Pin squeezed into a small hole by the stanchion on the observation platform, trying to keep out of sight of the kuei, which paced on its many legs just beyond the perimeter fence of the compound. He had a feeling that this was useless, that it would know he was there even if it could not see him—but he just didn't want to draw attention to himself.
Then there came a shout from the other side of the fence, across the ranks of troops. "Look!"
If Pin had still possessed a heart, it would have stopped, for over the mountains was coming another kuei. It was far larger than the one just beyond the fence, or even the kuei that Pin had watched doing battle with the dragons in the skies. Its length must have been close to half a mile and it carried something on its back.
A demon by Pin's side nudged him and whispered, "That's the oldest, that is! With the Emperor."
"The Emperor?" Pin said.
"The Emperor of Hell!"
The kuei was moving with the speed of an express train and now Pin could see that an awning was mounted upon its back, like the howdah in which the Minister of War was seated. Inside it, sat something hunched and wizened and old—Pin did not understand how he knew this, because the kuei was still some distance away—but it was as though the being sent an aura of age ahead of it, making the air stale. If this part of Hell had contained any plants, Pin thought, they would have withered. He glanced at the demons around him and they seemed to have aged, too. A hissing rustle passed through the troops below: He is coming, the Emperor is coming.
And not only the Emperor. A great shadow passed over the valley. He looked up and saw that the sky had been blotted out by something huge and bronze-green and glistening. A dragon, but a dragon as large as the kuei that bore the Emperor. The troops grew still and hushed. The dragon flew on.