The limestone walls of the Red Centipede Trench narrowed to less than twelve paces, their chalk-white faces streaked with ancient rust and sulfur weeping from deep underground veins.
Lu Chen stepped over the stone-hard skeleton of an elk, his boots grinding dry river pebble into fine powder.
Behind him, the two mountain draft mules suddenly stopped, their nostrils flaring as they caught the sharp, bitter-salt stench rising from the trench floor.
An Ni gripped the lead rope with both hands, her leather-wrapped forging hammer resting across her broad leather apron.
The air in the Hundred Poison Gorges was thick, stale, and damp.
Emerald foul fog hung three hundred feet overhead like a solid ceiling of green curd, blocking the autumn sun and bathing the ravine in sickly twilight.
A normal mortal traveler would have choked on the drifting fungal spores within three breaths, their lung tissues dissolving into bloody foam.
Lu Chen didn’t cough.
