The twelve climbers reached the summit an hour before noon. Red clay clung to their sandals. Their breath came hard in the thin air. Old Man Han led with his staff. Behind him came Daoist Sister Yu with a basket of dried roots, Master Carpenter Shen with a brass rule in his sash, and nine younger fighters with the hands of miners and fishermen.
Pei Jing sat on a boulder shaving a block of pine with a small knife. A curl of wood fell beside his iron pot. The glass around him was scarred where the fight had passed through. Here and there the climbers saw a piece of metal caught in the rock. There was nothing for a man to take home and sell as a heavenly treasure.
Han lowered himself to his knees. The nine younger fighters did the same.
“Stand up,” Pei Jing said.
He worked the knife across a corner of the block. “An apprentice in Cloudford gives the master one bow. Then he looks where the saw is going. You can’t see the work with your face in the dirt.”
Han leaned on his staff and got up. The others followed.
“Senior,” he said. “The Starry Judge. The Order-of-Heaven Tablet. Is it over?”
