The twelve arks stopped fifty feet above the canyon. Their engines drove smoke from the cook fires back into the wagons. Silver-inlaid gangways swung down from the leading ships. Brass hooks closed over the stone shelves.
Three hundred students and twenty-four elders came down in white and blue robes. Their boots shone. Pei Jing could smell the lavender from their clothes when the wind turned. Two overseers from Purple Cloud followed close behind. Both had reached Half-Step Nascent Soul. The pressure around them made the people nearest the wall pull back.
Grand Elder Yan of the Heavenly Sword Sect led the way. Qi Rong walked beside him in a yellow mantle. The grease-stained silk he had worn when his ship fled was gone. Behind them, students carried chests and balance scales. Some looked over the broken wall at Vor’s head in the scree and began to point out pieces of armor and bone they meant to take.
Grand Elder Yan stopped twenty paces from the wall. Qi Rong stepped out ahead of him with a jade tablet. The Three Sect Coalition’s seal showed through the green stone. The Grand Desolation Pavilion’s inland council had signed it. Ye’s Cold Moon Sword Pavilion enforced contracts at the auction tower. It had no seat on the inland council and its mark was absent here.
