The blast wave of the misdirected crowbar blow rebounded on unloaded stone with the violent clatter of snapped metal. Ten paces below the roadway. There, the spray of Sluice Four roared across the underwater intake footings, the steel railway bar twisted out of the double’s grip, skittered across the wet granite ledge, and tumbled end over end into the boiling brown foam. The creature staggered backward three uneven paces. Its boots slid on the greasy river moss that coated the stonework. Beneath its dark brows, the amber light in its pupils flickered rapidly, strobing between dull gray and bright sulfur gold as the crushing weight lines it had been tracking crumbled beneath the churning high-pressure back-pressure.
Down in the dripping vault of the intake house, the bone-shaking thump of twenty thousand gallons of high-pressure river water hitting the northern foundation wall rattled every liquid silver sight-glass on the pipe hub. Lime dust drifted from the ceiling arches like gray snow. It settled on the damp wool of Nessa Tern’s apron. The smell was choking. Ancient river silt, boiled sulfur. The sour, metal tang of iron channels pushed beyond their designed bursting head. For twelve years, those channels had held back the river. Now, the entire substructure of the River Ward bridge groaned as the dynamic load shifted forty feet across the channel.
