Across the forty-foot taproom of the River Lantern Inn, the air had grown so cold that the rainwater on the inside of the barred oak storm-shutters froze into branching ferns of white ice with a sharp, continuous tick-tick-tick. On the corner supper table beside them, a rime of hoarfrost crept up the sides of the three defused ten-pound brass demolition pots and turned the spilled mutton broth into a grey glaze across the oak boards, while directly beneath their boots, the deep, hungry roar of the Hearth Nail rose to the pitch of an iron-smelting furnace at full blast.
Along the side benches, the forty-six townsfolk of Harth huddled together as their breath plumed thick and white in the freezing red-and-gold glare rising through the floor seams. Yet not a single man or woman bolted for the barred street door or dropped the oak staves in their hands. Marta Harl held fast to Master Mason Marris Gault’s woollen shawl by the hearth-post; Master Baker Dunstan Harl kept his heavy boot planted squarely on the iron shackle-chain pinning the gagged Warden Tomas Brecht to the stones; and beside the pantry arch, Alden Bram leaned on his iron-shod ash measuring rod like a grey stone buttress refusing to yield to an earthquake, his builder’s eyes fixed steadily on the man he had helped arm for this threshold.
