Chapter 7: The Woman in the Reeds

We left Dad with a neighbor's family on the east road and went south.

Ren led. He knew the garrison roads.

The camp was two days' walk, down out of the hills and into the flat country where the river spread out and the reeds took over.

We smelled it before we saw it.

Not smoke. Old blood. Sweet and rotten at the same time.

The camp sat on a low island in the middle of the reeds, ringed by water on three sides and a palisade on the fourth.

Fifty men, maybe. Low buildings. One long house with a chimney.

We watched it from the tree line on the far bank for half a day.

Min-jun counted the guards twice.

"Twelve on the wall," he said. "Four on the gate. Two walking."

"Where do they keep her?" I said.

Ren pointed at the long house.

"Chimney means they're boiling water," he said. "They keep the blood sources warm. It makes them easier to draw."

I didn't say anything.

I didn't trust myself to say anything.

We went in at dusk.

Min-jun took the gate guards. He had no power, but he'd been trained since he could walk, and he took both of them without a sound.

Ren cut the palisade ropes on the east side and the wall fell open.

I went straight for the long house.

There were two men inside, sitting at a table with a jug.

They got up when I came through the door.

I put the first one down with the flat of my axe and the second one went out the window.

The room had six cots in it. Five were empty.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Used My Blood Then Chose Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.