Sect Year 3 · third month · day 12 · Azure Stream Sect, the east gate and the road beneath it
The grey flag came up the road a little after noon. Lin saw it first from the wall walk above the gate, a dirty bar of cloth on a pole above the rise, carried upright by a rider who did not hurry. The wardens on the tower saw it next. Their voices went along the low roof wall one after another, the way word of a fire goes through a village, until the whole length of the wall knew what was coming before Lin had reached the stair.
There were four riders under the flag. They wore bronze masks that covered the whole face, smooth and eyeless, the brow and cheek curved like a bowl turned over. When they raised their hands toward the wall, the sleeves fell back from their wrists, and Lin could see the mark pricked into each one. A bowl, with nothing in it. Behind them on the road a two-wheeled cart came up at a walk, and its bed carried a cage.
It stood taller than a man. Its uprights were oak, hooped round with bronze bands, and the bars between them were cast bronze, thick as a wrist and flaring at the foot and narrowing toward the top. The cage stood on four poles lashed to the cart’s bed. As the wheels came over the stones every bar rang, softly and all together…
