Elder Sterling kicked through the outer balcony screen, his broadsword clearing its scabbard with a high, singing rasp.
Cold gorge wind rushed into the opening, carrying plumes of sulfurous smoke from the burning drawbridges below.
A shrieking crescent of black sword-light tore across the open air between the galleries.
Patriarch Morvane descended from the third tier like a falling bird of prey, his embroidered gray robes flapping violently against the gale.
The Heaven-Sunder Blade burned with jagged arcs of pitch-black lightning.
The weapon was forged from blackened meteor iron, heavier than three ox carts, pulsing with the air-shattering pressure of a Golden Core Peak grandmaster.
Sterling vaulted onto the marble balustrade of Booth Nine, planting his boots with absolute resolve.
He was sixty years older than Morvane, his spine notched with old war scars, but his eyes were sharp as mountain flint.
