Chapter 8: Round One

Guan Shuo saw her looking at his hands and pushed them into his sleeves.

He went back up the nine hundred steps without another word.

The outer court parted to let him through, and nobody laughed until he was out of earshot.

Three days later, five sects filled the tiers around the Cloud Stage.

The stage was a round of gray stone thirty paces across, set into the summit beside the Stone Yard.

The seats climbed around it in rings, and every ring was a different color.

Jade Spring sat in white and green on the east side, under the elders' dais.

Red Pine wore red sashes, Black River wore black, White Crane wore white with gray cuffs, and Iron Gate wore gray.

There were more people on the summit than Lian had seen in her life.

Sixteen entrants stood in a line at the foot of the stage.

Fifteen of them wore their sect's colors.

Lian wore undyed hemp, with her sleeves pulled down to her knuckles.

The young woman beside her in the line looked her up and down.

She was lean and sharp-featured, with cropped bangs, a red sash and a plain straight sword.

"Are you lost?" she asked.

"I'm entered," Lian said.

"Unsponsored?"

"Unsponsored."

The woman looked at the hemp again, without any meanness in it, just honest doubt.

"Kong Yuhe, Red Pine," she said. "Don't get killed in the first round. The Black River boy breaks people."

The Black River boy was not a boy.

He was the size of a door, and he carried an iron hammer with a head as big as an ash bucket.

He climbed onto the stage across from her and rested it on his shoulder.

"Jade Spring sends me a servant?" he called up to the dais.