The deflected star-iron quarrels clattered across the wet white jade floor, their barbed tips hissing with green venom as they sank into the drainage deck drains.
Sixty feet above, on the rusted iron narrow high walkway, a dozen pitch torches flared to life in rapid row. It tore through the swirling sapphire mist in jagged slashes of greasy orange flame. The smoke carried the choking stench of sulfur, whale-oil pitch, and dried aconite root.
Behind the flickering torches stood Elder Qian.
The disgraced elder looked like an ancient ghoul dug from a mountain crypt. His elaborate gold lotus crown hung askew, strands of greasy gray hair plastered to his sweating forehead. His scarlet silk robes, once the spotless symbol of inner court nobility, were scorched around the hem and spattered with mud from the secret descent shaft.
In his right hand, the seven-ringed brass staff hummed with an uneven, screeching deep ring that made the water in the drainage channels ripple in chaotic rings.
Beside Qian stood twelve masked killers, their black iron skull masks gleaming with wet water drops. Four were already working the iron cranking levers of their heavy steel crossbows, slotting fresh poison bolts into the firing grooves with practiced, clockwork cruelty.
