A splintered oak plank flew past Lu Chen’s ear. It was followed by the wet thud of an iron hoe smashing into someone’s collarbone.
The screams in the alley reeked of raw famine.
“Open the bins! Give us the grain!”
“The judge took three pecks for river taxes! My children are eating river clay!”
Three hundred refugees, their ribs showing through hemp rags like fish-traps, battered themselves against the iron gates of the Yong’a Grain Storehouse.
Above the wooden wall, hired guards tipped a cooking pot of boiling lye over the low roof wall.
Steam erupted with a sickening hiss.
Howls tore through the freezing fog as the skin-burning liquid stripped skin from bare shoulders. It sent the front rank collapsing into black mud.
