The rain thinned to mist. Water hissed where it reached the remains of the four bronze stakes. The three elders lay beneath the cliff wall, and their earth-escape scroll had gone dark in the mud.
Beitang knelt three paces from Pei Jing. His armor shook with each breath. The fire qi had closed most of the wound, but he kept his left hand over his arm.
“Wait,” he said. “You’re a rogue. You know what resources are worth.”
Pei Jing held the blade low and listened.
“You have the field,” Beitang went on. “You’ve taken my hand and left me without a weapon. You still have the tablet. But you won’t be able to spend those stones while every skiff in the Northern Iron Crags is hunting you.”
He tried to straighten. The weight of the armor pulled him forward again.
“We hold forty mines. Our warrants carry the governor’s seal. I’ll give you thirty percent of the Western Vein. An astral copper quarry in the Black Sand Range. Seven thousand high-grade stones paid over five years. We’ll take a blood oath before the Royal Notary. Ask for whatever you need to set up your own gate.”
The mist parted for a moment. Pei Jing could see past Beitang to the pines the array had broken. He had sat across from men who promised great sums after they had lost the means to pay. Seven thousand over five years meant fourteen hundred stones a year. From the trade books and…
