The so-called dragon claws had been carved with sixteen-pound steel sledges and Swedish star-borers.
Nessa stood upon an oak crate at the base of the western limestone wall. Her magnifying glass was held against her right eyebrow. Meanwhile, her fingers traced a four-foot upright gouge in the dark pale limestone. The stone was scarred by deep, jagged furrows that curved downward like the raking swipe of an armored talon. For twenty years, illustrations of these very gouges had appeared in the heroic chapbooks sold in the markets of Bellwether, cited by cantonal chroniclers as proof of the beast’s terrifying ferocity.
“Bring the measuring tongs, Tomas,” Nessa said. Her voice dropped into the quiet, lethal register of a judge unsealing a murder indictment.
Tomas climbed up the rock shelf beside her, his cowhide boots finding purchase on an outcropping of flint. He held the brass storm-lantern close to the rock, the yellow flame lighting up the inside of the gouge.
The groove was not a tear. A living claw—composed of bone, horn, or enamel—shears through rock by tearing along natural cleavage planes. That left crushed stone powder, uneven spalls, and curved striations matching the body radius of a knuckle joint.
Inside this groove, the wall showed something entirely different.
