Chapter 18: Thunder

The Seven Peaks Array stood on the ridge in a line of blue banners, and Yue Chenjue hated every one of them.

He stood on the wall above the Black Gate with his hands on the cold stone.

The whole army of the Ashen Lands stood behind him.

Below the wall lay a mile of ash flats.

On the far side, on the ridge, the sect had planted seven tall banners in a half circle.

An elder sat cross-legged at the foot of each.

In the center, on a stone platform, sat Jiang Wenshan.

Even from here Chenjue could see his hands moving.

"They're a day's worth of chanting from ready," Zhu Ao said. "My lord, let me take the cavalry."

"No."

"They're old men on cushions," Zhu Ao said.

"They're old men who have had a hundred years to think about us."

Wuhen came up the stairs behind them.

Chenjue heard the light even tread, and did not turn.

If he turned he would look at him, and he had been looking at him all night.

He stood at the wall in plain white with his hair tied back, a black thread bright at each temple now.

Under his arm he carried a long straight sword in a battered scabbard.

"Whose is that?" Chenjue said.

"The general's."

"I lent it," Zhu Ao said, to the wall. "It's not good for anything else."

"It's good enough for this," said Wuhen.

He drew it an inch.

The blade was plain gray steel, dented near the guard, and it rang when he slid it back.

He had not held a sword in a hundred years.

He held it.

"You can lift it," Chenjue said.

"I can lift it."

"Wuhen," Chenjue replied.

"I'm not going to fight them, Chenjue. I'm going to stand next to you and be seen."

The gray-blue eyes were calm.

"That's all he needs to be afraid of."

Chenjue nodded.

He stood a hand's breadth from him, close enough to feel the warmth through the white sleeve.

Down on the ridge, the banners had begun to hum.

It started as a low note, then a chord, then a rising wail, and the air above the ash flats went white.

Lightning gathered in the sky.

It came down from a clear dawn, from nowhere, in a single pillar the width of a house.

It did not strike the wall.

It did not strike Chenjue.

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