The air was cold and heavy and gray as the belly of a mosasaur, filled with the smell of saltwater and ordure from the refugees huddled outside the walls. The compound itself was scarcely more organized. Clearly Rinsin traveled with a small regiment of soldiers because he needed them to force his way through the crowd that roiled in the fort's cramped courtyard. Old men, young women, even children wept around them. The trickle of swimming refugees had become a flood. Now they swarmed ...