The river spray on the sluice platform had turned to stinging needles of ice as the temperature plunged toward the fourth dawn.
Jon Hale crouched behind the massive oak gantry upright, his fingers clamped around the horn hilt of his border knife, his back pressed against the three-inch greenheart timber. Across the slick, shuddering catwalk, Captain Dain and three surviving guardsmen were dragging two wounded weaver apprentices toward the stone revetment, their broadswords notched, nicked, and dripping with black Host blood. The first boarding wave had broken against Bram’s shield, but down in the swirling foam between the piers, the third armored barge was maneuvering into the dead angle beneath the gantry.
Alden Bram stood six feet above the deck, balanced precariously on the narrow maintenance catwalk that encircled the main drive drum. The master mason had discarded his ash cane, his boots wedged into the angle between two heavy oak braces, his heavy iron crowbar clamped beneath the emergency pawl dog of the primary gear. His coat was ripped across the shoulder, his face smeared with grease and dried blood from the skirmish on the rungs.
“She’s groaning, Jon!” Bram bellowed, his voice hoarse, competing with the concussive roar of the spillway below. “The cross-pull from that first harpoon warped the starboard journal box! The teeth are binding on the worm gear! If the drum takes another shock, the axle will seize, and we won’t be able to lift an inch!”
