The roar of water-powered bellows struck the ears like falling timber.
Lu Chen marched in the column of sixty mortal laborers, his bare feet sinking into the icy, coal-black sludge of the lower raised stone road.
The lower gate of the Hundred Blossom Bastion was an eight-foot arch cut into the limestone foundation, heavy with heavy iron gratings green with green rust.
Above the arch, two bronze gargoyles vomited streams of scummy, yellow water into the ditch below.
A squad of seven outer sect guards stood beneath the gate arch, draped in loose green robes cinched with greasy cord.
At their front stood an overseer with a scarred chin and a crooked spine. It leaned against a six-foot wicker whip barbed with twisted copper wire.
“Strip your bags!” the overseer shouted, his voice hoarse from coal fumes. “Empty your pockets onto the stone! Any copper coin, iron nail, or spirit charm kept hidden earns thirty lashes and a night in the leech pit!”
The laborers in front of Lu Chen dropped their tattered cloth bundles onto the wet flat stone slabs.
