By the next evening, two wrecked sloops still burned with green fire against the southern posts. Most of the families were inland. Pei Jing had spent the morning clearing the path from the upper landing and the afternoon watching the kraken from two sheltered ledges. From the first, he could only see it throw water. From the second, he could see the vents that took water in. That was the part of the cycle he needed.
Pei Jing stood under an overhang eighty feet above them. He’d tied back his traveling cloak to free his arms. In one hand he held a slate and a piece of chalk.
He wrote down what the kraken had shown him. About two hundred and ten tons. Eight tentacles that could take apart a stone quay. A mantle three feet thick that swallowed the force of a bolt. The siphon could throw tons of water far enough to knock a flying swordsman out of the sky.
Below him, the kraken wrapped two tentacles around a sunken dredging barge. The oak folded in on itself. The beak opened and closed on what it dragged from the hold, cutting wood, bone, and iron hoops together.
Pei Jing watched the mantle swell. Water went in through the vents behind the eyes. The siphon tightened with a low note, then sent a white surge across the harbor. The beast moved fifty paces on the water it threw behind it.
