By midnight, the armies were fighting across seven miles of broken ground. Frost shells burst against red wards. The blasts threw frozen mud and broken armor high over the trenches. The air tasted of sulfur and burnt copper.
Pei Jing had torn off Lie Yang’s surcoat after it caught fire. He was back in his dark hemp robe, with the Bone Blade wrapped in wet oilcloth and strapped to his back. He kept his hat low to shield his goggles from the falling grit.
He made his way through ditches and shell craters. Bodies lay one over another in the drains. Some were sixteen or seventeen. He could still see the plain robes of outer students under the mud. They might have joined up to learn to ride a flying sword. Their first qi shields had given out before they could see who was firing at them.
Armored riders followed the lip of a trench. One shouted into a speaking horn.
“Third Conscription Cohort, forward! Get into the breach or be beheaded for treason against the Valley!”
Pei Jing watched from behind a broken siege engine. A boy slipped climbing out of the trench. The man behind him put both hands under his arms and lifted him. A rider’s whip came down across them both.
