To Corvin Hest, those forty feet of open air felt wider than the ocean between worlds. Suspended in a wooden box eighty feet above the roaring river, the sensation of fragility was total. Below the floorboards, thirty thousand gallons of brown mountain floodwater plunged through the gorge every second, throwing up blinding clouds of freezing spray that tasted of sulfur and dead pine needles.
Above them, the red-hot crown-ring of the Hollow Crown crackled with dying violet sparks. It spat shards of molten bronze that hissed as they hit the wet canvas of the cradle hood. The wind screamed through the iron mid-air rods like a pack of wolves, trying to flip the sled on its beam-ends. But Jo Saye’s double-woven hemp bridle held true. That kept the box upright and level against the storm.
Twenty-two seconds after leaving the ledge, the greased ash runners struck the wet granite coping of the central platform with a clean, solid thud. Sergeant Vane vaulted over the low gunwale before the sled had even stopped moving, his iron-shod boots slamming down on the flat stone slabs, his crowbar already in his hands. Touchdown was achieved.
Beneath the low northern clouds at 38 minutes past one o’clock—minute 77 and 21 seconds on the brass bridge pocket watch, cold mountain runoff carrying broken slate pegs swirled against the heavy pine cross-braces. It sent a sharp ring in the stonework across the single recaptured strand. Right at the heart of Corvin Hest & Sergeant Vane, Jo…
