The water at the Shallow Gates tasted different from the water of the inner entry halls.
Qiao Ming knelt on the fifth step of the grand threshold, his trousers rolled high above his knees, his bare toes gripping the cold lip of the underwater doorstep. He cupped a handful of the rising salt water to his mouth, tasting it with the practiced calm distance of an apothecary measuring spirit-extract. It was bitter, cold as mountain iron, carrying a gritty mid-air of crushed white cockle-shells and flecks of green hard black rock washed inward from the outer ocean shelves three leagues to the west.
“The Ninth Tide carries sea-sand,” Qiao Ming said softly, wiping his mouth with the back of his oilskin sleeve. “When the water is clear, the surge is gentle. When it carries shell-sand, the oceanic bore is pressing against the outer breakwaters with twice its normal speed.”
Beside him, Yan Zhiqiu stood upon the dry terrace of Entry hall 109, her traveler cowl thrown back, her amber eyes scanning the dark, water-filled archways ahead. In her hands she held her broken slate, covered in freshly chalked vectors showing the approach paths from the conquered outer castle walls. Behind her, sixty refugee militia fighters were hauling heavy baulks of stone-hard cedar timber and jagged slabs of green veined stone, constructing a tough breastwork across the fifty-pace throat of the gate.
