Kitabı oku: «The Dragon Republic», sayfa 8

She wondered what Daji had done to him.

Someone knocked on the door just then. She jumped in her seat.

“Come in,” Vaisra called.

A junior officer poked his head in. “Nezha sent me to alert you. We’ve arrived.”

Near the end of his reign, the Red Emperor built the Autumn Palace in the northern city of Lusan. It was never meant to be a capital or an administrative center; it was too far removed from the central provinces to properly govern. It served merely as a resort for his favorite concubines and their children, an escape for the days when Sinegard became so scorching hot that their skin threatened to darken within seconds of stepping outside.

Under the Empress Su Daji’s regime, Lusan had been a place for court officials to harbor their wives and families safely away from the dangers at court, until it turned into the interim capital after Sinegard and then Golyn Niis were razed to the ground.

As the Seagrim sailed toward the city, the Murui narrowed to a thinner and thinner stream, which forced them to move at a slower and slower pace until they weren’t sailing so much as crawling toward the Autumn Palace.

Rin could see the city walls from miles off. Lusan seemed to be lit from within by some unearthly afternoon glow. Everything was somehow golden; it was like the rest of the Empire had dulled to shades of black, white, and bloody red during the war, and Lusan had soaked up all the surrounding color, shining brighter than anything she had seen in months.

Close to the city walls Rin saw a woman walking down the riverbank with buckets of dye and heavy rolls of cloth strapped to her back. Rin knew the cloth was silk from the way it glimmered when it was unrolled, so soft that she could almost imagine the butterfly-wing texture on the backs of her fingers.

How could Lusan have silk? The rest of the country was garbed in unwashed, threadbare scraps. All along the Murui, Rin had seen naked children and babies wrapped in lily pads in some effort to preserve their dignity.

Farther downriver, fishing sampans glided up and down the winding waterways. Each boat carried several large birds—white creatures with massive beaks—hooked to the boats on strings.

Nezha had to explain to Rin what the birds were for. “They’ve got a string around their necks, see? The bird swallows the fish; the farmer pulls the fish out of the bird’s neck. The bird goes in again, always hungry, always too dumb to realize that everything it catches goes into the fish basket and that all it’ll ever get are slops.”

Rin made a face. “That seems inefficient. Why not just use a net?”

“It is inefficient,” Nezha agreed. “But they’re not fishing for staples, they’re hunting for delicacies. Sweetfish.”

“Why?”

He shrugged.

Rin already knew the answer. Why not hunt for delicacies? Lusan was clearly untouched by the refugee crisis that had swept the rest of the country; it could afford to focus on luxury.

Perhaps it was the heat, or perhaps because Rin’s nerves were already always on edge, but she felt angrier and angrier as they made for port. She hated this city, this land of pale and pampered women, men who were not soldiers but bureaucrats, and children who didn’t know what fear felt like.

She simmered not with resentment so much as with a nameless fury at the idea that outside the confines of warfare, life could go on and did go on, that somehow, still, in pockets scattered throughout the Empire there were cities and cities of people who were dyeing silk and fishing for gourmet dinners, unaffected by the single issue that plagued a soldier’s mind: when and where the next attack would come.

“I thought I wasn’t a prisoner,” said Kitay.

“You’re not,” said Nezha. “You’re a guest.”

“A guest who isn’t allowed off the ship?”

“A guest whom we’d like to keep with us a little longer,” Nezha said delicately. “Can you stop glaring at me like that?”

When the captain announced that they had anchored in Lusan, Kitay had ventured abovedeck for the first time in weeks. Rin had hoped he’d come up for some fresh air, but he was just following Nezha around the deck, intent on antagonizing him in any way possible.

Rin had tried several times to intercede. Kitay, however, seemed determined to pretend she didn’t exist by ignoring her every time she spoke, so she turned her attention to the sights on the riverbank instead.

A mild crowd had gathered around the base of the Seagrim, made up mostly of Imperial officials, Lusani merchants, and messengers from other Warlords. Rin surmised from what snatches of conversation she could hear from the top deck that they were all trying to get an audience with Vaisra. But Eriden and his men were stationed at the bottom of the gangplank, turning everyone away.

Vaisra had also issued strict orders that no one was to leave the ship. The soldiers and crewmen were to continue living on board as if they were still out on open water, and only a handful of Eriden’s men had been permitted to enter Lusan to purchase fresh supplies. This, Nezha had explained, was to minimize the risk that someone might give away Rin’s cover. Meanwhile, she was only allowed on deck if she wore a scarf to cover her face.

“You know you can’t keep me here indefinitely,” Kitay said loudly. “Someone’s going to find out.”

“Like who?” Nezha asked. “My father.”

“You think your father’s in Lusan?”

“He’s in the Empress’s guard. He commands her security detail. There’s no way she would have left him behind.”

“She left everyone else behind,” Nezha said.

Kitay crossed his arms. “Not my father.”

Nezha caught Rin’s eye. For the briefest moment he looked guilty, like he wanted to say something that he couldn’t, but she couldn’t imagine what.

“That’s the commerce minister,” Kitay said suddenly. “He’ll know.”

“What?”

Before either Nezha or Rin could register what he meant, Kitay broke into a run at the gangplank.

Nezha shouted for the closest soldiers to restrain him. They were too slow—Kitay dodged their arms, climbed onto the side of the ship, grabbed a rope, and lowered himself to the riverbank so quickly that he must have burned his hands raw.

Rin ran for the gangplank to intercept him, but Nezha held her back with one arm. “Don’t.”

“But he—”

Nezha just shook his head. “Let him.”

They watched from a distance, silent, as Kitay ran up to the commerce minister and seized his arm, then doubled over, panting.

Rin could see them clearly from the deck. The minister recoiled for a moment, hands lifted as if to ward off this unfamiliar soldier, until he recognized Defense Minister Chen’s son and his arms dropped.

Rin couldn’t tell what they were saying. She could only see their mouths moving, the expressions on their faces.

She saw the minister place his hands on Kitay’s shoulders.

She saw Kitay ask a question.

She saw the minister shake his head.

Then she saw Kitay collapse in on himself as if he had been speared in the gut, and she realized that Defense Minister Chen had not survived the Third Poppy War.

Kitay didn’t struggle when Vaisra’s men marched him back onto the boat. He was white-faced, tight-lipped, and his madly twitching eyes looked red at the rims.

Nezha tried to put a hand on Kitay’s shoulder. Kitay shook him off and made straight for the Dragon Warlord. Blue-clad soldiers immediately moved to form a protective wall between them, but Kitay didn’t reach for a weapon.

“I’ve decided something,” he said.

Vaisra waved a hand. His guard dispersed. Then it was just the two of them facing each other: the regal Dragon Warlord and the furious, trembling boy.

“Yes?” Vaisra asked.

“I want a position,” Kitay said.

“I thought you wanted to go home.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Kitay snapped. “I want a position. Give me a uniform. I won’t wear this one anymore.”

“I’ll see where we can—”

Kitay cut him off again. “I’m not going to be a foot soldier.”

“Kitay—”

“I want a seat at the table. Chief strategist.”

“You’re rather young for that,” Vaisra said drily.

“No, I’m not. You made Nezha a general. And I’ve always been smarter than Nezha. You know I’m brilliant. I’m a fucking genius. Put me in charge of operations and you won’t lose a single battle, I swear.” Kitay’s voice broke at the end. Rin saw his throat bob, saw the veins protruding from his jaw, and knew that he was holding back tears.

“I’ll consider it,” Vaisra said.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Kitay demanded. “You’ve known for months.”

Vaisra’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you. I know how much pain you must feel—”

“No. No, shut the fuck up, I don’t want that.” Kitay backed away. “I don’t need your fake sympathy.”

“Then what would you like from me?”

Kitay lifted his chin. “I want troops.”

The Warlords’ summit would not commence until after the victory parade, and that stretched over the next two days. For the most part Vaisra’s soldiers did not participate. Several troops entered the city in civilian clothes, sketching out final details in their already extensive maps of the city in case anything had changed. But the majority of the crew remained on board, watching the festivities from afar.

Every now and then an armed delegation arrived aboard the Seagrim, faces shrouded under hoods to conceal their identities. Vaisra received them in his office, doors sealed, guards posted outside to discourage curious eavesdroppers. Rin assumed the visitors were the southern Warlords—the rulers of Boar, Rooster, and Monkey provinces.

Hours passed without news. Rin grew maddeningly bored. She’d been over the palace maps a thousand times, and she’d already trained so long with Eriden that day that her leg muscles screamed when she walked. She was just about to ask Nezha if they might explore Lusan in disguise when Vaisra summoned her to his office.

“I have a meeting with the Snake Warlord,” he said. “On land. You’re coming.”

“As a guard?”

“No. As proof.”

He didn’t explain further, but she suspected she knew what he meant, so she simply picked up her trident, pulled her scarf up higher over her face until it concealed all but her eyes, and followed him toward the gangplank.

“Is the Snake Warlord an ally?” she asked.

“Ang Tsolin was my Strategy master at Sinegard. He could be anything from ally to enemy. Today, we’ll simply treat him as an old friend.”

“What should I say to him?”

“You’ll remain silent. All he has to do is look at you.”

Rin followed Vaisra across the riverbank until they reached a line of tents propped up at the city borders as if it were an invading army’s. When they approached the periphery, a group of green-clad soldiers stopped them and demanded their weapons.

“Go on,” Vaisra muttered when Rin hesitated to part with her trident.

“You trust him that much?”

“No. But I trust you won’t need it.”

The Snake Warlord came to meet them outside, where his aides had set up two chairs and a small table.

At first Rin mistook him for a servant. Ang Tsolin didn’t look like a Warlord. He was an old man with a long and sad face, so slender he seemed frail. He wore the same forest-green Militia uniform as his men, but no symbols announced his rank, and no weapon hung at his hip.

“Old master.” Vaisra dipped his head. “It’s good to see you again.”

Tsolin’s eyes flickered toward the outline of the Seagrim, which was just visible down the river. “So you didn’t take the bitch’s offer, either?”

“It was rather unsubtle, even for her,” Vaisra said. “Is anyone staying in the palace?”

“Chang En. Our old friend Jun Loran. None of the southern Warlords.”

Vaisra arched an eyebrow. “They hadn’t mentioned that. That’s surprising.”

“Is it? They’re southern.”

Vaisra settled back in his chair. “I suppose not. They’ve been touchy for years.”

No one had brought a chair out for Rin, so she remained standing behind Vaisra, hands folded over her chest in imitation of the guards who flanked Tsolin. They looked unamused.

“You’ve certainly taken your time getting here,” Tsolin said. “It’s been a long camping trip for the rest of us.”

“I was picking up something on the coast.” Vaisra pointed toward Rin. “Do you know who she is?”

Rin lowered her scarf.

Tsolin glanced up. At first he seemed only confused as he examined her face, but then he must have taken in the dark hue of her skin, the red glint in her eyes, because his entire body tensed.

“She’s wanted for quite a lot of silver,” he said finally. “Something about an assassination attempt in Adlaga.”

“It’s a good thing I’ve never wanted for silver,” said Vaisra.

Tsolin rose from his chair and walked toward Rin until only inches separated them. He was not so much taller than she was, but his gaze made her distinctly uncomfortable. She felt like a specimen under his careful examination.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Rin.”

Tsolin ignored her. He made a humming noise under his breath and returned to his seat. “This is a very blunt display of force. You’re just going to march her into the Autumn Palace?”

“She’ll be properly bound. Drugged, too. Daji insisted on it.”

“So Daji knows she’s here.”

“I thought that’d be prudent. I sent a messenger ahead.”

“No wonder she’s getting antsy, then,” Tsolin said. “She’s increased the palace guard threefold. The Warlords are talking. Whatever you’re planning, she’s ready for it.”

“So it will help to have your support,” Vaisra said.

Rin noticed that Vaisra dipped his head every time he spoke to Tsolin. In a subtle fashion, he was bowing continuously to his elder, displaying deference and respect.

But Tsolin seemed unresponsive to flattery. He sighed. “You’ve never been content with peace, have you?”

“And you refuse to acknowledge that war is the only option,” said Vaisra. “Which would you prefer, Tsolin? The Empire can die a slow death over the next century, or we can set the country on the right path within the week if we’re lucky.”

“Within a few bloody years, you mean.”

“Months, at the most.”

“Don’t you remember the last time someone went up against the Trifecta?” Tsolin asked. “Remember how the bodies littered the steps of the Heavenly Pass?”

“It won’t be like that,” Vaisra said.

“Why not?”

“Because we have her.” Vaisra nodded toward Rin.

Tsolin looked wearily in Rin’s direction.

“You poor child,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

She blinked, unsure what that meant.

“And we have the advantage of time,” Vaisra continued quickly. “The Militia is reeling from the Federation attack. They need to recuperate. They couldn’t marshal their defenses fast enough.”

“Yet under your best-case scenario, Daji still has the northern provinces,” Tsolin said. “Horse and Tiger would never defect. She has Chang En and Jun. That’s all you need.”

“Jun knows not to fight battles he can’t win.”

“But he can and will win this one. Or did you think you would defeat everyone through a little intimidation?”

“This war could be over in days if I had your support,” Vaisra said impatiently. “Together we’d control the coastline. I own the canals. You own the eastern shore. Combined, our fleets—”

Tsolin held up a hand. “My people have undergone three wars in their lifetime, each time with a different ruler. Now they might have their first chance at a lasting peace. And you want to bring a civil war to their doorsteps.”

“There’s a civil war coming, whether you admit it or not. I only hasten the inevitable.”

“We will not survive the inevitable,” Tsolin said. True sorrow laced his words. Rin could see it in his eyes; the man looked haunted. “We lost so many men at Golyn Niis, Vaisra. Boys. You know what our commanders made their soldiers do the evening before the siege? They wrote letters home to their families. Told them they loved them. Told them they wouldn’t be coming home. And our generals chose the strongest and fastest soldiers to deliver the messages back home, because they knew it wasn’t going to make a difference whether we had them at the wall.”

He stood up. “My answer is no. We have yet to recover from the scars of the Poppy Wars. You can’t ask us to bleed again.”

Vaisra reached out and grabbed Tsolin’s wrist before he could turn to go. “You’re neutral then?”

“Vaisra—”

“Or against me? Shall I expect Daji’s assassins at my door?”

Tsolin looked pained. “I know nothing. I help no one. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

“We’re just going to let him go?” Rin asked once they were out of Tsolin’s earshot.

Vaisra’s harsh laugh surprised her. “You think he’s going to report us to the Empress?”

Rin thought this had seemed rather obvious. “It’s clear he’s not with us.”

“He will be. He’s revealed his threshold for going to war. Provincial danger. He’ll pick a side quick enough if it means the difference between warfare and obliteration, so I will force his hand. I’ll bring the fight to his province. He won’t have a choice then, and I suspect he knows that.”

Vaisra’s stride grew faster and faster as they walked. Rin had to run to catch up.

“You’re angry,” she realized.

No, he was furious. She could see it in the icy glare in his eyes, in the stiffness of his gait. She’d spent too much of her childhood learning to tell when someone was in a dangerous mood.

Vaisra didn’t respond.

She stopped walking. “The other Warlords. They said no, didn’t they?”

Vaisra paused before he answered. “They’re undecided. It’s too early to tell.”

“Will they betray you?”

“They don’t know enough about my plans to do anything. All they can tell Daji is that I’m displeased with her, which she already knows. But I doubt they’ll have the backbone to say even that.” Vaisra’s voice dripped with condescension. “They are like sheep. They will watch silently, waiting to see how the balance of power falls, and they will align with whoever can protect them. But we won’t need them until then.”

“But you needed Tsolin,” she said.

“This will be significantly harder without Tsolin,” he admitted. “He could have tipped the balance. It’ll truly be a war now.”

She couldn’t help but ask, “Then are we going to lose?”

Vaisra regarded her in silence for a moment. Then he knelt down in front of her, put his hands on her shoulders, and looked up at her with an intensity that made Rin want to squirm.

“No,” he said softly. “We have you.”

“Vaisra—”

“You will be the spear that brings this empire down,” he said sternly. “You will defeat Daji. You will set in motion this war, and then the southern Warlords will have no choice.”

The intensity in his eyes made her desperately uncomfortable. “But what if I can’t?”

“You will.”

“But—”

“You will, because I ordered you to.” His grip tightened on her shoulders. “You are my greatest weapon. Do not disappoint.”

CHAPTER 9

Rin had imagined the Autumn Palace as composed of blocky, abstract shapes, the way it was represented on the maps. But the real Autumn Palace was a perfectly preserved sanctuary of beauty, a sight lifted straight out of an ink brush painting. Flowers bloomed everywhere. White plum blossoms and peach flowers laced the gardens; lily pads and lotus flowers dotted the ponds and waterways. The complex itself was an elegantly designed structure of ornamented ceremonial gates, massive marble pillars, and sprawling pavilions.

But for all that beauty, a stillness hung over the palace that made Rin deeply uncomfortable. The heat was oppressive. The roads looked as if they were swept clean hourly by unseen servants, but still Rin could hear the ubiquitous sound of buzzing flies, as if they detected something rotten in the air that no one could see.

It felt as if the palace hid something foul under its lovely exterior; beneath the smell of blooming lilacs, something was in the last stages of decay.

Perhaps she was imagining it. Perhaps the palace was truly beautiful, and she just hated it because it was a coward’s resort. This was a refuge, and the fact that anyone had hidden alive in the Autumn Palace while corpses rotted in Golyn Niis infuriated her.

Eriden nudged the small of her back with his spear. “Eyes down.”

She hastily obeyed. She had come posing as Vaisra’s prisoner—hands cuffed behind her back, mouth sealed behind an iron muzzle that clamped her lower jaw tightly upward. She could barely speak except in whispers.

She didn’t have to remember to look scared. She was terrified. The thirty grams of opium circulating through her bloodstream did nothing to calm her down. It magnified her paranoia even as it kept her heart rate low and made her feel as if she were floating among clouds. Her mind was anxious and hyperactive but her body was slow and sluggish—the worst possible combination.

At sunrise Rin, Vaisra, and Captain Eriden had passed under the arched gateways of the nine concentric circles of the Autumn Palace. Servants patted them down for weapons at each gate. By the seventh gate, they had been groped so thoroughly that Rin was surprised they hadn’t been asked to strip naked.

At the eighth gate an Imperial guard stopped her to check her pupils.

“She took a dose before the guards this morning,” Vaisra said.

“Even so,” said the guard. He reached for Rin’s chin and tilted it up. “Eyes open, please.”

Rin obliged and tried not to squirm as he pulled her eyelids apart.

Satisfied, the guard stepped back to let them through.

Rin followed Vaisra into the throne room, shoes echoing against a marble floor so smooth it looked like still water at the surface of a lake.

The inner chamber was a rich and ornate assault of decorations that blurred and swam in Rin’s opium-blurred eyesight. She blinked and tried to focus. Intricately painted symbols covered every wall, stretching all the way up to the ceiling, where they coalesced in a circle.

It’s the Pantheon, she realized. If she squinted, she could make out the gods she had come to recognize: the Monkey God, mischievous and cruel; the Phoenix, imposing and ravenous …

That was odd. The Red Emperor had hated shamans. After he’d claimed his throne at Sinegard, he’d had the monks killed and their monasteries burned.

But maybe he hadn’t hated the gods. Maybe he’d just hated that he couldn’t access their power for himself.

The ninth gate led to the council room. The Empress’s personal guard, a row of soldiers in gold-lined armor, blocked their path.

“No attendants,” said the guard captain. “The Empress has decided that she does not want to crowd the council room with bodyguards.”

A flicker of irritation crossed Vaisra’s face. “The Empress might have told me this beforehand.”

“The Empress sent a notice to everyone residing in the palace,” the guard captain said smugly. “You declined her invitation.”

Rin thought Vaisra might protest, but he only turned to Eriden and told him to wait outside. Eriden bowed and departed, leaving them without guards or weapons in the heart of the Autumn Palace.

But they were not entirely alone. At that moment the Cike were swimming through the underground waterways toward the city’s heart. Aratsha had constructed air bubbles around their heads so they could swim for miles without needing to come up for air.

The Cike had used this as an infiltration method many times before. This time, they would deliver reinforcements if the coup went sour. Baji and Suni would take up posts directly outside the council room, poised to spring in and break Vaisra out if necessary. Qara would station herself at the highest pavilion outside the council room for ranged support. And Ramsa would squirrel himself away wherever he and his waterproof bag of combustible treasures could cause the most havoc.

Rin found a small degree of comfort in that. If they couldn’t capture the Autumn Palace, at least they had a good chance of blowing it up.

Silence fell over the council room when Rin and Vaisra walked in.

The Warlords twisted in their seats to stare at her, their expressions ranging from surprise to curiosity to mild distaste. Their eyes roved over her body, lingered on her arms and legs, took stock of her height and build. They looked everywhere except at her eyes.

Rin shifted uncomfortably. They were sizing her up like a cow at market.

The Ox Warlord spoke first. Rin recognized him from Khurdalain; she was surprised that he was still alive. “This little girl held you up for weeks?”

Vaisra chuckled. “The searching ate my time, not the extraction. I found her stranded in Ankhiluun. Moag got to her first.”

The Ox Warlord looked surprised. “The Pirate Queen? How did you wrestle her away?”

“I traded Moag for something she likes better,” Vaisra said.

“Why would you bring her here alive?” demanded a man at the other end of the table.

Rin swiveled her head around and nearly jumped in surprise. She hadn’t recognized Master Jun at first glance. His beard had grown much longer, and his hair was shot through with gray streaks that hadn’t been there before the war. But she could find the same arrogance etched into the lines of her old Combat master’s face, as well as his clear distaste for her.

He glared at Vaisra. “Treason deserves the death penalty. And she’s far too dangerous to keep around.”

“Don’t be hasty,” said the Horse Warlord. “She might be useful.”

“Useful?” Jun echoed.

“She’s the last of her kind. We’d be fools to throw a weapon like that away.”

“Weapons are only useful if you can wield them,” said the Ox Warlord. “I think you’d have a little trouble taming this beast.”

“Where do you think she went wrong?” The Rooster Warlord leaned forward to get a better look at her.

Rin had privately been looking forward to meeting the Rooster Warlord, Gong Takha. They came from the same province. They spoke the same dialect, and his skin was nearly as dark as hers. Word on the Seagrim was that Takha was the closest to joining the Republic. But if provincial ties counted for anything, Takha didn’t show it. He stared at her with the same sort of fearful curiosity one displayed toward a caged tiger.

“She’s got a wild look in her eyes,” he continued. “Do you think the Mugenese experiments did that to her?”

I’m in the room, Rin wanted to snap. Stop talking about me like I’m not here.

But Vaisra wanted her to be docile. Act stupid, he’d said. Don’t come off as too intelligent.

“Nothing so complex,” said Vaisra. “She was a Speerly straining against her leash. You remember how the Speerlies were.”

“When my dogs go mad, I put them down,” Jun said.

The Empress spoke from the doorway. “But little girls aren’t dogs, Loran.”

Rin froze.

Su Daji had traded her ceremonial robes for a green soldier’s uniform. Her shoulder pads were inlaid with jade armor, and a longsword hung at her waist. It seemed like a message. She was not only the Empress, she was also grand marshal of the Nikara Imperial Militia. She’d conquered the Empire once by force. She’d do it again.

Rin fought to keep her breathing steady as Daji reached out and traced her fingertips over her muzzle.

“Careful,” Jun said. “She bites.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Daji’s voice sounded languid, almost disinterested. “Did she put up a fight?”

“She tried,” Vaisra said.

“I imagine there were casualties.”

“Not as many as you would expect. She’s weak. The drug’s done her in.”

“Of course.” Daji’s lip curled. “Speerlies have always had their predilections.”

Her hand drifted upward to pat Rin gently on the head.

Rin’s fingers curled into fists.

Calm, she reminded herself. The opium hadn’t worn off yet. When she tried to call the fire, she felt only a numb, blocked sensation in the back of her mind.

Daji’s eyes lingered on Rin for a long while. Rin froze, terrified that the Empress might take her aside now like Vaisra had warned. It was too early. If she were alone in a room with Daji, the best she could do was hurl some disoriented fists in her direction.

But Daji only smiled, shook her head, and turned toward the table. “We’ve much to get through. Shall we proceed?”

“What about the girl?” Jun asked. “She ought to be in a cell.”

“I know.” Daji shot Rin a poisonous smile. “But I like to watch her sweat.”

The next two hours were the slowest of Rin’s life.

Once the Warlords had exhausted their curiosity over her, they turned their attention to an enormous roster of problems economic, agricultural, and political. The Third Poppy War had wrecked nearly every province. Federation soldiers had destroyed most of the infrastructure in every major city they’d occupied, set fire to huge swaths of grain fields, and wiped out entire villages. Mass refugee movements had reshaped the human density of the country. This was the kind of disaster that would have taken miraculous effort from a unified central leadership to ameliorate, and the council of the twelve Warlords was anything but.

“Control your damn people,” said the Ox Warlord. “I have thousands streaming into my border as we speak and we don’t have a place for them.”

“What are we supposed to do, create a border guard?” The Hare Warlord had a distinctly plaintive, grating voice that made Rin wince every time he spoke. “Half my province is flooded, we haven’t got food stores to last the winter—”

“Neither do we,” said the Ox Warlord. “Send them elsewhere or we’ll all starve.”

“We’d be willing to repatriate citizens from the Hare Province under a set quota,” said the Dog Warlord. “But they’d have to display provincial registration papers.”

“Registration papers?” the Hare Warlord echoed. “These people had their villages sacked and you’re asking for registration papers? Right, like the first thing they grabbed when their village started going up in flames was—”