The impact of the water jet against the lead-faced timber was bone-shaking.
It felt as though Tomas had rammed the oak beam into the chest of a charging bull. The high-pressure thrust hit the wood with an ear-splitting WHAM that sent blast waves shaking up through his wrists, into his elbows, and straight across his shoulder blades.
For a terrifying, heart-stopping second, the water fought back with unimaginable fury.
The high-pressure jet, suddenly blocked by the four-inch oak balk, didn’t disappear. It exploded laterally in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree fan of razor-sharp spray. The water sliced through Tomas’s wool coat, ripped the buttons from his collar. Then it battered his face with the force of thrown gravel.
His boots slipped.
His right iron heel-plate skated across the wet grating, sparks flying from the friction of iron on iron. He felt the sickening void of the deep pit opening behind his left shoulder, the eighty-foot drop to the rocks pulling at his balance point.
“Hold the timber!” Tomas screamed, his voice tearing raw in his throat.
He didn’t rely on muscle alone. He threw his chest flat against the outer face of the oak balk. He locked his chin over the top edge and used his entire body weight as a human wedge. His scarred left arm, strained to the total breaking point, locked its fingers into the rough manila lashing.
