The stone-hard black timber in the trench floor was eight feet thick and cold as winter iron.
Giles Croft tapped the polished wood with the steel shoe of his folding rule. The surface didn’t scratch.
It rang with a crisp, clear bell-tone that shook through the mud.
“Founding Age bog-oak foundation doorstep,” Giles diagnosed, examining the tiny tool marks along the beveled chamfer. “Glass-fused by ten thousand years of anaerobic tannin exposure and stone infusion.
It isn’t a blocked path, Corbin.
It’s an engineered bench. We don’t need to blast it out.
We lay the drainage tiles directly across the top doorstep and use it as an unbending rock layer seam.”
Corbin Cross wiped grease from his face, nodding with relief. “That saves forty kegs of blasting powder, Giles.
