The smell of scorched oak filled the street as the friction of ten tons of shaking granite heated the surface of Eren’s wedges. Eren didn’t hesitate. He stepped straight into the danger zone between the pinned carrier and the tenement wall, his boots crunching on broken glass and brick chips. Two brave guild masons from the crowd hurried forward to join him. He carried four-by-four timber props and spare wedges.
Eren’s shoulders were coated in white stone dust, his breathing ragged and heavy. Every swing of the fourteen-pound sledge sent a stinging jolt through his elbows and collarbones. But there was no time to rest. The spirit was still under active academy compulsion. Its gravel muscles were straining against the oak brake, shuddering with an unearthly air-powered pressure that threatened to split the timber if it wasn’t cross-braced right away.
‘Drive the second pair beneath the front knees!’ Eren barked to the masons. ‘Opposing tapers! Don’t let the grain split along the line of force! Wedge the belly before it shifts its weight to the right!’ He knelt in the dust, his hammer striking with rhythmic, relentless power: CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. Each blow drove the heart-oak wedges another half-inch deeper beneath the stone carrier’s base.
