Cloud Pattern Town, the open courtyard behind the Heaven Patrol Office's Patrol Archive Hall.
The afternoon sun hung directly overhead, baking the old weapon racks along the courtyard wall until eggs could have fried on their iron handles. Cicadas clung to the locust trees and shrieked their hearts out, no different from cats whose tails had been stepped on.
Huang Yushu had stripped off his outer robe and stood in the middle of the courtyard in a close-fitting coarse tunic, an old regulation saber clenched in his hand.
Its scabbard lay by the wall. The blade was notched, and the cord wrapped around the hilt had frayed. But his grip was sound: all five fingers locked tight, the web of his hand snug against the guard, the tip angled toward the ground ahead, his weight pressed onto the ball of his forward foot.
Three paces opposite him, Sun Hao also wore a coarse tunic and held a saber.
But this fellow's stance left much to be desired. His left foot splayed outward, his right knee was loose, and the saber held across his chest kept drifting up and down. He looked as though someone had just dragged him out of bed.
He yawned and scratched the back of his head with the spine of his saber.
"Easy on me, Huang. That strike of yours last time split the web of my hand. It took four days to heal."
Huang Yushu ignored him, his eyes fixed on the distance between Sun Hao's feet as he calculated his approach.
By the wall, Li Tong squatted and gnawed on a steamed bun, his cheeks bulging like a squirrel hoarding pinecones. He mumbled, "Go ahead, you two. I'll count."
The words had barely fallen.
Huang Yushu moved.
His first strike swept horizontally from outside