The air was full of woodsmoke from cookfires inside the fort, but it still tasted cool and clean compared to the stale, unmoving air he’d been breathing in his buttoned-up bunker. It was good to be out and about after being laid up so long, but he still felt like hell. His fever was gone at last, as was the bloody vomiting that was the most frightening symptom of the sickness, but he was still dizzy and had terrible headaches. He ached all over as a matter of fact, and the very thought of food left him nauseated. He’d turned the corner, though; that was clear. That he could move around at all was proof of that. Unlike malaria, this disease offered no temporary respite. One either got better or died. Too many, almost a thousand now, hadn’t improved, and they’d been carried outside the high earthen outer wall of Fort Defiance and buried along the road back to Guayak. Shinya gazed in that direction for a time, past the interior of the great fort, which bustled with activity and continuous improvement.
