white parchment fluttering like wounded wings beneath the iron nuts that weighted the corners.
Outside the thick dry-laid limestone walls of the shed, the woman’s scream was followed right away by the flat, heavy crash of falling stone. A ten-foot slide of fractured shale rumbling down the tailing chutes of Tier Three. From the galleries below, the harsh, metal shouts of deep-drift drillers echoed across the tiered arena, calling for stretcher gangs, emergency jacks, and fresh animal fat lamps.
Len Vey didn’t flinch, and he didn’t take a step back from the table.
His courier boots were planted firmly against the lime-dusted floorboards, his weight distributed with the balanced economy of Surefoot. Through the thick leather of his soles, his Road Sense detected the rhythmic, speeding up rattle of an uncoupled mine wagon careening down the switchback track on Tier Three before slamming into a safety derailer with a distant, hollow clang. The shaking traveled up through the bedrock, through the squared limestone foundation blocks, and into his shinbones. A sharp, clockwork shudder that told him the rock strata in this side were already under dangerous twisting shear.
