The bronze doors swung down under the ark. Ropes of glowing slag hung from the opening, thick enough to keep their shape for a moment before they broke off.
One drop hit a mule in the wagon line. It screamed and pulled against its yoke. Two drivers threw wet blankets over its flank. Smoke began to rise from the tailboards of the nearest grain carts.
“Drop the crucible,” Qi Rong called. “All of it.”
A Spined Gorger’s head lay on the bank in front of Pei Jing. It was six feet across and weighed more than four tons. Four curved horns pointed up through the falling cinders.
Pei Jing set his weight on his right heel. He drew on the Heavy Earth Pillar to hold the skull together and on the Seventh Pillar to send it upward. Then he kicked.
The whole head came off the bank. It rose through the cinders in a straight line toward the opening. A student at the rail dropped his handkerchief and scrambled away.
The skull struck the two doors and wedged itself in the gap. Bronze tore with a long squeal. One door buckled inward. The other stopped so hard the ark swung to one side. The blow twisted the chute across the crucible’s outlet. The slag already in the chute spattered the jammed doors. The rest stayed in the crucible.
