At midday on the second day, Pei Jing found that the blade pulled hard enough to make him turn his whole body after it. He could no longer let the Armored Soul hold the other end of the swing from outside him. The left shoulder had to take its own share of the weight.
Master Mo Tie had made him draw the join at the handle thicker before he would forge the old Cloud-Splitter. Pei Jing had thought he could save some iron there. Mo had pointed to the exact place his drawing would break. Years later he had kept that lesson when he bound the Flood Dragon’s spine into the star iron with his own marrow.
Now he shifted his grip until the blade stopped tugging at the shoulder. He tried one cut. His elbow buckled. For the next he took a shorter step and let the rock carry the turn through his heel. The blade came back to the same place without pulling him around.
He went down to the upper road and found Shen’s crew moving a cracked bridge rail. He used the same grip to hold it while they got a wagon past.
