Twelve doors opened along the intact outer foundation of the Northern Spire. Its buried machine yard had separate fuel jars. It still had power after the inner floors collapsed and the crystal broke. Steam rolled out first. Then four thousand brass puppets marched through it. Each stood eight feet high and carried a glaive. Purple light shone through the bars of their chests. They came down the slope in three straight lines.
Two hundred siege hounds ran beside them. The ice broke under each footfall. The nearest hound weighed six tons, and its jaws opened wide enough to take a piece out of the trench wall.
Pei Jing had come down from the ridge to the central communications trench. He took fifty High-Grade Spirit Stones from his pouch. Their light went into his dantian. The Armored Soul took it up, and he felt the new weight settle behind his ribs.
He left the blade in its sheath and took a four-foot iron crowbar from the weapons rack.
The puppets’ wards had been made to drink the force of flying swords and fire spells. Pei Jing had seen those wards grow brighter every time a sect fighter struck them. The northern crews had practiced with shields and plain iron.
