Yan Zhiqiu ran with the swift, easy grace of a royal hunter who had spent her youth stalking mountain goats across the crags of the Western Marches.
Her soft leather boots barely brushed the damp hard speckled rock flags, leaving behind only the faintest whisper of movement as she glided down the long central avenue of Entry hall 417. Behind her, trailing on three spans of waxed twine, the scrap of blood-stained leather bumped lightly against the stone, depositing an unbroken, invisible line of organic scent along the dark furrow.
Twenty paces behind her, bursting from the mouth of the fourth drainage well with a savage, metal shriek, the first clockwork hound broke onto the floor.
It was a monstrosity of black star-fallen iron and polished brass, its broad, hungry chassis standing five feet long and three feet high at the shoulder. Its four multi-jointed legs were tipped with curved talons of case-hardened steel that dug into the dark rock paving flags with every stride, throwing up showers of white stone sparks that trailed behind it like fireflies.
In the center of its flat, wedge-shaped iron skull, a triple cluster of cut quartz tracking crystals spun in a nonstop blur of crimson soft glow. It was locked with total, steady focus onto the scent of mortal blood.
