The dull, practical work of survival smelled of bituminous coal smoke, damp wool, and boiled parsnips.
From his post at the center of the witness ring, Noll Vey felt the fortress shedding its magical scaffolding layer by layer, exactly as a master carpenter strips away the temporary pine falsework once the stone arch is keyed into place. There was no poetry in the process, and there was no grand spectacle for the crowd to admire. There was only the heavy, rhythmic thud of hobnailed boots on stairs, the scrape of iron shovels against cast-iron grates, and the steady, measured tolling of the interior evacuation bell.
CLANG.
Seven minutes remaining on the interior clearance clock.
Along the outer stone gallery—the broad, open-arched perimeter colonnade that looked out over the mist-filled valley—Ossa Flint and her masonry crew were working with frantic, soot-blackened efficiency.
“Rake the clinkers, boy!” Ossa’s voice boomed down the corridor, competing with the reverberations of the bronze clapper overhead. “Don’t be shy with the dry pine kindling! We need three good fires roaring in these drum stoves before the core-draft cuts out, or the old folks will be coughing their teeth loose in the damp!”
Young Corin, his face streaked with black soot from the flue-pipes, shoved a pitch-pine faggot into the belly of the largest cast-iron stove. A cheerful, crackling yellow flame caught the dry bark, roaring upward into the sheet-iron stovepipe that vented through the outer crenellations. Within seconds, a wave of honest, fragrant pine heat washed…
