At the sixth bell the fog turned yellow. Pei Jing came down the scree and stepped into the Black Marsh. Peat closed around his boots with a wet gasp. It smelled of old iron and rotting sedge.
He carried two ash staves, each seven feet long, with fire-hardened tips. Before every step, he used the left staff to feel the mud ahead. A skin of dead algae could look solid and hide eight feet of liquid peat.
Probe. Step. Shift his weight. Probe again.
He kept his knees loose and his weight low. A trickle of Wood qi protected his feet from the acid in the mud. Black mangroves crowded around him. Their trunks shone with green slime. Moss hung from the branches and dripped into the pools.
Mud carp with armored heads thrashed in the shallows. Red leeches hung from the roots like bunches of grapes. A banded viper raised its head three yards away. It tasted the air with a black tongue.
Pei Jing kept his pulse at eight and let his skin stay as cold as the wood. The snake lowered its head. He passed without drawing a needle.
The needle on his bronze compass leaned twelve degrees east under the pull of Thunder Cliff. He corrected for it and went deeper. The water climbed from his knees to his thighs. A smell of wet lime and burnt horn told him the dragon used this stretch of the swamp. The deep sinkhole was still miles away. The…
