A deep, breathless silence dropped over the fifty-li siege front.
Along the three-mile terrace of the Iron Dragon Gap, ten thousand burlap covers were drawn back at the same time. He showed ten thousand freshly burnished copper mirrors. In the pale amber glare cast by the Nine-Dragon Barrier, the polished metal surfaces gleamed with an eerie, hungry sheen, like ten thousand unblinking eyes staring into the throat of heaven.
Lin Tao stood atop the command stronghold. His land-mapper metal pen was held ready in his right hand.
Beside him stood Tie Shan, his fourteen-pound star-iron pry-bar resting point-down in the soil. At his left was Elder Chen, his hand poised over the master trip-lever of the sound signaling line. Behind them, Captain Wu and Master Zhang stood with their runner boys, their faces lit up by the golden glow of the barrier.
“Report from the western line,” Captain Wu whispered, receiving a slate tablet from a breathless messenger. “Squads Sixty-Five through One Hundred and Twenty-Eight are locked on Dragon Cores 05 through 09. Shutter bearings greased. Spotters on target. No deviations reported.”
“Report from the eastern line,” Master Zhang added, reading his own slate by the glow of a hooded horn lantern. “Squads One through Sixty-Four are sighted on Dragon Cores 01 through 04. Focus checked on sight ingress clusters. Every tripod is grounded to the bedrock.”
