The corundum melted rock waste floor felt like the skin of a living drum.
Every step Ren Vale took sent a razor-sharp shiver of moving feedback through the leather of his boots and up his hardened shins.
Beneath his ribs, the exclusion penalty exacted its unrelenting toll. His bones, stripped of all organic stretch, rang like tuning forks in response to the ten-thousand-RPM howl of the Great Cleaving Wheel.
Brother Ren moved a half-pace behind his right shoulder, both of the monk’s palms hovering near Ren’s hips, sweat pouring from Brother Ren’s shaved scalp as he nonstop grounded the surrounding ground-shaking into his own flesh.
“Four paces to the dais outer edge,” Brother Ren murmured. His deep voice shook with the body load. “Don’t pivot on your left heel, Ren. The talus bone in your left ankle is shaking at four hundred cycles. If you torque it while stepping into a melted rock waste depression, the joint will snap like dry slate.”
“Understood,” Ren said.
He held his drill staff in his right hand, using it as a third limb to distribute his weight across the shaking floor.
Twenty paces ahead, at the base of the central cutting altar, four figures detached themselves from the shadows of the bronze machinery.
