Before attempting to breach the outer edge of the relay beacons, Lin Tao returned to the rear staging area to assess the physical condition of their vanguard.
An abandoned royal customs pavilion had been converted into an emergency triage post. The smell inside was thick and choking, laden with the sharp, healing bite of vinegar, steeped willow-bark tea, and boiled bitter pine-resin salves. Fifty wooden pallets lined the tiled floor, each occupied by a shuddering mortal soldier, stonemason, or backup wagon driver.
Doctor Su was bent over an earthen fire bowl at the center of the hall, her coarse hemp sleeves pinned back with silver hairpins. She was heating a pair of long iron metal tongs over glowing white charcoal, her face streaked with soot and exhausted sweat.
“Don’t stand in the doorway letting the cold air in,” Su snapped without looking up. “Either bring clean linen or get out of my clinic. I have thirty men who can’t remember their own mothers. The medicine chests are half empty.”
Tie Shan ducked his head beneath the carved top door beam, planting his totem against a support pillar with a dull thud.
“We brought willow-bark,” Tie Shan said, setting a heavy leather pouch on an apothecary bench.
