Rain was still falling hard. Pei Jing had twenty-five minutes before the market patrol came down the alley. He pulled on his sheepskin gloves. A dead man in the valley could still have something sharp hidden in his coat.
Meng had a purse made from void-mouse hide. It took up less room than Jing’s hand, but it had space for most of the goods he needed to take north. Its weak seal gave at once. Along with Meng’s money, it held fifteen pounds of deep-vein red stone, a jar of Dragon-Marrow Tallow, two hairpins and four copper keys.
He kept Meng’s cleaver and Li’s spiked gauntlets, knives, bone-knitting pellets and warehouse pass. From the others he gathered bows, wire and a few tools he could use or trade. He took all three spent Gale Burst needles from Liu before lifting the canvas again. He cleaned them and filled the twelve slots in his wrist guard. The twelve unused ward needles went into a separate wrap.
The men had carried a hundred and ten whole stones between them, plus twelve shards. He’d had ninety whole stones before the fight. He now had two hundred, enough to outspend a shopkeeper in the middle market. A lone swamp gatherer could work twenty years without seeing that much.
