Two hours before the fourth dawn of the tenth cycle, the river wind had died to a sullen, freezing draft that smelled of bruised reeds, river silt, and the bitter sulfur of drowned peat.
The timber sluice platform was suspended thirty feet above the roaring spillway of the main weir, perched on four massive ashlar masonry piers that cut the river current like the prows of anchored warships. The floor of the platform was made of three-inch greenheart planks, worn slippery by decades of spray and algae, vibrating continuously underfoot with the deep, concussive shudder of eight thousand tons of water plunging over the granite apron. Below that deck, the river was an abyss of black, boiling foam that tore at the pier footings with terrifying, hydraulic violence.
Jon Hale stood with his shoulder pressed against the heavy oak gantry post, his fingers gripping the ice-crusted railing. He wore his thick sheepskin coat over his work smock, his boots wrapped in hemp cord to keep his footing on the slick, algae-greased timber. Above his head, the great iron drive drum of the main sluice winch hung suspended in its housing, carrying the three-inch forged iron chain that held forty tons of greenheart gate suspended eight feet above the riverbed.
