The Shriekers circled all day. When the wind shifted, they moved with it, never coming low enough for the archers to see more than their wings. Toward the end of the following night, violet rain began to fall.
The first drops hit the boulders and hissed. Yellow vapor rose from the stone. A sentry on the wagon barrier gasped when a drop caught his wrist. The skin went dark where it touched him.
“Void rain,” Shi Kang called. “Under cover. Get the shell shields up. Keep your hands out of the runoff.”
Thirty thousand people were waiting to enter the eastern narrows. The nearest families climbed beneath the wagons. Mothers pulled oiled cloth over their children. Men held up the black plates the smiths had made into shields. The drops slid off the curved shells and ran into the gutters.
Duan Heng helped bring the sentry to the medical tents. The healers used a spirit salve on the burn and bound it with clean hemp. Shi’s veterans moved from one wagon to the next, looking for people who hadn’t found cover. The families held still when they saw the old soldiers walking instead of running.
At the mouth of the gorge, Pei Jing stood on the piled shells. Rain ate holes in his tunic. White smoke curled off his forearms. His skin stung, but the acid couldn’t work its way into the hardened flesh.
