Fellis jammed the thick steel spine of his splicing knife directly into the narrow fissure between the rusted iron hinge lug and the salt-cemented limestone doorstep.
“Hit it!” the nineteen-year-old rigger yelled through the smoke. “Hit the handle knob, Kezra!”
Kezra reversed her grip on her two-pace ash sounding rod, grasping the seasoned wood with both hands like a sledgehammer. Then she brought the heavy iron-shod metal ring down with all her strength against the brass butt of Fellis’s knife: CLANG!
The impact jarred through her wrists, sending a blast wave up her forearms that rattled her teeth.
The hardened steel blade bit half an inch into the stone crust. A hairline crack zigzagged across the white chalk-stone scale like lightning through dirty glass.
“Again!” Fellis shouted, his fingers bleeding where the knurled brass guard had pinched his knuckle.
Kezra swung a second time. The iron metal ring struck true.
With a sharp, brittle CRACK, the salt-weld snapped along its natural cleavage plane. A chunk of crystal-hardened bittern salt the size of a loaf of bread shattered into powdery white gravel. It exposed the rusted iron strap of the upper hinge.
