Cold autumn rain had been falling across the black roof slates of the Great Yan royal capital for seven in a row days. It pooled in the carved drainage troughs of the Grand Square, washing away the stubborn streaks of grease and soot left behind by the northern supply convoys. On the ninth tier of the marble stairs leading into the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the water ran clean, grey, and bitter with the taste of coal smoke from the palace heating chimney pipes.
Pei Jing stood three paces to the left of the sixth granite pillar. He wore a simple charcoal-grey tunic of double-woven mountain hemp beneath a heavy, plain iron-plated breastplate. His wrists were secured by wide bracers of hardened hard dark metal steel, dark and oil-rubbed to prevent rust in the damp river air. On his left hip hung the Cloud-Splitter Cleaver-Saber, its single-edged three-foot spine resting against a sword sheath wrapped in boiled shark-skin.
Around him, the royal court smelled of wet fur, spiced cinnamon wine, and dried bitter pine-resin.
Three hundred civil officials and four score armored marshals stood in ordered ranks upon the gold-flecked floor tiles. At the center of the hall, kneeling upon a silk cushion stitched with five-clawed vermilion dragons, General Yue Ding presented the war-spoils of Fort Ironpass. There were seventy-two captured barbarian battle-banners, eleven crates of cut wolf-totem ears pickled in coarse salt water, and three thousand sheepskin claims signed with thumbprints of dried blood.
