Rain fell with the steady, violent roar of a collapsing gravel bank.
The Cloudford River was a black, churning trench of freezing foam. Water crashed against the heavy oak wooden support posts beneath the South River Grain Depot, throwing plumes of spray ten feet into the air to mingle with the cascading downpour. Overhead, thunder rolled across the valley at three-minute intervals, shaking the riverbed with deep-rumbling tremors.
Pei Jing crouched beneath the hull of an overturned flatboat thirty paces downstream.
His black wool cowl was soaked. But his core remained warm, padded by the dense, non-porous barrier of Tier 5 Skin Tempering. Under his oiled linen wrappings, the cross-woven muscle cables of his back and thighs were coiled in relaxed, static tension.
He waited for the sound cycle.
Thunderstorms obeyed rhythmic meteorological laws. Every two to three minutes, a high-sky spark discharge produced a sustained sound roar exceeding one hundred decibels that lasted between four and six seconds.
During those four seconds, the sound of breaking wood, snapping iron, or splashing water was fully masked by sky noise.
FLASH.
A jagged arc of blue lightning split the storm clouds, lighting up the swollen river in blinding silver.
One. Two. Three.
CRACK-BOOM.
The thunder blew up directly overhead.
In the second the blast wave struck, Pei Jing moved.
He exploded from beneath the flatboat. His bare feet gripped the slick river rocks with primate dexterity. He crossed twenty paces of flooded gravel in three strides, planting his right foot on an underwater willow stump and leaping six feet upward to seize the slimy slanted brace of the warehouse wharf piling.
His thick, horn-hard fingers clamped around the sodden timber like iron hooks.
The river surged around his waist, the freezing current dragging at his legs with hundreds of pounds of high-pressure force.
Pei Jing didn’t fight the river with his arms alone. He engaged his broad back muscles and glutes. He walked his feet up the upright oak pile until he cleared the waterline. He pulled himself onto the cross-beam beneath the loading platform.
He didn’t try to breach the rear doors from the deck.
Entering through the doors would leave telltale scratch marks on the timber, alerting the incoming raiders that the outer edge had been compromised.
He climbed higher.
At the upper junction where the rear cedar wall met the slate roofline, twenty-four feet above the water, was a three-sided air-flow louver built to vent humid grain dust during the summer months. The louver was covered with level cedar slats spaced three inches apart.
Pei Jing scaled the upright corner post, jamming his fingers into the quarter-inch joints between the cedar wall planks.
He reached the louver.
He drew the five-inch antler-handled knife from his boot.
He pushed in the carbon-steel blade beneath the center slat, twisted ninety degrees with the torque of his Tier 3 Flesh Forging. Then he popped the dry wooden pegs holding the vent in place.
Pop.
The sound was instantly wiped out by a fresh rumble of overhead thunder.
He slid through the narrow opening headfirst, contorting his shoulders to slip through the fourteen-inch sky-slit. Then he caught a level cedar rafter with his right hand.
He pulled his feet through, replaced the loosened slat, and pulled the louver shut.
The shift from the violent, freezing storm into the warehouse was instant.
Inside, the air was warm, dry, and thick with the powdery, sweet scent of milled wheat, dry cedar sawdust, and coarse millet dust. Outside, the rain pounded against the thick slate shingles with a muted, rhythmic thrumming like distant war drums. But inside the rafters, the air was fully still.
Pei Jing carefully tested the cedar tie beam beneath his weight.
He ran his thick, horn-hard thumb along the timber edges, checking the grain for powder-post beetle boreholes or dry rot fungal decay. The wood was fifty-year-old virgin mountain cedar, twelve inches square, seasoned in river salt and rock-solid. It could easily support five hundred pounds of dynamic load without groaning.
He perched upon the level truss, thirty feet above the floorboards.
He uncoiled his thirty-foot hemp rope. He tied a rapid slip-knot around the cedar truss to serve as a high-speed descent line if needed.
He conducted a baseline audit of his physical tracking data.
He closed his eyes, sinking his breathing into his lower belly. Four seconds in. Eight seconds out.
His heart rate dropped steadily: sixty beats... Fifty-two beats... Forty-eight beats per minute. At forty-eight beats, his oxygen consumption dropped by thirty percent. His body stopped streaming detectable heat plumes into the cool air of the rafters.
His floating sight screen activated in clean, plain monospace:
Pei Jing looked down through the gloom.
Below him, the warehouse floor was divided into three cavernous aisles by towering tiers of stacked grain sacks. Four hundred two-hundred-pound sacks of coarse millet and winter wheat flour rose ten feet high. That created an artificial maze of narrow canyons.
Directly beneath his perch lay the rear loading doors—the two heavy timber leaves that opened onto the river wharf.
He checked his equipment one final time.
He reached down to his right boot, confirming the antler-handled knife was free in its sheath.
He brushed his fingers across his volar forearms beneath his oiled linen sleeves. Twelve high-carbon spring steel needles were locked in their rawhide friction channels, cold against his skin, their three-sided armor-piercing tips ready to launch at a flick of his wrists.
His right hand rested on the pigskin-wrapped handle of the three-foot mountain saber secured horizontally across his lower back.
The sheep fat coating kept the steel silent, hydrophobic, and lethal. Lying prone along the beam, his fingertips briefly patted the Black Mountain Whetstone secured in his belt pouch. The hard dark rock stone was cool and dry against his ribs. It anchored his patience while the gale raged outside.
Time slowed.
In an audit, patience was not a virtue. It was a working constant. An clerk didn’t rush through five years of fraudulent invoices. They sat in cold archives, checking entry after entry until the mismatch revealed itself.
Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. Thirty minutes.
The storm reached its total crescendo.
Lightning struck the iron weathercock on the town hall three li away, followed two seconds later by a thunderclap that rattled the massive cedar roof beams beneath Pei Jing’s shins.
Then, through the hammering roar of the rain, a new sound registered.
It wasn’t thunder.
It was the dull, rhythmic thud of muffled oars dipping into swollen river water.
Pei Jing opened his eyes.
Through the crack between the cedar wall planks, thirty feet below, a long, black flatboat crept out of the storm mist, gliding silently beneath the overhang of the wharf wooden support posts.
The oars were wrapped in sheepskin rags to eliminate splashing.
In the flatboat sat eight men.
All eight wore hooded capes of greasy black oilcloth, their faces obscured by the shadows of their cowls.
Standing in the prow was a broad, hulking figure holding a four-foot iron crowbar in his left hand and a heavy, square-bladed iron butcher’s cleaver in his right. A jagged white scar ran from his left temple down across his mouth. It pulled his upper lip into a permanent, snarling sneer.
Scarface Qian.
Behind him, two men held unlit torches wrapped in sulfur-soaked linen and four sealed clay jars of pine pitch. The other five carried short iron-headed clubs, butcher knives, and two compact iron-tipped recurve bows.
The boat bumped against the wharf piling with a dull, wet thud.
Scarface Qian reached out with his iron crowbar, hooking the timber lip of the loading platform.
He didn’t speak. He raised two fingers.
The eight cutthroats rose all at once, climbing onto the wet deck like black river spiders.
Scarface Qian crouched by the rear loading doors, working the tip of his iron crowbar into the bronze padlock hasp. He leaned his weight forward, whispering harsh commands to his crew:
“Two jars of pitch along the center aisle,” the scarred leader muttered, his breath reeking of garlic and cheap grain spirits. “Two jars on the dry flour stacks near the south wall. When the sulfur torches catch, the draft from the river will pull the fire straight through the roof. We leave through the boat in two minutes flat.”
The padlock shackle groaned, then snapped with a muffled crunch.
Scarface Qian kicked the timber door open by three inches. Cold wind and freezing river spray drafted into the warehouse, carrying the sharp scent of ozone and mud. One by one, the eight men stepped over the threshold, their wet oilcloth capes dripping onto the dry pine floorboards, their weapons held low and ready.
Pei Jing sat thirty feet above their heads on the cedar beam, observing the cluster of targets below.
His tactical eye mapped their entry formation: point man, two torch-bearers holding flint strikers, four club guards, and the rearguard bowman closing the timber door behind them.
His pulse remained locked at forty-eight beats per minute.
He reached behind his back. His fingers closed around the cold pigskin handle of his mountain saber.
The accounts were about to be balanced.