The detonation had no sound at first.
Sound was an event of the air, and for the first three heartbeats after the alchemical core ruptured, the air in the western quarry simply ceased to exist.
The expanding sphere of thermal plasma consumed the oxygen in a single, ravenous gulp, creating a vacuum that dragged the sleet, the mud, and the shattered timber pickets inward toward the epicenter. Then came the flash—a searing, blinding white radiance that turned the limestone cliffs translucent, illuminating the skeleton of the False Gate like an anatomical drawing etched in bone and phosphor.
Jon lay jammed into the four-foot stone niche behind the south portcullis jamb, his body curved over the boy Darek.
The heat struck his back like the blow of an iron anvil. His heavy wool coat began to smoke instantly, the grease in the sheepskin lining boiling and bubbling against his shoulder blades. The child beneath him let out a thin, gasping whimper, his small fingers digging into Jon’s ribs as the concussive pressure slammed against their refuge.
Then the sound arrived.
It was not a crack; it was a cosmic roar that tore through the limestone bedrock like an earthquake. The shock wave hit the four-inch boiler plate drop-shield that Bram had released with his dying leap. The iron plate buckled with a deafening, metallic shriek, bowing inward four inches, its forged rivets shearing from their holes and ricocheting across the stone sill like musket balls.
