A falling mountain had no mercy, and it had no speed.
To a man watching from the edge of the pit, forty tons of granite did not strike like an arrow or a cannonball. It fell with the ponderous, sickening inevitability of an anchor plunging through black water—a slow, massive descent that seemed to suspend the world in a frozen heartbeat before the collision occurred.
Jon had his hands locked into the scorched leather of Alden Bram’s apron, his boots digging into the ash-slick flagstones as he hauled with all the strength in his back, shoulders, and thighs.
“Heave, Alden!” Jon roared, his voice cracking against the hot wind. “Kick with your right heel! Push!”
Bram’s right leg was limp, his hip joint dislocated by the concussive hammer of the blast. Blood was pouring from the corner of his mouth, spattering the snow in bright crimson stars, but his eyes were wide, clear, and fixed on the descending shadow above them.
“Leave the apron, Jon!” Bram wheezed, his fingers clawing at the buckles at his waist. “The stone has the centerline! You cannot move sixteen stone of meat before the lintel strikes!”
“I am not leaving you!” Jon snarled.
He lunged forward, hooking both arms beneath Bram’s armpits, throwing his entire weight backward. Tendons in Jon’s neck screamed under the strain. The white rings on his left fingers pulsed with a dull, phantom cold that traveled up into his collarbone, but the heavy body of the master builder moved only…
