The ash-wood slats of the splint struck the man-made flesh with the solid, deadening thud of an axe helve hitting wet timber.
The creature’s head snapped backward, its throat cords emitting a strangled, clicking hiss as the rigid wood drove three inches into its thyroid joint padding. The force of the strike was not enough to decapitate the build. But it disrupted the clockwork posture of its neck bones. That forced its upper torso back over the edge of the granite curb. Man-made fluid, gray as crushed slate and smelling faintly of battery acid, seeped from the creature’s nostrils. But its gray eyes remained wide, fixed upon Len with the cold, unchanging determination of an office directive.
For a heartbeat, the physical struggle hung balanced on the edge of the void.
Beneath them, the third rusted through mounting bolt gave way. The merchant iron, eaten through by forty seasons of sulfur mist and damp drafts, parted with a high-pitched report like the crack of a wagon driver’s whip. The iron stone railing, now held by only a single twisted anchor at its southern base, peeled upward like a strip of boiled birch bark. It screamed as the leftover metal twisted into a spiral. A shower of crystal-hardened rust flakes, dislodged lead thin wedges, and crumbling lime mortar rained down into the dark deep gap. It hissed as it struck the boiling wastewater thirty paces below.
