Chapter 15: Fire in the Furnace Hall
They struck when iron sang.
The Furnace Hall's main hearth roared, bellies of cauldrons open like gods hungry for offerings. Zhao Duan—scar on chin, eyes like cracked glass—stepped from behind a pillar, fingers locked into a killing mudra. Four other inner disciples fanned out, stances careful.
"Orders," Zhao said. "You or the hall. I prefer the hall."
He flung three ignition talismans. Flames leapt like tigers into air, bouncing off lintels toward stored charcoal. Qin palmed two; Tang Yurou grabbed one with a curse and shoved it under a cauldron. The tigers hit metal and screamed like cats in a bath.
"Sky-Piercing Funnel," Qin said, fingers sketching ugliness into a ring. The hearth's throat narrowed to a flute; heat shot upward, a spear of white licking the rafters. Smoke obeyed and fled outside instead of choking disciples to death.
Zhao lunged. His blade smashed down—a brutal style with no time for poetry. Qin grabbed a cauldron lid and made a shield. Sparks birthed sparks. Qin shoved; Zhao slipped; the lid's rim kissed shin. Bone sang.
The other four attacked together, a choreography of practical murder. Qin whirled, lid a moon, palm a rain. He took a cut on the shoulder, shallow by choice, and paid back with two fingers in a wrist, a toe to the arch of a foot, a head-butt that surprised even him. Tang Yurou hurled a pot of cooled slag. It stuck like fast grief to a man's face; he screamed and ran blind into a pillar.
Zhao spat blood and burned a talisman—the hall shuddered, heat convulsed, air shrieked. Qin moved inside the shriek, set his hands to the hearth, and asked it for mercy. It gave him a breath. He sent the breath into his array and the tremor turned into a hum. A cauldron that had been about to explode sighed like a tired ox and settled to work.
They fought until silence returned, punctured by the groans of men who had chosen the wrong morning. Zhao knelt, blade on ground, sweat trailing the scar on his chin. "Who are you?" he asked, plain and not-unkind.
"An herb farmer," Qin said.
Zhao barked a laugh that tasted like salt. "Must be a good harvest." He spat, leaving a smear of dark on the stone. "Don't sleep near windows," he advised, eyes flicking to the hall's eaves. "Orders are deeper than me."
He fled. Qin let him. He had counted the men who mattered; Zhao was not in that ledger.