The Black Dragon Gorge was a deep-sea wound carved four hundred paces deep into the granite spine of the Demon Cloud Mountains.
At the edge of the cliff edge, the world dropped away into a churning deep gap of white ice-slow torrents and jagged boulders the size of suburban villas. The roar of the underground river rose from the depths as a nonstop, shaking drone that rattled the marrow of Lin Tao’s shins. Spanning the four-hundred-foot void was the only crossing within twenty leagues: the Black Dragon Chain Bridge.
It wasn’t a proper bridge. It was five massive, rusted star-iron chains anchored into giant stone pillars on either side of the deep pit, linked together by rotting cedar planks that swayed and clattered in the violent crosswinds.
A sixty-mile-per-hour alpine gale roared down the gorge from the northern glaciers. He struck the suspended span at a broadside angle. The entire structure was locked in a violent, twisting back-and-forth swing. A clockwork flutter that caused the center planks to snap upward three feet before plunging sickeningly toward the white water below.
Lin Tao stopped at the northern stone bridge pillar, his test left eye flaring with gold vector overlays.
“Ringing hum is eighty-four hundredths of a cycle per second,” Lin Tao observed. He watched the heavy links twist like dying vipers. “If a traveler walks with a traditional stepping rhythm, the striking force of their footsteps will couple with the wind-cutting flutter. Within twenty paces, the standing wave will throw them…
