At the seventh hour of the morning. Meanwhile, the river mist still hung thick and white over the water, the low chink-chink of an iron star-drill striking granite echoed from the east cutwater pier of the Third Gate. Eren Tal knelt on a thick woven hemp kneeling pad at the water’s edge. He swung a four-pound lump hammer in short, rhythmic eight-inch arcs. He drove the hardened steel bit into the blue granite face of the pier.
Beside him, Tavi held the drill chuck with both hands. That turned the steel bit a quarter-turn between every blow of the hammer, his face splattered with fine, wet stone slurry as the cold river spray whipped against the pier.
“Hold it plumb, Tavi!” Eren grunted between hammer strikes. “If the hole wanders an eighth of an inch, the bronze stud will bind on the collar. We’ll have to file the plate on the staging! Keep the bit square to the cutwater!”
“True to the square, Master Tal!” Tavi called back, his voice steady through the mist. The boy didn’t flinch as the four-pound hammer dropped within three inches of his knuckles. He had spent three weeks watching Eren’s mallet. He trusted the wheelwright’s eye more than his own skin.
