The romantic notion that a map maker moved mountains by standing on a windy peak with an open book and speaking words of power was shattered within ten minutes of returning to Coldwork Bench.
On the afternoon of Day eighty-seven, real mountain building began. With two six-foot steel rock-bars, two wide-blade gravel shovels, an ash timber hand-barrow with an iron-rimmed wheel. The raw, sweating muscle of six determined human beings.
The logistics of moving twelve tons of rock by hand needed the rigorous organization of a military siege.
At the beginning of the shift on Day eighty-seven, Paxa Sel laid down the working rules on a flat boulder outside the powder-magazine: forty minutes of digging, ten minutes of forced rest, two pints of salted water per man every two hours. A full meal of hot oatmeal and dried mutton at midday.
“No heroics,” Paxa said. She looked straight at Brenn, who was already rolling up his wool sleeves. “A man who works for four hours without stopping builds up body-energy toxins in his lower-back muscles. By the fifth hour, his back goes out. He spends the next three days lying on a blanket while his friends do his work. We work by the clock, we rest by the clock, and we hydrate by the clock.”
