Red light from the blood token spread over the wet shelf. Yan Tianxiong rose from his chair. He stood eight feet two inches tall, and three hundred pounds of bronze scale armor ground against itself when he moved. He pulled his cleaver free of the rock.
The rings struck the blade all at once. Ripples passed through the rain. The guards’ breastplates began to hum at the same pitch. Pei Jing felt the sound catch in his spirit veins. For a moment his stomach turned. He breathed through it and stayed where he was.
Yan studied the man at the mouth of the shaft. A gray robe hung loose on him. A bamboo hat hid his face. Water ran off the bundle on his back. He could have been a man coming home from selling fish. There was no sect token at his belt, and Yan could sense no qi around him.
The jade at the judge’s belt screamed. Its chain began to smoke where it touched his armor.
“Fifty years,” Yan said.
He stepped off the ridge. Stone chips broke under his boots. The guards swung their crossbows toward Pei Jing.
“Fifty years since the court signed my warrant. I’ve looked through registers ever since. Tax rolls, ship lists, inquests. Three thousand miles of them. Every time our banners came close, you slipped into a mortal crowd. You gave no name. You paid with silver no one could trace.”
