The sun sank behind the crags. The Decapitators held at the outer lip of the gorge, two hundred paces from the place where the walls pinched in around Pei Jing. The front ranks moved their scythes together, as though they shared one set of lungs. The ones behind them jostled but never pushed past. Whatever passed for a command had gone all the way down the line.
Pei Jing went back to the boulder. He sat with his legs crossed and laid the Bone Blade across them. He took out the Black Mountain Whetstone, dipped his hand in the stream, and let water run across the stone.
Shaaa.
The burr on the spine met the grit with a dry rasp.
Shaaa. Shaaa.
People behind the wagon barrier could hear it. A few turned their heads. The teams that could still walk kept moving. Along the lower shelves, grandparents held children in wool blankets, and wagoners sat on the rungs of their carts to get the weight off their blistered heels. Wounded guards leaned against shields that had split.
On the tailboard of a millet wagon, an old woman rolled a chipped wooden bead between shaking fingers. The rasp came again. Her fingers slowed.
