The center span of the East Stone Bridge was twelve feet of slick, blood-greased granite suspended thirty feet above churning brown rapids.
The wind howled down the river gorge. It carried icy mist that mingled with the hot steam rising from twelve fresh corpses. Along the western low roof wall, the blood of Black Dog and the fallen spearmen drained through the stone deck drains. It poured in thick crimson ribbons into the foam below.
Ten paces away stood Iron Claw Hu Biao.
The gang leader didn’t look like an old man of fifty.
His massive chest rose and fell with deep, rhythmic bellows-breaths. Beneath his sleeveless buffalo cuirass, the thick cords of his Tendon Stretching Peak conditioning shifted under greased leather with the thickness of twisted steel cables. His legs were thick as bridge wooden support posts, his iron-shod boots rooted into the blood-stained pavers with total balance.
Strapped to his forearms, the twin three-pronged hard dark metal tiger claws clicked together in an irregular, hungry rhythm:
Clack-rasp. Clack-rasp.
Behind Hu Biao, the fifty surviving gang cutthroats huddled together on the eastern bridge pillar. None of them dared advance. They stood frozen, their weapons shaking. They watched their legendary leader step onto the killing ground alone.
