The Poppy War

by R. F. Kuang

  Rin tried to find this reassuring. “Where do they come from?”

  “All over. You’d be surprised how many places the old religions are still alive,” said Altan. “Lots of hidden cults from across the provinces. Some contribute an initiate to the Cike every year in exchange for the Empress leaving them alone. It’s not easy to find shamans in this country, not in this age, but the Empress procures them wherever she can. A lot of them come from the prison at Baghra—the Cike is their second chance.”

  “But you’re not really Militia.”

  “No. We’re assassins. In wartime, though, we function as the Thirteenth Division.”

  Rin wondered how many people Altan had killed. Whom he had killed. “What do you do in peacetime?”

  “Peacetime?” He gave her a wry look. “There’s no peacetime for the Cike. There’s never a shortage of people the Empress wants dead.”

  Altan instructed her to pack her things and meet him at the gate. They were scheduled to march out that afternoon with the squadron of Officer Yenjen of the Fifth Division to the war front, where the rest of the Cike had gone a week prior.

  All of Rin’s belongings had been confiscated after the battle. She barely had time to pick up a new set of weapons from the armory before making her way across the city. The Fifth Division soldiers bore light traveling packs and two sets of weapons each. Rin had only a sword with a slightly dull blade and its accompanying sheath. She looked and felt woefully unprepared. She did not even have a second set of clothing. She suspected she would begin to smell very bad very soon.

  “Where are we headed?” she asked as they began descending the mountain path.

  “Khurdalain,” Altan said. “Tiger Province. It’ll be two weeks’ march south until we get to the Western Murui River, and then we’ll catch a ride down to the port.”

  Despite everything, Rin felt a thrill of excitement. Khurdalain was a coastal port city by the eastern Nariin Sea, a thriving center of international trade. It was the only city in the Empire that regularly dealt with foreigners; the Hesperians and Bolonians had established embassies there centuries ago. Even Federation merchants had once occupied the docks, until Khurdalain became a central theater of the Poppy Wars.

  Khurdalain was a city that had seen two decades of warfare and survived. And now the Empress had established a front in Khurdalain once again to draw the Federation invaders into eastern and central Nikan.

  Altan relayed the Empress’s defense strategy to Rin as they marched.

  Khurdalain was an ideal location to establish the initial front. The Federation armored columns would have enjoyed a crushing advantage in the wide-open plains of northern Nikan, but Khurdalain abounded in rivers and creeks, which favored defensive operations.

  Routing the Federation into Khurdalain would force them onto their weakest ground. The attack on Sinegard had been a bold attempt to separate the northern provinces from the southern. If the Federation generals could choose, they would almost certainly have cut directly into the Nikara heartland by marching directly south. But if Khurdalain was well defended, the Federation would be forced to change the north-to-south direction of their offensive to east-to-west. And Nikan would have room in the southwest to retreat and regroup should Khurdalain fall.

  Ideally, the Militia would have attempted a pincer maneuver to squeeze the Federation from both sides, cutting them off from both their escape routes and supply lines. But the Militia was nowhere near competent or large enough for such an attempt. The Twelve Warlords had barely coordinated in time to rally to Sinegard’s defense; now each was too preoccupied defending his own province independently to genuinely attempt joint military action.

  “Why can’t they just unite like they did during the Second War?” Rin asked.

  “Because the Dragon Emperor is dead,” said Altan. “He can’t rally the Warlords to him this time, and the Empress can’t command the same allegiance that he did. Oh, the Warlords will kowtow to Sinegard and swear vows of loyalty to the Empress’s face, but when it comes to it, they’ll put their own provinces first.”

  Holding Khurdalain would not be easy. The recent offensive at Sinegard had proven the Federation had clear military superiority in terms of mobility and weaponry. And Mugen held the advantage on the northern coastline; their troops were easily reinforced over the narrow sea; fresh troops and supplies were just a ship’s journey away.

  Khurdalain had little advantage in the way of defense structures. It was an open port city, designed as an enclave for foreigners prior to the Poppy Wars. Nikan’s best defense structures had been built along the lower river delta of the Western Murui, far south of Khurdalain. Compared to the heavily garrisoned wartime capital at Golyn Niis, Khurdalain was a sitting duck, arms flung open to welcome invaders.

  But Khurdalain had to be defended. If Mugen advanced down the heartland and managed to take Golyn Niis, they could then easily turn east, chasing whatever remnants of the Militia were left onto the coast. And if they were trapped by the sea, the pitifully small Nikara fleet could not save them. So Khurdalain was the vital crux on which the fate of the rest of the country lay.

  “We’re the final front,” said Altan. “If we fail, this country’s lost.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Excited?”

  Chapter 13

  Clang.

  Rin barely got her sword up in time to stop Altan’s trident from slicing her face in half. She did her best to ground herself, to dispel the ki of the blow evenly across her body and into the dirt, but even so, her legs trembled from the impact.

  She and Altan had been at this for hours, it seemed. Her arms ached; her lungs seized for air.

  But Altan wasn’t done. He shifted the trident, caught the blade of her sword between two prongs, and twisted hard. The pressure wrenched the sword out of Rin’s hands and sent it clattering against the ground. Altan pressed the tip of his trident to her throat. She raised her arms hastily in surrender.

  “You’re reacting based on fear,” Altan said. “You’re not controlling this fight. You need to clear your mind and concentrate. Concentrate on me. Not my weapon.”

  “It’s a bit hard when you’re trying to jab my eyes out,” she muttered, pushing his trident away from her face.

  Altan lowered his weapon. “You’re still hedging. You’re resisting. You’ve got to let the Phoenix in. When you’ve called the god, when the god is walking in you, that’s a state of ecstasy. It’s a ki amplifier. You don’t get tired. You’re capable of extraordinary exertion. You don’t feel pain. You have to sink into that state.”

  Rin could recall vividly the state of mind he wanted her to embrace. The burning feeling in her veins, the red lenses that shielded her vision. How other people became not people but targets. How she didn’t need rest, only pain, pain to fuel the fire.

  The only times Rin had consciously been in this state were during the Trials, and then again at Sinegard. Both times she had been furious, desperate.

  She hadn’t been able to rekindle the same state of mind since. She hadn’t been that angry since. She had only been confused, agitated, and, like right now, exhausted.

  “Learn to tame it,” Altan said. “Learn to sink in and out of it. If you’re focused only on your enemy’s weapon, you’ll always be on the defensive. Look past the weapon to your target. Focus on what you want to kill.”

  Altan was a much better teacher than Jiang. Jiang was frustratingly vague, absentminded, and deliberately obtuse. Jiang liked to dance around the answers, liked to make her circle around the truth like a starving vulture before he would give her a gratifying morsel of understanding.

  But Altan wasted no time. He cut straight to the chase, gave her precisely the answers that she wanted. He understood her fears, and he knew what she was capable of.

  Training with Altan was like training with an older brother. It was so bizarre for someone to tell her that they were the same—that his joints hyperextended like hers did, so she should turn out her foot in such a way. To
have similarities with someone else, similarities that lay deep in their genes, was an overwhelmingly wonderful sensation.

  With Altan she felt as if she belonged—not just to the same division or army, but to something deeper and older. She felt situated within an ancient web of lineage. She had a place. She was not a nameless war orphan; she was a Speerly.

  At least, everyone seemed to think so. But despite everything, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. She couldn’t call the god as easily as Altan could. Couldn’t move with the same grace as he could. Was that heritage, or training?

  “Were you always like this?” she asked.

  Altan appeared to tense. “Like what?”

  “Like . . . you.” She gestured vaguely at him. “You’re—you’re not like the other students. Other soldiers. Could you always summon the fire? Could you always fight like you do?”

  Altan’s expression was unreadable. “I trained at Sinegard for a long time.”

  “But so did I!”

  “You weren’t trained like a Speerly. But you’re a warrior, too. It’s in your blood. I’ll beat your heritage into you soon enough.” Altan gestured to her with his trident. “Weapons up.”

  “Why a trident?” she asked when he finally let her take a break. “Why not a sword?” She hadn’t seen any other soldier who didn’t wield the standard Militia halberd and sword.

  “Longer reach,” he said. “Opponents don’t come in close quarters when you’re fighting inside a silo of fire.”

  She touched the prongs. The ends had been sharpened many times over; they were not shiny or smooth, but etched with the evidence of multiple battles. “Is that Speerly-made?”

  It had to be. The trident was metal all the way through, not like Nikara weapons, which had wooden hilts. The trident was heavier, true, but Altan needed a weapon that wouldn’t burn through when he touched it.

  “It came from the island,” he said. He poked her with the blunt end and gestured for her to pick up her sword. “Stop stalling. Come on, get up. Again.”

  She threw her arms down in exhaustion. “Can’t we just get high?” she asked. She didn’t see how relentless physical training got her any closer to calling the Phoenix at all.

  “No, we can’t just get high,” Altan said. He poked her again. “Lazy. That kind of thinking is a rookie mistake. Anyone can swallow some seeds and reach the Pantheon. That part’s easy. But forming a link with the god, channeling its power to your will and calling it back down—that takes discipline. Unless you’ve had practice honing your mind, it’s too easy for you to lose control. Think of it as a dam. The gods are sources of potential energy, like water flowing downhill. The drug is like the gate—it opens the way to let the gods through. But if your gate is too large, or flimsily constructed, then power rushes through unobstructed. The god ignores your will. Chaos ensues. Unless you want to burn down your own allies, you have to remember why you called the Phoenix. You’ve got to direct its power.”

  “It’s like a prayer,” she said.

  Altan nodded. “It’s exactly like a prayer. All prayer is simply repetition—a imposition of your demands upon the gods. The difference between shamans and everyone else is that our prayers actually work. Didn’t Jiang teach you this?”

  Jiang had taught her the opposite of that. Jiang had asked her to clear her mind in meditation, to forget her own ego; to forget that she was a being separate from the universe. Jiang had taught her to erase her own will. Altan was asking her to impose her will on the gods.

  “He only ever taught me to access the gods. Not to pull them back to our world.”

  Altan looked amazed. “Then how did you call the Phoenix at Sinegard?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to,” she said. “Jiang warned me not to. He said the gods weren’t meant to be weaponized. Only consulted. He was teaching me to calm myself, to find my connection to the larger cosmos and correct my imbalance, or . . . or whatever,” she finished lamely.

  It was becoming apparent how little Jiang had really taught her. He hadn’t prepared her for this war at all. He had only tried to restrain her from wielding the power that she now knew she could access.

  “That’s useless.” Altan looked disdainful. “Jiang was a scholar. I am a soldier. He was concerned with theology; I am concerned with how to destroy.” He opened his fist, turned it outward, and a small ring of fire danced over the lines of his palm. With his other hand he extended his trident. The flame raced from the ends of his fingers, danced across his shoulders, and licked all the way out to the trident’s three prongs.

  She marveled at the utter command Altan held over the fire, the way he shaped it like a sculptor might shape clay, how he bent it to his will with the slightest movement of his fingers. When she had summoned the Phoenix, the fire had poured out of her in an uncontrolled flood. But Altan controlled it like an extension of his own self.

  “Jiang was right to be cautious,” he said. “The gods are unpredictable. The gods are dangerous. And there’s no one who understands them, not fully. But we at the Night Castle have practiced the weaponization of the gods to an art. We have come closer to understanding the gods than the old monks ever did. We have developed the power to rewrite the fabric of this world. If we don’t use it, then what’s the point?”

  After two weeks of hard marching, four days of sailing, and another three days’ march, they reached Khurdalain’s city gates shortly before nightfall. When they emerged from the tree line toward the main road, Rin glimpsed the ocean for the first time.

  She stopped walking.

  Sinegard and Tikany were both landlocked regions. Rin had seen rivers and lakes, but never such a large body of water as this. She gaped openmouthed at that great expanse of blue, stretching on farther than she could see, farther than she could imagine.

  Altan halted beside her. He glanced down at her dumbfounded expression, and he smiled. “Never seen the ocean before?”

  She couldn’t look away. She felt like she had the first day she had glimpsed Sinegard in all of its splendor, like she had been dropped into a fantastical world where the stories she’d heard were somehow true.

  “I saw paintings,” she said. “I read descriptions. In Tikany the merchants would ride up from the coast and tell us about their adventures at sea. But this—I never dreamed anything could look like this.”

  Altan took her hand and pointed it out toward the ocean. “The Federation of Mugen lies just across the narrow strait. If you climb the Kukhoni range, you can just glimpse it. And if you take a ship south of there, down close by Golyn Niis and into Snake Province, you’ll get to Speer.”

  She couldn’t possibly see it from where they stood, but still she stared out over the shimmering water, imagining a small, lonely island in the South Nikan Sea. Speer had spent decades in isolation before the great continental powers tore the island apart in the struggle between them.

  “What’s it like?”

  “Speer? Speer was beautiful.” Altan’s voice was soft, wistful. “They call it the Dead Island now, but all I can remember of it is green. On one side of the island you could see the shore of the Nikara Empire; on the other was boundless water, a limitless horizon. We would take boats out and sail into that ocean without knowing what we would find; journeys into the endless dark to seek out the other side of the world. The Speerlies divided the night sky into sixty-four houses of constellations, one for each god. And as long as you could find the southern star of the Phoenix, you could always find your way back to Speer.”

  Rin wondered what the Dead Island was like now. When Mugen destroyed Speer, had they destroyed the villages as well? Or did the huts and lodges still stand, ghost towns waiting for inhabitants who would never return?

  “Why did you leave?” she asked.

  She realized then that she knew very little about Altan. His survival was a mystery to her, just as her very existence was a mystery to everyone else.

  He must have been very young when he came to Nikan,
a refugee of the war that killed his people. He couldn’t have been older than four or five. Who had spirited him off that island? Why only him?

  And why her?

  But Altan didn’t answer. He stared silently at the darkening sky for a long moment and then turned back toward the path.

  “Come on,” he said, and reached for her arm. “We’re going to fall behind.”

  Officer Yenjen raised a Nikara flag outside the city walls, and then ordered his squadron to take cover behind the trees until they received a response. After a half hour’s wait, a slight girl, dressed head to toe in black, peeked out from the city gate. She motioned frantically for the party to hurry up and get inside, then quickly shut the gate once they were through.

  “Your division is waiting in the old fishing district. That’s north of here. Follow the main road,” she instructed Officer Yenjen. Then she turned and saluted her commander. “Trengsin.”

  “Qara.”

  “That’s our Speerly?”

  “That’s her.”

  Qara tilted her head as she sized Rin up. She was a tiny woman—girl, really—reaching only to Rin’s shoulder. Her hair hung past her waist in a thick, dark braid. Her features were oddly elongated, not quite Nikara but not quite anything that Rin could put her finger on.

  A massive hunting falcon sat perched on her left shoulder, tilting its head at Rin with a disdainful expression. Its eyes and Qara’s were an identical shade of gold.

  “How are our people?”

  “Fine,” said Qara. “Well. Mostly fine.”

  “When’s your brother back?”

  Qara’s falcon stretched its head up and then hunched back down, feathers raised as if unsettled. Qara reached up and stroked the bird’s neck.