Lu Chen climbed the iron rungs out of the air-flow chimney pipe, hoisting the heavy star-iron cleaver onto his shoulder.
In the western barracks above, Captain Hu and thirty surviving conscripts were dragging frozen bodies toward the courtyard.
When the soldiers saw Lu Chen emerge from the floor hatch, they stopped dead in their tracks.
They shrank back against the bloodstained timber walls. They pressed their palms flat against their chests in superstitious respect.
None dared meet his eyes.
To these starving border guards, a man who could dive into a dark, freezing deep pit and climb back out carrying a smoking weapon was not a mortal soldier.
He was a walking god of slaughter.
Lu Chen didn’t acknowledge them.
