The front of the dragon was already falling. Gravel and river reeds slid after it into the dark.
The beast tried to stop. Its rear claws tore white grooves into the granite. Sparks and crushed quartz sprayed against the walls. There was nothing left under the front half of its body. Its nine-foot head dropped and its jaws opened in a strangled gasp. Then the whole forty feet of it pitched into the shaft.
Air rushed out from under the falling dragon. A gale of dust and rotten-egg wind blew past Pei Jing where he stood twenty paces down the gorge.
He planted his boots. The chase had gone as he expected. The dragon had still been moving at twenty-two feet a second when it reached the pit. No grip on wet rock could have pulled that much weight back from the edge. He waited for the impact.
It came a heartbeat and a half later. Stone shook. Metal rang, followed by a wet crunch that carried all the way up the shaft.
The dragon had struck chest first. Its armor was thickest on the back and sides. The softer plates beneath its ribs gave way on the enchanted points at the bottom of the pit. Its roar broke into a wet shriek.
