The sound snap of the heavy dark metal cable under tension was a sound that belonged to the end of the world.
The three thirty-foot stern screws of the Vitreous Giant beast reached maximum emergency draft. Then, twelve thousand horsepower of steam energy tore at the sky, attempting to lift two thousand four hundred tons of iron, timber, and human arrogance straight toward the heavens.
The two-inch braided heavy dark metal cable. It ran from the dreadnought’s buried keel down to the granite balance weight drum in the castle vault, snapped fully straight. It didn’t sag. It didn’t sway. It became a rigid, upright bar of burnished metal. It shook at a hum so high that it was nearly inaudible to human ears. A thin, piercing whine that made the teeth ache in Ren’s skull and drove the ravens screaming from their nests along the cliffs of Mount Khor-Vann.
Then came the ringing snap.
The air around the cable rippled with a visible blast wave that blew the leftover mist from the courtyard pavers. The sixty-ton granite balance weight hanging in the upright mine shaft swung three feet off its center line. It slammed into the dark rock shaft wall with an impact that made the entire launch terrace jump two inches under Ren’s boots.
