The western ridge stood twelve hundred feet over the Cloudford Basin. From the dry ledge, Pei Jing could see lanterns along the stairs of the nine peaks. A deacon on a silver sword carried a message between two floating crags. Beyond him, the blue dome turned the fog gold where it caught the light from the windows.
Pei Jing set the Black Mountain Whetstone across his legs. He laid out his map and the notes he had copied from the patrol register. The black pigskin book lay open at the blood levy. Beside it he set the figures he had taken down in his head at the granary and written out on the ridge.
The patrol register listed seven Golden Core elders and forty-two Foundation deacons, with about eight hundred students assigned to watches. It also gave the kitchens’ daily bread count. Close to two thousand servants, cooks, and laborers ate below the mountain. Many had been pressed into service. If an army came for the sect, those were the people it would reach first. If he sent the peaks down with the dome, those were the people they would land on.
Pei Jing drew the Nine-Fold Astral Bone Blade and wet the whetstone.
