The heavy broadsword in Marshal Ors’s fist came down in a steep, whistling cleave meant to split a horseman’s helm at the gallop.
In the narrow brick passage of the Re-Claim Chamber, however, Ors had misjudged the low overhead clearance of the twelve-inch cast-iron cold-water pipe bracketed to the granite pier. Six inches above Jon Hale’s ducking shoulder, the tip of the four-foot broadsword struck the heavy forged-iron hanger supporting the boiling water main.
A shower of white-hot sparks erupted in the wet steam as tempered border steel sheared half an inch into the wrought-iron bracket and wedged fast for a fraction of a second.
That half-second was all the opening a tavern keeper who had spent twenty years wrestling full thirty-gallon ale casks off dray wagons needed.
With the last phantom echo of CONTINGENCY RETENTION ADVISED dead in the sheared governor box behind him and eight-year-old Nell’s quiet No, Papa fixed like a cornerstone in his memory, Jon did not step back toward the stairs, nor did he wish for a rewind to undo the general’s charge. He accepted the wet stone under his boots, the scalding mist in his eyes, and the living mass of the man in front of him.
