“Now! Heave!” Melli Dorn bellowed, her voice echoing off the dripping brick arches like a blast from an iron whistle.
With a final, desperate surge of muscular effort, the salt-glass forewoman threw her full weight down upon the steel pinch bar. Beside her, Varner and Kester drove the ash pry-pole down until the seasoned wood bent like a longbow, the grain groaning under the huge clockwork purchase.
The massive oak stringer rose three inches clear of the foundation pier.
Kester kicked an empty iron rivet keg beneath the timber, shoving the heavy sheet-metal tube under the lifted flank. The wood settled onto the iron rim with a bone-shaking CLANG, the keg buckling slightly under the sudden transfer of fourteen hundred pounds of waterlogged oak, but holding firm. The sheet iron groaned as the rivets along the bottom chime twisted. But the metal tube kept its upright height. He locked the beam three inches above the stone floor.
“Get her out!” Melli shouted, her breath coming in ragged, wheezing gasps as she kept one boot planted on the pinch bar to steady the rig. “The keg won’t take the shaking if the chimney pipes blow again! Haul her clear!”
Len Vey lunged into the gap.
