The first warning went unanswered. Through the next day the fleets stayed where they were. Three leagues away, the sword light rose and fell. Every twelve minutes it cut the swells into sheets of water that hung in the air before collapsing.
Sixty-seven vessels held around the rift. The three Heavenly Sword arks formed a crescent in the north. The Sun-Piercer was the largest, two hundred paces long, with forty-eight Golden Crow ballistae along its bronze sides. Blue light filled their charge banks. Elder Yu waited above the bow in white silk trimmed with scarlet. Ten golden swords circled his shoulders.
Forty Blood Sail junks rode to the south. Their black hulls were plated with whale bone. At their center stood the Dragon-Turtle, with four masts and a prow clad in shark hide and iron. Blood-Eyed Jiao watched from the quarterdeck with a serrated bone sword across his back. Twelve drummers behind him kept time.
Twenty-four smaller vessels drifted between the lines. Cutters, sloops, and rowboats. Some of the people aboard had spent decades stuck at the same level of cultivation. They saw Xiao’s vault as their last chance.
Pei Jing waited in the lee of a coral outcrop, three hundred paces behind most of the smaller boats. The star-iron spine of the Cloud-Splitter carried the sound of the array through the strap against his back.
