Chapter 20 #2
“And that’s the root of it all.” Kitay gave her a wry look.
“Jinzha’s being an ass, but I think I understand him.
He can’t afford to look weak, not with Tarcquet sitting there judging his every move.
He’s got to be bold. Be the brilliant leader his father promised.
And we’ll blaze forward right with him, because we simply have no other option. ”
“How many of you can swim?” Jinzha asked.
Prisoners stood miserably in line on the slippery deck, heads bent as rain poured down on them in relentless sheets. Jinzha paced up and down the deck, and the prisoners flinched every time he stopped in front of them. “Show of hands. Who can swim?”
The prisoners glanced nervously at one another, no doubt wondering which response would keep them alive. No hands went up.
“Let me put it this way.” Jinzha crossed his arms. “We don’t have the rations to feed everyone. No matter what, some of you are going to end up at the bottom of the Murui. It’s only a question of whether you want to starve to death. So raise your hand if you’ll be useful.”
Every hand shot up.
Jinzha turned to Admiral Molkoi. “Throw them all overboard.”
The men started screaming in protest. Rin thought for a second that Molkoi might actually comply, and that they would have to watch the prisoners clawing over each other in the water in a desperate bid to survive, but then she realized that Jinzha didn’t really intend to execute them.
He was watching to see who wouldn’t resist.
After a few moments Jinzha pulled fifteen men out of the line and dismissed the rest to the brig. Then he held up a water mine wrapped in cow intestine and passed it through the line so the men could take a better look at the fuse.
“The Militia’s been planting these in the water.
You will swim through the water and disable them.
You will be tethered to the ship with ropes, and you will be given sharp rocks to do the job.
If you find an explosive, cut the intestine and ensure that water floods the tube.
Try to escape, and my archers will shoot you in the water.
Leave any mines intact, and you will die with us. It’s in your interest to be thorough.”
He tossed several lines of rope at the men. “Go on, then.”
Nobody moved.
“Admiral Molkoi!” Jinzha shouted.
Molkoi signaled to his men. A line of guards strode forward, blades out.
“Do not test my patience,” Jinzha said.
The men scrambled hastily for the ropes.
The storms only intensified in the following week, but Jinzha forced the fleet forward to Boyang at an impossible pace.
The soldiers were exhausted at the paddle wheels trying to meet his demands.
Several prisoners dropped dead after being forced to paddle consecutive shifts without a night’s sleep, and Jinzha had their bodies tossed unceremoniously overboard.
“He’s going to tire his army out before we even get there,” Kitay grumbled to Rin. “Bet you wish we’d brought those Federation troops along now, don’t you?”
The army was both weary and hungry. Their rations had been dwindling. They now received dried fish twice a day instead of three times, and rice only once in the evenings. Most of the extra provisions they’d obtained in Xiashang had been lost in the explosions. Morale drooped by the day.
The soldiers became even more disheartened when scouts returned with details of the lake defense. The Imperial Navy was indeed stationed at Boyang, as all of them had feared, and it was far better equipped than Jinzha had anticipated.
The navy rivaled the size of the fleet that had sailed out from Arlong.
The one consolation was that it was nowhere near the technological level of Jinzha’s armada.
The Empress had hastily constructed it in the months since Lusan, and the lack of preparation time showed—the Imperial Fleet was a messy amalgamation of badly constructed new ships, some with unfinished decks, and conscripted old merchant boats with no uniformity of build.
At least three were leisure barges without firing capacity.
But they had more ships, and they had more men.
“Ship quality would have mattered if they were out over the ocean,” Kitay told Rin. “But the lake will turn this battle into a crucible. We’ll all be crammed in together. They just need to get their men to board our ships, and it’ll be over. Boyang’s going to turn red with blood.”
Rin knew one way the Republic could easily win.
They wouldn’t even have to fire a shot. But Nezha refused to speak to her.
She only ever saw him when he came aboard the Kingfisher for meetings in his brother’s office.
Each time they crossed paths he hastily looked away; if she called his name, he only shook his head.
Otherwise, they might have been complete strangers.
“Do we expect anything to come of this?” Rin asked.
“Not really,” Kitay said. He held his crossbow ready against his chest. “It’s just a formality. You know how aristocrats are.”
Rin’s teeth chattered as the Imperial flagship drifted closer to the Kingfisher. “We shouldn’t have even come.”
“It’s Jinzha. Always worried about his honor.”
“Yes, well, he might try worrying more about his life.”
Against the counsel of his admirals, Jinzha had demanded a last-minute negotiation with the flagship of the Imperial Navy.
Gentlemen’s etiquette, he called it. He had to at least give the Wolf Meat General a chance to surrender.
But the negotiation would not even be a charade; it was only a risk, and a stupid one.
Chang En had refused a private meeting. The most he would acquiesce to was a temporary cease-fire and a confrontation held over the open water, and that meant their ships were forced to draw dangerously close together in the final moments before the firing began.
“Hello, little dragon!” Chang En’s voice rang over the still, cold air. For once, the waters were calm and quiet. Mist drifted from the surface of Boyang Lake, shrouding the assembled fleets in a cloudy fog.
“You’ve done well for yourself, Master,” Jinzha called. “Admiral of the Imperial Navy, now?”
Chang En spread his arms. “I take what I want when I see it.”
Jinzha lifted his chin. “You’ll want to take this surrender, then. You can retain your position in my father’s employ.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Chang En’s jackal laughter rang high and cruel across the lake.
Jinzha raised his voice. “There’s nothing Su Daji can do for you. Whatever she’s promised you, we’ll double it. My father can make you a general—”
“Your father will give me a cell in Baghra and relieve me of my limbs.”
“You’ll have immunity if you lay down your arms now. I give you my word.”
“A Dragon’s word means nothing.” Chang En laughed again. “Do you think me stupid? When has Vaisra ever kept a vow he’s made?”
“My father is an honorable man who only wants to see this country unified under a just regime,” Jinzha said. “You’d serve well by his side.”
He wasn’t just posturing. Jinzha spoke like he meant it. He seemed to truly hope that he could convince his former master to switch loyalties.
Chang En spat into the water. “Your father’s a Hesperian puppet dancing for donations.”
“And you think Daji is any better?” Jinzha asked. “Stand by her, and you’re guaranteeing years of bloody warfare.”
“Ah, but I’m a soldier. Without war, I’m out of a job.”
Chang En lifted a gauntleted hand. His archers lifted their bows.
“Negotiator’s honor,” Jinzha cautioned.
Chang En smiled widely. “Talks are over, little dragon.”
His hand fell.
A single arrow whistled through the air, grazed Jinzha’s cheek, and embedded itself in the bulkhead behind him.
Jinzha touched his fingers to his cheek, pulled them away, and watched his blood trickle down his pale white hand as if shocked that he could bleed.
“Let you off easy that time,” Chang En said. “Wouldn’t want the fun to be over too quick.”
Lake Boyang lit up like a torch. Flaming arrows, fire rockets, and cannon fire turned the sky red, while below, smokescreens went off everywhere to shroud the Imperial Navy behind a murky gray veil.
The Kingfisher sailed straight into the mist.
“Bring me his head,” Jinzha ordered, ignoring his men’s frantic shouts for him to duck down.
The rest of the fleet spread out across the lake to decrease their vulnerability to incendiary attacks.
The closer they clumped, the faster they would all go up in flames.
The Seahawks and trebuchets started to return the fire, launching missile after missile over the Kingfisher and into the opaque wall of gray.
But their spread-out formation only made the Republicans weak against Imperial swarming tactics. Tiny, patched-up skimmers shot into the gaps between the Republican warships and pushed them farther apart, isolating them to fight on their own.
The Imperial Navy targeted the tower ships first. Imperial skimmers attacked the Crake with relentless cannon fire from all sides. Without its own skimmer support, the Crake began shaking in the water like a man in his death throes.
Jinzha ordered the Kingfisher to come to the Crake’s aid, but it, too, was trapped, cut off from the fleet by a phalanx of old Imperial junks.
Jinzha ordered round after round of cannon fire to clear them a path.
But even the bombed-out junks took up space in the water, which meant all they could do was stand and watch as the Wolf Meat General’s men swarmed aboard the Crake.
The Crake’s men were exhausted and spread too thin to begin with. The Wolf Meat General’s men were out for blood. The Crake never stood a chance.