On Pei Jing’s sixth day of seclusion, the sun hung low over the northern ridges. Sulfur smoke covered the Iron Rift Basin. The Cloud Mist front had fallen back, but on the far side of the basin, a Cloud Mist reserve company had counterattacked from the south and was pursuing a Burning Sun detachment out of the trenches. The main Burning Sun force was still chasing the ships that had withdrawn. Tens of thousands of soldiers remained in the field. For days they had answered every spell with another.
A Cloud Mist elder rode his white-jade sword over a broken wooden wall. He raised his talisman blade at the Burning Sun infantry coming through the gap and called up seven Frost-Dragon lances.
Three small icicles spat out of the blade. They fell as water before they had gone thirty paces.
The elder shook the blade once. “It’s not taking. Something’s drinking the qi before it reaches the lances.”
Across the basin, flying swords dipped. Burning Sun fire engines coughed black smoke. Soldiers lit fresh talismans and watched them go out like wet paper. A ward that had lasted for hours under bombardment flickered from one side to the other. The people beneath it could feel their reserves draining twice as fast as before.
