The weight of the weeping crate came off the granite doorstep with a dry, splintering snap of rotten wood.
Tomas lifted with his knees, his back flat. His boots were locked into the oak cleats on the sloping floor. His right arm took seventy percent of the strain, the hardwood handles biting through his rawhide-padded glove. His left hand—the fingers stiffened by the three-inch purple tendon scar across his forearm—gripped the cross-strap with desperate, white-knuckled focus. The scarred flexor muscle burned like molten lead, trembling under the eighty-pound deadweight.
Beside him, Captain Sile Rook hoisted his side with silent, iron discipline, his broad shoulders hunched against the vault, his teeth bared in an unmoving grimace of effort.
Between them, the crate hovered six inches above the stone. From the cracked bottom seams, three drops of thick amber resin dripped into the open air.
“Swing it over the tub,” Tomas grunted through his teeth, his vision narrowing to the rim of the white oak firkin held steady by Kester.
“Steady on the swing,” Sile rasped. “Lower by inches.”
They swung the heavy chest over the mouth of the firkin. The creamy white wet lime plaster slurry sloshed within, cold and dense as porridge.
