At noon on the second day following the fall of Eagle-Beak Ridge, Cheng Shan left for the south.
The scout rode at the head of a tough convoy. Eighty mountain warhorses strung together in four disciplined files, trailing six heavy freight wagons loaded with one hundred and forty bars of southern bloomery iron, sixty barrels of coarse salt, and eight hundred silver coins packed in nailed pine crates.
In the breast pocket of Cheng Shan’s wolf-pelt coat lay the taken away correspondence and account ledgers bearing the seal of the Cloudford Zhao Clan.
Pei Jing stood atop the outer gatehouse castle wall. He watched the convoy wind its way down the snow-choked switchbacks into the lower valley.
“Give the iron and the ledgers directly to my father,” Pei Jing had instructed before they parted. “Tell him to hire sixty veteran guards from the river guild to guard post the smelter gates. Don’t confront the Zhao Clan in the street. Deliver copies of the correspondence to the country military checker in Cangzhou. Let the law and the judge’s fear of royal treason dismantle their merchant guild.”
“And what of you, Jing’er?” Cheng Shan had asked, holding the reins of his roan stallion. “The castle is burned. You’re alone on this rock in the middle of winter.”
