March Fever and the Riderless Saddle
In early spring, a junior medic in a sealed ward tracks a biohazard spreading through the city’s underworld—until a masterless warrior-saddle starts choosing carriers. Occult science and hospital politics collide as the outbreak learns to ride.
Language: English
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March rain ticked on the isolation windows like fingernails. In Ward Nine we kept the city’s sins behind negative pressure and plastic, but tonight the airlock alarm chimed anyway. “New intake,” Nurse Harrow said through her mask. “Dockside. Unregistered.” The stretcher carried a man in a leather coat, fever-rigid, pupils blown wide. Under his arm, wrapped in burlap, was something shaped wrong for a package: curved, horned, smelling of old sweat and saddle soap. I logged his vitals, swabbed the black-veined bite at his neck, and felt the itch of it through my gloves—like a thought trying to crawl into my wrist. The lab’s screens already showe...