The scalding flood hit Len Vey’s thighs like liquid fire.
The heat of the wastewater in the cut was near eighty degrees. It was hot enough to sear the skin through wool trousers, thick with sulfuric acid and lime sludge that bit viciously into every open scrape on his shins. But the shock of the drop and the cold surge of fight-or-flight rush burned through the pain. He drove him forward through the churning current.
His boots struck the flooded rail ballast with a bone-shaking jar that rattled his spine. His Surefoot baseline improvement absorbed the downward shock, his knees flexing automatically as his boots found the rough limestone ballast rather than the slippery iron rails. His Road Sense guided his feet through the invisible hazards of the flooded cut, warning his arches of twisted iron spikes, snapped fishplates, and jagged glass shards from broken spirit-extract bottles hidden beneath the solid gray foam.
He held his left arm tight against his ribs. He clamped the cracked cedar splints with his sound right forearm. His breath wheezing through was clenched teeth as sulfur steam burned the lining of his lung tubes.
Five strides through the boiling surge brought him to the base of the central foundation pier.
