The first step beneath the water line was a shock that struck through Tomas’s cowhide boots like an iron spike driven into the bone. The water was forty-one degrees—colder than the winter river above, chilled by five miles of transit through the deep, sunless limestone caverns of the mountain ridge. It soaked through the leather welts in three seconds, soaked his thick woolen socks. Then it wrapped his ankles in an icy, choking band that turned his skin to dead wood.
Tomas paused on the second step, resting his weight against the damp stone wall of the stairwell. His scarred left wrist twinged with a sharp, burning throb as the cold forced the blood from his tiny blood vessel beds, tightening the stiff scar tissue across his tendon sheath until his fingers curled inward like dried leaves.
He didn’t curse. He didn’t retreat. Step by step, he pressed his thumb against the calfskin brace. That forced the strap tighter to lock the wrist joint. Then it forced his four fingers to straighten against his thigh, breaking the morning stiffness one joint at a time. A porter who surrendered to cold water on the first step would never make the winter crossings of the Low Basin.
