Chapter 19 #2
No one had given her a torch. She was still shaken from the experience, and every sudden movement made her jump, so it was best that she didn’t hold on to anything potentially dangerous.
But she refused to go back to camp alone, either, so she stood by the edge of the forest, watching blankly as the soldiers brushed snow off yet another family of corpses.
Their bodies were curled in a heap together, the mother’s and father’s bodies wrapped protectively around their two children.
“Are you all right?” Nezha asked her. His hand wandered hesitantly toward her shoulder, as if he wasn’t sure whether to touch her or not.
She brushed it away. “I’m fine. I’ve seen bodies before.”
Yet she couldn’t take her eyes off of them. They looked like a set of dolls lying in the snow, perfectly fine except for the fact that they weren’t moving.
Most of the adults still had large bundles fastened to their backs. Rin saw porcelain dishes, silk dresses, and kitchen utensils spilling out of those bags. The villagers seemed to have packed their entire homes up with them.
“Where were they going?” she wondered.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Kitay said. “They were running.”
“From what?”
Kitay said it, because no one else seemed able to. “Us.”
“But they didn’t have anything to fear.” Nezha looked deeply uncomfortable. “We would have treated them the way we’ve treated every other village. They would have gotten a vote.”
“That’s not what their leaders would have told them,” said Kitay. “They would have imagined we were coming to kill them.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Nezha said.
“Is it?” Kitay asked. “Imagine it. You hear the rebel army is coming. Your magistrates are your most reliable sources of information, and they tell you that the rebels will kill your men, rape your women, and enslave your children, because that’s what you’re always supposed to say about the enemy.
You don’t know any better, so you pack up everything you can and flee. ”
Rin could imagine the rest. These villagers would have run from the Republic just as they had once run from the Federation.
But winter had come earlier that year than they’d predicted, and they didn’t get to the lowland valleys in time.
They couldn’t find anything to eat. At some point it was too much work to stay alive.
So they decided with the rest of the families that this was as good a place as any to end it, and together they lay down and embraced each other, and perhaps it didn’t feel so terrible near the end.
Perhaps it felt just like going to sleep.
Through the entire campaign, she had never once paused to consider just how many people they had killed or displaced. The numbers added up so quickly. Several thousand from famine—maybe several hundred thousand—and then all the soldiers they’d cut down every time, multiplied across villages.
They were fighting a very different war now, she realized. They were not the liberators but the aggressors. They were the ones to fear.
“War’s different when you’re not struggling for survival.” Kitay must have been thinking the same thing she was. He stood still, hands clutching his torch, eyes fixed on the bodies at his feet. “Victories don’t feel the same.”
“Do you think it’s worth it?” Rin asked him quietly so that Nezha couldn’t hear.
“Frankly, I don’t care.”
“I’m being serious.”
He considered for a moment. “I’m glad that someone’s fighting Daji.”
“But the stakes—”
“I wouldn’t think too long about the stakes.” Kitay glanced at Nezha, who was still staring at the bodies, eyes wide and disturbed. “You won’t like the answers you come up with.”
That evening the snowstorms started up again and did not relent for another week.
It confirmed what everyone had been afraid of.
Winter had arrived early that year, and with a vengeance.
Soon enough the tributaries would freeze and the Republican Fleet would be stuck in the north unless they turned back. Their options were dwindling.
Rin paced the Kingfisher for days, growing more agitated with every passing minute. She needed to move, fight, attack. She didn’t like sitting still. Too easy to fall prey to her own thoughts. Too easy to see the faces in the snow.
Once during a late-night stroll she stumbled across the leadership leaving Jinzha’s office.
None of them looked happy. Jinzha stormed past her without saying a word; he might not have even noticed her.
Nezha lingered behind with Kitay, who wore the peeved, tight-lipped expression that Rin had learned meant that he hadn’t gotten his way.
“Don’t tell me,” Rin said. “We’re moving forward.”
“We’re not just moving forward. He wants us to bypass Baraya entirely and take Boyang.” Kitay slammed a fist against the wall. “Boyang! Is he mad?”
“Military outpost on the border of Rat Province and Tiger Province,” Nezha explained to Rin.
“It’s not a terrible idea. The Militia used Boyang as a fortress during the first and second invasions.
It’ll have built-in defenses, make it easier to last out the winter.
We can break the siege at Baraya from there. ”
“But won’t someone already be there?” Rin asked. If the Militia was garrisoned anywhere, it had to be in Tiger or Rat Province. Any farther north and they’d be fighting in Sinegard for the heart of Imperial territory.
“If someone’s already there, then we’ll fight them off,” said Nezha.
“In icy waters?” Kitay challenged. “With a cold and miserable army? If we keep going north, we’re going to lose every advantage we’ve gained by coming so far.”
“Or we could cement our victory,” Nezha argued. “If we win at Boyang, then we control the delta at the Elehemsa tributary, which means—”
“Yes, yes, you cut around the coast to Tiger Province, you can send reinforcements to either through riverways,” Kitay said irritably.
“Except you’re not going to win Boyang. The Imperial Fleet is almost certainly there, but for some reason Jinzha would prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist. I don’t know what’s wrong with your brother, but he’s getting reckless and he’s making decisions like a madman. ”
“My brother is not a madman.”
“Oh, no, he might be the best wartime general I’ve ever seen.
No one’s denying he’s done well so far. But he’s only good because he’s the first Nikara general who’s been trained to think from a naval perspective first. Once the rivers freeze, it’s going to turn into a ground war, and then he won’t have a clue what to do. ”
Nezha sighed. “Look, I understand your point. I’m just trying to see the best in our situation. If it were up to me I wouldn’t go to Boyang, either.”
Kitay threw his hands up. “Well, then—”
“This isn’t about strategy. It’s about pride. It’s about showing the Hesperians that we won’t back down from a challenge. And for Jinzha, it’s about proving himself to Father.”
“These things always come back to your father,” Kitay muttered. “Both of you need help.”
“So say that to Jinzha,” Rin said. “Tell him that he’s being stupid.”
“There’s no possible version of that argument that goes well,” Nezha said. “Jinzha decides what he wants. You think I can contradict him and get away with it?”
“Well, if you can’t,” Kitay said, “then we’re fucked.”
An hour later the paddle wheels creaked into motion, carrying the Republican Fleet through a minor mountain range.
“Look up.” Kitay nudged Rin’s arm. “Does that look normal to you?”
At first it seemed to her like the sun was gradually coming up over the mountains, the lights were so bright.
Then the glowing objects rose higher, and she saw that they were lanterns, lighting up the night sky one by one like a field of blooming flowers.
Long ribbons dangled from the balloons, displaying a message easily read from the ground.
Surrender means immunity.
“Did they really think that would work?” Rin asked, amused. “That’s like screaming, ‘Go away, please.’”
But Kitay wasn’t smiling. “I don’t think it’s about propaganda. We should turn back.”
“What, just because of some lanterns?”
“It’s what the lanterns mean. Whoever set them up is waiting for us in there.
And I doubt they have the firepower to match the fleet, but they’re still fighting on their own territory, and they know that river.
They’ve staked it out for who knows how long.
” Kitay motioned to the closest soldier. “Can you shoot?”
“As well as anyone else,” said the soldier.
“Good. You see that?” Kitay pointed to a lantern drifting a little farther out from the others. “Can you hit it? I just want to see what happens.”
The soldier looked confused, but obeyed. His first shot missed. His second arrow flew true. The lantern exploded into flames, sending a shower of sparks and coal tumbling toward the river.
Rin hit the ground. The explosion seemed impossibly loud for such a small, harmless-looking lantern.
It just kept going, too—the lantern must have been loaded with multiple smaller bombs that went off in succession at various points in the air like intricate fireworks.
She watched, holding her breath, hoping that none of the sparks would set off the other lanterns.
That might spark a chain reaction that turned the entire cliffside into a column of fire.
But the other lanterns didn’t go off—the first had exploded too far from the rest of the pack—and at last, the explosions started to fizzle out.
“Told you,” Kitay said once they’d ceased completely. He picked himself off the ground. “We’d better go tell Jinzha we need a change in route.”
The fleet crept down a secondary channel of the tributary, a narrow pass between jagged cliffs. This would add a week to their travel time, but it was better than certain incineration.
Rin scanned the gray rocks with her spyglass and found crevices, cliff ledges that could easily conceal enemies, but saw no movement. No lanterns. The pass looked abandoned.
“We’re not in the clear yet,” Kitay said.