The heat in the underground canal was different from the clean, dry fire of the Seventh Ward’s blast furnaces.
This was a greasy, toxic giant fire fueled by burning pine paper, lamp oil. The smoldering bodies of three rogue fighters sprawled across the brick embankment.
Thick, yellow smoke rolled along the arched ceiling of the drainage vault, trapping the stench of charred hair and melted printer’s pitch. Water dripped from every iron pipe. But it did nothing to cool the chemical flames roaring through the leftovers of the 404 Workshop.
The three pear-wood printing presses were splintered kindling.
Thousands of sheets of the OpenDao specification were drifting across the black wastewater like burning autumn leaves. Their unthrottled runic diagrams curled to gray ash before they struck the muck.
At the far end of the flooded under-road drain, pinned against a damp dark rock retaining wall, was Lu Feng.
A four-foot iron-shafted spear was driven clean through his right thigh, biting three inches deep into the mortar behind him. Blood pumped down his hemp trousers, staining the filthy canal water an oily maroon.
Guarding him were six Patent Trial guards in full lead-alloy mail, their six-sided staves resting on their shoulders, laughing. They watched the paper burn.
