Chapter 7 · Lock Down the Pass

"You're not burning anything." Huo Yanzhan stepped into the doorway of the supply hall, blocking the only exit. Two officers flanked him, hands on their swords.

I didn't stop rolling bandages into bundles. "Then you're gonna have a hundred dead soldiers by sunrise."

"You don't give orders here."

"I'm not giving orders. I'm telling you what happens." I shoved the last bundle into a clay pot and capped it. "That sickness spreading through the barracks? It's not plague. It's contamination. Same needles, same bowls, same rags touching open wounds. You want to stop it, you burn the infected gear and you isolate the sick ones. Or you watch them all drop."

Huo didn't move. The morning light cut across his face, all hard angles and colder eyes. "You've been here three days. My officers have held this pass for six years."

"Then your officers should know better." I stood up, wiping my hands on my already-filthy tunic. "But they don't. Because nobody here knows what bacteria is."

"Bacteria."

"Yeah. Tiny living things you can't see. They get in blood, in water, in wounds. They kill faster than your fancy inner-energy poison ever could.