Outside the western compound wall, twelve guards crouched in the knee-high canyon scrub.
Every man held an iron cocking lever in his fist. Their heavy mining crossbows pointed at the main timber gate, quarrels dipped in pig grease and notched against oiled horn strings.
“Wait for the gate to swing,” the squad captain whispered, wiping rain mist from his chin. “City boys have thin skin, and the second that roof flares up, the third son will kick the door wide open to save his silk robes. We put three iron bolts through his shins before he can circulate a single drop of Qi.”
The guards grinned in the dark. Varga’s orders were simple: draw the silver badge into an open brawl and drain his vitality before the official audit.
High on the barracks roof, the bitumen-soaked arrows flared with an angry orange crackle.
Inside the courtyard, Kaelen Vance stood three paces from the bathhouse door. He looked up at the curling black smoke, then down at the blue cotton belt in his hands.
If I draw my sword and sprint through the gate, my heart rate climbs.
If my heart rate climbs, my meridians expand before the hot water opens my pores.
