In the third watch of the afternoon, as the peat fire burned down to steady crimson coals, Yan Zhiqiu provided the military disposition of their pursuers.
She sat upon the edge of the glow-stone berth. She held a soapstone pencil, sketching the tactical doctrine of the Azure Firmament Sect upon a fresh sheet of waterproof thick parchment. Her hand was steady. Her mind ran with the ruthless analytical clarity of a royal intelligence officer who had cataloged every void-ship and siege engine in the southern theatre.
“Zhu Heling,” she said, her voice dropping into a harsh, guarded register as she spoke the name. “He is not like Grand Elder Yue Feng, who was an arrogant courtier who loved white jade chariots and public adulation. Zhu Heling is a butcher of the low reaches. He was the chief engineer of the void-crucibles.”
Qiao Ming knelt beside the low table, his Folded brass star-compass open before him, watching the lines form upon the thick parchment.
“What is his nature?” Qiao Ming asked.
“He lost his organic spirit veins four hundred cycles ago during a potion-made explosion on Mount Buzhou,” she explained. She drew a humanoid figure whose torso was cross-hatched with fine, detailed clockwork gear-trains and high-pressure valves. “His body is more than seventy percent cast void-bronze and cold iron, powered by a high-pressure spirit-fire inside his ribs. He feels no cold, no fatigue, and no body pain. He views the universe purely as a building equation: mass in, energy out, waste…
