The first gray light reached Azure Province at the fifth hour of the morning. Then the bells began to ring.
Three short strikes. Three long ones. Three double strikes, close enough to shake the roosting falcons from the pines. All nine peaks took up the emergency call. The sound rolled into the valleys.
In the First Peak dormitories, five hundred students scrambled out of their bunks. Some came into the courtyards in bare feet. Others had put on their boots but left the laces loose. They took their training swords down from the racks and crowded the doors.
“Is it the Northern Demon Sect?”
“Warlords. It has to be the warlords.”
Then someone looked up. The other students followed his gaze. Swords began to lower. The blue dome had softened every storm they could remember. Now gray clouds were moving past the peaks, and a north wind tore silk banners from the roofs.
“Where’s the barrier?” a boy whispered. “Who turned off the sky?”
Farther down the mountain, cooks, sweepers and washerwomen came out of their quarters with the buckets and baskets they had been carrying. Their ears had always hummed from the channels under their huts. Their chests had always felt tight. Now the air smelled of frost and wet pine, and thrushes flew low over the cabbages.
