The golden blade missed Lin Ke’s throat by less than two inches.
Lin Ke dropped flat onto the narrow high walkway grating, the razor-sharp sword wind shearing off a handspan of his hair and carving a three-foot trench through the iron railing behind him.
He rolled across the shaking dampeners, kicked the emergency release pin of the overhead frame ladder, and plummeted twelve feet down to the melted rock waste trench below.
He hit the packed gravel on his feet, his Ashen Iron bone lattice absorbing the moving shock with a dry, metal clatter that rattled up into his jaw. His glassy glass channels—brittle as spun sugar—shook with zero clockwork give. It sent jagged micro-fracture pain shooting from his ankles straight into his lower-back spine.
Behind a low granite retaining wall six paces away, Apothecary He hauled a groaning fire apprentice into the sunken drainage trench.
“Keep your head down, you idiot!” Apothecary He barked over the hiss of escaping steam, sloshing cold willow-bark vinegar over the boy’s scalded shoulder. “Second-degree epidermal sloughing. If you blister the deep skin any deeper, I’ll have to scrape the dead fat off with a dull paring knife.”
The old trauma healer shoved a piece of bitter dried root between the boy’s teeth to bite on, his yellowed fingers binding coarse boiled linen around the weeping burns with furious smooth speed. He glared up at Lin Ke crouched behind the charging cart.
