by R. F. Kuang
She hated the position they’d thrown her into because it led only to frustration from both sides. The Republican leadership grew irritated because she kept making impossible requests for basic human necessities, and the refugees started resenting her because she could never deliver.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Rin complained bitterly to Kitay. “Vaisra’s the one who always said we had to treat prisoners well. And this is how we treat our own people?”
“It’s because the refugees have no strategic advantage to them whatsoever, unless you count the mild inconvenience that their stacked-up bodies might present Daji’s army,” Kitay said. “If I may be blunt.”
“Fuck off,” she said.
“I’m just reporting what they’re all thinking. Don’t kill the messenger.”
Rin should have been angrier, but she understood, too, just how pervasive that mind-set was. To most Dragons, the southerners barely registered as Nikara. She could see through a northerner’s eyes the stereotypical Rooster—a cross-eyed, buck-toothed, swarthy idiot speaking a garbled tongue.
It shamed and embarrassed her terribly, because she used to be exactly like that.
She’d tried to erase those parts of herself long ago. At fourteen she’d been lucky enough to study under a tutor who spoke near-standard Sinegardian. And she’d gone to Sinegard young enough that her bad habits were quickly and brutally knocked out of her. She’d adapted to fit in. She’d erased her identity to survive.
And it humiliated her that the southerners were now seeking her out, that they had the audacity to wander close to her, because they made her more like them by sheer proximity.
She’d long since tried to kill her association with Rooster Province, a place that had given her few happy memories. She’d almost succeeded. But the refugees wouldn’t let her forget.
Every time she came close to the camps, she saw angry, accusing stares. They all knew who she was now. They made a point of letting her know.
They’d stopped shouting invectives at her. They’d long since passed the point of rage; now they lived in resentful despair. But she could read their silent faces so clearly.
You’re one of us, they said. You were supposed to protect us. You’ve failed.
Three weeks after Rin’s return to Arlong, the Empress sent a direct message to the Republic.
About a mile from the Red Cliffs, the Dragon Province border patrol had captured a man who claimed to have been sent from the capital. The messenger carried only an ornamented bamboo basket across his back and a small Imperial seal to verify his identity.
The messenger insisted he would not speak unless Vaisra received him in the throne room with the full audience of his generals, the Warlords, and General Tarcquet. Eriden’s guards stripped him down and checked his clothes and baskets for explosives or poisonous gas, but found nothing.
“Just dumplings,” the messenger said cheerfully.
Reluctantly they let him through.
“I bear a message from the Empress Su Daji,” he announced to the room. His lower lip flopped grotesquely when he spoke. It seemed infected with something; the left side was thick with red, pus-filled blisters. His words were barely understandable through his thick Rat accent.
Rin’s eyes narrowed as she watched him approach the throne. He wasn’t a Sinegardian diplomat or a Militia representative. He didn’t carry himself like a court official. He had to be a common soldier, if even that. But why would Daji leave diplomacy up to someone who could barely even speak?
Unless the messenger wasn’t here for any real negotiations. Unless Daji didn’t need someone who could think quickly or speak smoothly. Unless Daji only wanted someone who would take the most delight in antagonizing Vaisra. Someone who had a grudge against the Republic and wouldn’t mind dying for it.
Which meant this was not a truce. This was a one-sided message.
Rin tensed. There was no way the messenger could harm Vaisra, not with the ranks of Eriden’s men blocking his way to the throne. But still she gripped her trident tight, eyes tracking the man’s every movement.
“Speak your piece,” Vaisra ordered.
The messenger grinned broadly. “I come to deliver tidings of Yin Jinzha.”
Lady Saikhara stood up. Rin could see her trembling. “What has she done with my son?”
The messenger sank to his knees, placed his basket on the marble floor, and lifted the lid. A pungent smell wafted through the hall.
Rin craned her head, expecting to see Jinzha’s dismembered corpse.
But the basket was filled with dumplings, each fried to golden perfection and pressed in the pattern of a lotus flower. They had clearly gone bad after weeks of travel—Rin could see dark mold crawling around their edges—but their shape was still intact. They had been meticulously decorated, brushed with lotus seed paste and inked over with five crimson characters.
The Dragon devours his sons.
“The Empress enjoins you to enjoy a dumpling of the rarest meat,” said the messenger. “She expects you might recognize the flavor.”
Lady Saikhara shrieked and slumped across the floor.
Vaisra met Rin’s eyes and jerked a hand across his neck.
She understood. She hefted her trident and charged toward the messenger.
He reeled backward just slightly, but otherwise made no effort to defend himself. He didn’t even lift his arms. He just sat there, smiling with satisfaction.
She buried her trident into his chest.
It wasn’t a clean blow. She’d been too shocked, distracted by the dumplings to aim properly. The prongs slid through his rib cage but didn’t pierce his heart.
She yanked them back out.
The messenger gurgled a laugh. Blood bubbled through his crooked teeth, staining the pristine marble floor.
“You will die. You will all die,” he said. “And the Empress will dance upon your graves.”
Rin stabbed again and this time aimed true.
Nezha rushed to his mother and lifted her in his arms. “She’s fainted,” he said. “Someone, help—”
“There’s something else,” General Hu said while palace attendants gathered around Saikhara. He pulled a scroll out of the basket with remarkably steady hands and brushed the crumbs off the side. “It’s a letter.”
Vaisra hadn’t moved from his throne. “Read it.”
General Hu broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. “I am coming for you.”
Lady Saikhara sat up and gave a low moan.
“Get her out of here,” Vaisra snapped to Nezha. “Hu. Read.”
General Hu continued. “My generals sail down the Murui River as you dawdle in your castle. You have nowhere to flee. You have nowhere to hide. Our fleet is larger. Our men are more numerous. You will die at the base of the Red Cliffs like your ancestors, and your corpses will feed the fish of the Murui.”
The hall fell silent.
Vaisra seemed frozen to his chair. His expression betrayed nothing. No grief, no fear. He could have been made of ice.
General Hu rolled the scroll back up and cleared his throat. “That’s all it says.”
Within a fortnight Vaisra’s scouts—exhausted, horses ridden half to death—returned from the border and confirmed the worst. The Imperial Fleet, repaired and augmented since Boyang, had begun its winding journey south carrying what seemed like the entire Militia.
Daji intended to end this war in Arlong.
“They’ve spotted the ships from the Yerin and Murin beacons,” reported a scout.
“How are they already this close?” General Hu asked, alarmed. “Why weren’t we told earlier?”
“They haven’t reached Murin yet,” the scout explained. “The fleet is simply massive. We could see it through the mountains.”
“How many ships?”
“A few more than they had at Boyang.”
“The good news is that the larger warships will get stuck wherever the Murui narrows,” Captain Eriden said. “They’ll have to
roll them on logs to move over land. We have two, maybe two and a half weeks yet.” He reached over to the map and tapped a point on Hare Province’s northwestern border. “I’m guessing they’ll be here by now. Should we send men up, try to stall them at the narrow bends?”
Vaisra shook his head. “No. This doesn’t alter our grand strategy. They want us to split our defenses, but we won’t take the bait. We concentrate on fortifying Arlong, or we lose the south altogether.”
Rin stared down at the map, at the angry red dots representing both Imperial and Federation troops. The Republic was wedged in on both sides—the Empire from the north, the Federation from the south. It was hard not to panic as she imagined Daji’s combined forces closing in around them like an iron fist.
“Deprioritize the northern coastline. Bring Tsolin’s fleet back to the capital.” Vaisra sounded impossibly calm, and Rin was grateful for it. “I want scouts with messenger pigeons positioned at mile intervals along the Murui. Every time that fleet moves, I want to know. Send messengers to Rooster and Monkey. Recall their local platoons.”
“You can’t do that,” Gurubai said. “They’re still dealing with the Federation remnants.”
“I don’t care about the Federation,” Vaisra said. “I care about Arlong. If everything we’ve heard about this fleet is true, then this war is over unless we can hold our base. We need all of our men in one place.”
“You’re leaving entire villages to die,” Takha said. “Entire provinces.”
“Then they will die.”
“Are you joking?” demanded Charouk. “You think we’re just going to stand here while you renege on your promises? You said that if we defected, you would help us eradicate the Mugenese—”
“And I will,” Vaisra said impatiently. “Can’t you see? We beat Daji and we win back the south, too. Once their backer is gone, the Mugenese will surrender—”
“Or they will understand that the civil war has weakened us, and they’ll pick off the pieces no matter what happens,” Charouk countered.
“That won’t happen. Once we’ve won Hesperian support—”
“‘Hesperian support,’” Charouk scoffed. “Don’t be a child. Tarcquet and his men have been loitering in the city for quite some time now, and that fleet isn’t showing up on the horizon.”
“They will come if we crush the Militia,” Vaisra said. “And we cannot do that if we’re wasting time fighting a war on two fronts.”
“Forget this,” said Gurubai. “We should take our troops and return home now.”
“Go right ahead,” Vaisra said calmly. “You wouldn’t last a week. You need Dragon troops and you know that, or you’d have never come in the first place. None of you can hold your home provinces, not with the numbers you have. Otherwise you would have gone back a long time ago.”
There was a short silence. Rin could tell from Gurubai’s expression that Vaisra was right. He’d called their bluff.
They had no choice now but to follow his lead.
“But what happens after you win Arlong?” Nezha asked suddenly.
All heads turned in his direction.
Nezha lifted his chin. “We unite the country just to let the Mugenese tear it apart again? That’s not a democracy, Father, that’s a suicide pact. You’re ignoring a massive threat just because it’s not Dragon lives at stake—”
“Enough,” Vaisra said, but Nezha spoke over him.
“Daji invited the Federation here in the first place. You don’t need to finish us off.”
Father and son glared at each other over the table.
“Your brother would never have defied me like this,” Vaisra said quietly.
“No, Jinzha was rash and reckless and never listened to his best strategists, and now he’s dead,” said Nezha. “So what are you going to do, Father? Act out of some petty sense of revenge, or do something to help the people in your Republic?”
Vaisra slammed his hands on the table. “Silence. You will not contradict me—”
“You’re just throwing your allies to the wolves! Does no one realize how horrific this is?” Nezha demanded. “General Hu? Rin?”
“I . . .” Rin’s tongue was lead in her mouth.
All eyes were suddenly, terrifyingly on her.
Vaisra folded his arms over his chest as he watched her, eyebrows raised as if to say, Go on.
“They’re invading your home,” Nezha said.
Rin flinched. What did he expect her to say to that? Did he think that just because she was from the south, she would contradict Vaisra’s orders?
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The Dragon Warlord is right—we split our forces and we’re dead.”
“Come on,” Nezha said impatiently. “Of all people, you should—”
“Should what?” she sneered. “I should hate the Federation the most? I do, but I also know that dispatching troops south plays right into Daji’s hands. Would you rather we simply deliver Arlong to her?”
“You’re unbelievable,” Nezha said.
She gave him her best imitation of Vaisra’s level stare. “I’m just doing my job, Nezha. You might try doing yours.”
Chapter 27
“I’ve outlined a number of tactics in this.” Kitay handed Rin a small pamphlet. “Captain Dalain will have her own ideas, but based on historical record, these have worked the best, I think.”
Rin flipped through the pages. “Did you rip these out of a book?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t have time to copy it all down, so I just annotated.”
She squinted to read his scrawling handwriting in the margins. “Logging?”
“It’s a lot of time and manpower, I know, but you don’t have many other good options.” He tugged anxiously at his bangs. “It’ll be more of an annoyance to them than anything, but it does save us a few hours.”
“You’ve scratched out the guerrilla tactics,” she observed.
“They won’t do you much good. Besides, you shouldn’t be trying to destroy the fleet, or even parts of it.”
Rin frowned. That was exactly what she had been planning to do. “Don’t tell me you think it’s too dangerous.”
“No, I think you simply can’t. You don’t understand just how big the fleet is. You can’t burn them all before they catch on to you, not with your range of fire. Don’t try anything clever.”
“But—”
“When you take risks, you’re gambling with my life, too,” Kitay said sternly. “No stupid shit, Rin, I mean it. Keep to the directive. Just slow them down. Buy us some time.”
Vaisra had ordered two platoons to sail up the Murui and obstruct the Imperial Navy’s progress. They were racing against the clock, scrambling for extra time so that they could continue fortifying Arlong and wait for Tsolin’s fleet on the northern shore to race back down the coastline. If they could delay the Imperial Navy for at least a few days, if Arlong could muster its defenses in time, and if Tsolin’s ships could beat Daji’s back to the capital, then they might have a fighting chance against the Empire.
It was a lot of ifs.
But it was all they had.
Rin had immediately volunteered the Cike for the task of delaying the fleet. She couldn’t stand being around the refugees anymore, and she wanted to get Baji and Suni well away from the Hesperians before their restlessness manifested in disaster.
She wished she could bring Kitay with her. But he was too valuable to send out on what was most likely a suicide mission for anyone who wasn’t a shaman, and Vaisra wanted him behind city walls to rig up defense fortifications.
And while Rin was glad that Kitay would be out of harm’s way, she hated that they were about to be separated for days without a means of communication.
If danger came, she wouldn’t be able to protect him.
Kitay read the look on her face. “I’ll be all right. You know that.”
“But if anything happens—”
“You’re the one going into a war zone,” he pointed out.
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br /> “Everywhere is a war zone.” She folded the manual shut and stuffed it into her shirt pocket. “I’m scared for you. For both of us. I can’t help that.”
“You haven’t got time to be scared.” He squeezed her arm. “Just keep us alive, won’t you?”
Rin made one last stop by the forge before she left Arlong.
“What can I do for you?” The blacksmith shouted at her over the furnace. The flames had been burning nonstop for days, mass-producing swords, crossbow bolts, and armor.
She handed him her trident. “What do you make of this metal?”
He ran his fingers over the hilt and felt around the prongs to test their edges. “It’s fine stuff. But I don’t do many battle tridents. You don’t want me to mess around with this too much, I’d ruin the balance. But I can sharpen the prongs if you need.”
“I don’t want to sharpen it,” she said. “I want you to melt it down.”
“Hmm.” He tested the trident’s balance over his palm. “Speerly-built?”
“Yes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And you’re sure you want this reforged? I can’t find anything wrong with it.”
“It’s ruined for me,” she said. “Destroy it completely.”
“This is a very unique weapon. You won’t get a trident like this again.”
Rin shrugged. “That’s fine.”
He still looked unsure. “Speerly craft is impossible to replicate. No one’s alive now who knows how they made their weapons. I’ll do my best, but you might just end up with a fisherman’s tool.”
“I don’t want a trident,” she said. “I want a sword.”
Two skimmers departed from the Red Cliffs that morning. The Harrier, led by Nezha, raced upriver to hold the city of Shayang, situated on a crucial, narrow bend in the upper river delta. Shayang’s inhabitants had long since evacuated down to the capital, but the city itself used to be a military base—Nezha needed only garrison the old cannon forts.