The ceiling of the outer castle walls cried white dust for three nonstop watches.
Across seven leagues of the northern curtain wall, the impact of the surviving arks of the Sovereign Conclave had transformed the outer edge into an unbroken expanse of crushed iron and shattered stone. The Pyre-Crest, the huge red-bronze flagship of the Pyre-Furnace Court, had snapped off both of its burning sponsons against the outer low roof wall before nose-diving into the gravel beds of Entry hall 006. Behind it, the Ghost-Tide, the Severed Horizon, and the Jade-Marrow Tender lay embedded in the outer terraces like broken teeth in a giant jaw.
The air reeked of scorched copper, bitter thick tar, roasted lamp-oil, and the dead stone chill of the outside void. Columns of black and turquoise smoke rose from the wreckage, spiraling upward toward the ninety-arm-length barrel vaults where the internal cloud-systems of the Hall condensed the soot into dark, oily rain that fell in scattered spatters upon the stone flags below.
Qiao Ming stood on the high gallery of the Rampart Scribe, his bare feet planted firmly upon the cold, rain-streaked coping. His oilskin coat, darkened by soot and damp salt, was buttoned tight to the throat against the freezing downdraft. Across his chest, the leather harness creaked under the weight of his brass instruments and slate tablets.
