Vor’s left head opened its jaws. The sound was like two panes of glass grinding against each other under water. Blue runes lit along its crest. Pei Jing saw them reflected in the wet stones at his feet.
Abyssal Null-Space spread across the gorge.
Forty paces still seemed to lie between Pei Jing and Vor. Wind drove a handful of gravel toward the fiend. The stones traveled ten feet, then twenty, then fifty. They never reached the first leg. Pei Jing could see them turning in the air as the space ahead of them stretched again.
Master Qian shaded his eyes on the eastern shelf. A patch of daylight bent across the cliff and came around in a circle.
“The distance is folding,” he said. “It looks close, but you could run forty miles and still be here.”
One of the fighters beside him tried to stand. His knees buckled when he saw where the horizon had gone. Qian grabbed him by the sleeve before he rolled off the ledge.
At the timber wall, Shi Kang got to one knee with his bow held across his chest. Farther down the valley, mothers clutched their children as the road seemed to tilt beneath the carts. Spokes bent into long ovals. An ox tried to find ground under its hooves and bellowed when the earth moved away from it.
