The stench of living rot hung heavy over the hollow.
Forty refugees huddled among the mud huts. Their bodies shook under rags stiff with dried clay and excrement.
Every face was gaunt, the skin sunken so tightly against cheekbones that their teeth showed like grinning skulls.
Yet their bellies swelled like bloated melons.
Under the grease-blackened hemp of their tunics, Lu Chen could see the distended abdomens rippling.
Lumps the size of hen’s eggs slid beneath the purplish skin, shifting with a sickening, liquid squelch.
An Ni kept one hand on the handle of her forging hammer.
“Are they sick?” she whispered, staying close to the heat aura of his cloak.
