<blockquote>Huan Ho sealed the last window, leaving only a crack in the shutter. Tonight, he thought, his eye on the empty streets, the neighbours’ barred shutters. Tonight he had to pass the door on the hill, or let the sickness take his mother.
She had been watching him from her bed. “They ride tonight,” she said, when he was done.
“Yes,” Huan Ho said. As on every year, the three horsemen would scour the city of Fei Weng, taking what and whom they pleased. “I’ve closed the house.”
His mother smiled, wanly. “We have nothing worth their notice.”</blockquote>
➤ didn't go quite how I thought it would!
