The Burning God (The Poppy War Book 3)

“What just happened?” Cholang demanded. “What was that?”

“He’s got a god.” Rin paced back and forth before the general staff, cheeks flushed with humiliation. They were supposed to be celebrating. She’d promised them resounding victory, not this embarrassing stalemate. “The Dragon of Arlong, the ruler of the seas. I’ve never seen him pull rain into a shield like that. He must have gotten stronger. Must have—must have practiced.”

She kept her voice low so it wouldn’t carry. Outside the tent, the Southern Army waited in baffled suspense, their disappointment tinged with a mounting fear.

She knew whispers about Nezha were spreading throughout the troops. The gods favor the Young Marshal, they said. The Republic called down the heavens, and they’ve granted them a power to rival our own.

“Then why are we just sitting around?” Venka asked. “We were thrashing them, we should have given chase—”

“If we give chase, we’ll drown,” Rin snapped.

Xuzhou lay only miles north of the Western Murui. Any follow-up strike would be futile. Nezha had certainly positioned himself along the riverbanks, and as soon as their troops attempted a crossing he’d wrap the rapids around them like a fist and drag them to the Murui’s muddy depths.

Rin remembered vividly how it felt to drown. But this time Nezha wouldn’t save her. This time, he might pull her to the bottom of the river himself, holding her still as she thrashed until her lungs collapsed.

I can’t beat him.

She had to face that stark, immutable fact. The Phoenix had made that abundantly clear. Right now she could not engage Nezha one-on-one and win. It didn’t matter how many soldiers she had; it didn’t matter that she now controlled twice as much territory as he did. If they met again on the battlefield, he could easily kill her in a thousand different ways, because in the end, the sea and its dark, swallowing depths would always conquer fire.

And she knew Nezha would only get stronger the closer she marched to Arlong. He’d created a shield thick enough to ward off bullets with mere rainwater. It terrified her to imagine what he might do in a river so vast it looked like an ocean.

Days ago, she’d held every strategic advantage. How had her momentum vanished so abruptly?

If the entire leadership weren’t watching her, she would have screamed.

“There’s no way around this,” Kitay said quietly. “We’ve got to heed Chaghan’s advice. Back to the original plan.”

Rin met his eyes. Silent understanding sparked between them, and instantly the pieces of the obvious, inevitable strategy fell into place.

It terrified her. But they had no other choice. They had only one path forward, and now it was a matter of working through the logistics.

“We’ll have to stick to land routes as long as we can,” she said.

“Right,” he said. “Get over the river. Head straight down the mountains to the capital.”

“And when we’ve reached the Red Cliffs—”

“We’ll find the grotto. Kill it at the source.”

Yes. This was it. She’d been stupid to think that she might win this campaign without touching Arlong, when that was the locus of power all along.

Nezha fell if Arlong fell. Nezha died if the Dragon died. Nothing short of that would do.

“I don’t understand.” Venka glanced between them. “What are we trying to do?”

“We’re going to the Nine Curves Grotto,” Rin breathed. “And we’re going to kill a dragon.”

Rin ordered everyone out of the tent but Kitay.

They both knew, without saying it out loud, that what came next had to be delicately and discreetly planned. There were many roads to Arlong, but only one route that got her army there intact. Altan had once taught her that amateurs obsessed over strategy, and professionals obsessed over logistics. The logistics involved now meant the difference between dozens of casualties and thousands, and they could not be leaked.

Rin waited until the footsteps outside the tent had faded into silence to speak. “You know what we’ve got to do.”

Kitay nodded. “You want a decoy.”

“I’m thinking several. All pursuing separate crossings, with no knowledge of the other crossings, just the rendezvous point.”

That was the only way this could work. Nezha controlled the entire river, which meant he had every advantage except one. He didn’t know where or how Rin would cross it.

Meanwhile, Rin’s problem was how to move a large column over the river at a point that Nezha wouldn’t anticipate. She wasn’t working with a fast, tiny strike force anymore; she couldn’t pull off the kind of surprise ambushes she used to.

Moreover, she had to assume Nezha had spies within her ranks. Perhaps not in her inner circle, but certainly from the officer ranks down. That was inevitable in war—she had to plan every operation with the assumption that something would be leaked. The question was whether she could limit how much they knew. If she could trust Cholang and Venka, then she could break up a plan into pieces to give her generals limited, but sufficient, information.

“We split this army into seven parts,” she said. “Nezha could get lucky with a random pick if we split into just two or three. Seven makes guessing much harder.”

“The consequence, of course, is that you send at least a seventh of your army to certain death,” said Kitay.

She paused, then nodded. They’d have to stomach that. They had to accept that they wouldn’t only lose troops—they’d lose good officers, too, because a clear imbalance in power distribution would appear all too suspicious.

There was no way around it. They had to absorb the risk, and hope that the other six squadrons made it across to rendezvous outside Arlong.

“Let’s assume the worst,” Kitay continued. “Assume Nezha realizes we’ve got to set up decoys, and he splits his forces accordingly. Suppose you end up with only three squadrons at the rendezvous. How do you distribute those along Arlong’s forces?”

“We don’t have to conquer Arlong,” Rin said. “We just have to poison the grotto. And you don’t need six squadrons for that, you just need one.”

“Fine.” He nodded grimly. “So let’s figure out how to get the one.”

For the next three hours they hashed out an itinerary over the most detailed maps they could find. One squadron, led by Venka, would cross over the Sage’s Ford. That was where Nezha would expect them to go—it was the shallowest crossing, the one that didn’t involve bridge-building equipment. But the obviousness of that strategy, combined with the fact that Rin was visibly absent, should be enough to deter Nezha from striking hardest at Venka. They would dispatch three other squadrons to wide bridges, and one to a narrow ford crossing, and one to a stretch along the Murui where there was no crossing at all.

During the long march, Kitay had come up with an ingenious design for a self-supporting bridge that could be assembled in minutes from portable wooden crossbeams. They hadn’t used it in the mountains for want of lumber, but now they had plenty. If the bridge didn’t exist, they’d build it.

“And where do we cross?” Kitay asked.

“Anywhere.” Rin nudged the pieces. “Does it matter? It’s a one-in-seven chance no matter where we go.”

He shook his head. “One in seven is too high. There must be some way to reduce it to zero.”

“There’s not.” She understood his urge for perfectionism, knew he’d be anxious unless he resolved every last variable, but she also knew better than to underestimate Nezha a second time. They could make their chances pretty good by avoiding the bulk of the Republican defense line, assuming their intelligence was accurate, but otherwise one in seven would have to be good enough.

“We’ll take the narrow bridge at Nüwa’s Waist,” she decided. “Our squadron won’t have to move any heavy artillery, so the width constraints won’t matter.”

“Then how do you want to cross?” he asked.

“What are you talking about? There’s a bridge.”

“But suppose they blow up the bridge in advance,” he said. “Or suppose they’ve got soldiers stationed all around it. How do we get around that?”

These questions were rhetorical, Rin realized. Kitay leaned back, watching her with a familiar, anticipatory grin.

“You are not sending me up in a kite,” she said.

He beamed. “I’m thinking something bigger.”

“No,” she said immediately. “You’ve never gotten that thing up in the air. And I’m not dying in a Hesperian death trap.”

His grin widened. “Come on, Rin. Trust me. I gave you wings once.”

“Yes, and that’s how I got this scar!”

He reached over and patted her on the shoulder. “Then it’s a good thing you’ve never cared much about looking pretty.”

Six squadrons dispersed the next morning to designated crossing points spread out over a ten-mile radius. Most had a good chance of making it across. Kitay had sent crews out to decoy crossing points the night before to chop haphazardly at nearby bamboo groves. Bamboo made good material for temporary bridges or fording walkways. Nezha’s scouts would see the cut forests and, hopefully, anticipate bridge crossings that would never happen.

Rin, Dulin, and Pipaji, accompanied by just enough troops to drag the dirigible along in three carts, headed straight south.

Five miles from their camp outside Xuzhou was a shallow stretch of river called Nüwa’s Waist, named for the way it curved sharply to the east. The bridge had indeed been dismantled, but the water there was only about knee-deep. Despite the swollen, monsoon-drenched rapids, well-prepared troops with flotation bags could wade across without being swept away.

It was a boring plan. Good enough not to arouse suspicion, but also not optimal. They weren’t going to take it.

They detached from a decoy crew at Nüwa’s Waist and continued marching two miles farther south, where the river was wider and faster. Earlier that morning, Kitay had dismantled his dirigible and loaded the parts into three wagons. They spent two hours on the riverbanks reconstructing it according to his careful instructions. Rin felt every second ticking by like an internal clock as they worked, nervously watching the opposite bank for Republican troops. But Kitay took his sweet time, fiddling with every bolt and yanking at every rope until he was satisfied.

“All right.” He stood back, dusting the oil off his hands. “Safe enough. Everyone in.”

The shamans stood back, staring at the basket with considerable hesitation.

“There’s no way that thing actually flies,” Dulin muttered.

“Of course they fly,” Pipaji said. “You’ve seen them fly.”

“I’ve seen the good ones fly,” Dulin pointed out. “That thing’s a fucking mess.”

Rin had to admit Kitay’s repairs did not give her much confidence. The airship’s original balloon had ripped badly in the explosion at Tianshan. He’d patched it up with cowhide so that, fully inflated, it looked like a hideous, half-flayed animal.

“Hurry up,” Kitay said, annoyed.

Rin swallowed her doubts and stepped into the basket. “Come on, kids. It’s a short trip.”

They didn’t need a smooth, seamless flight. They just needed to get up in the air. If they crashed, at least they’d crash on the other side.

Reluctantly, Pipaji and Dulin followed. Kitay took a seat in the steering chamber and yanked at several levers. The engine roared to life, then maintained a deafening, ground-shaking hum. From a distance, the engine noise had always sounded like bees. Up close, Rin didn’t hear the drone so much as she felt it, vibrating through every bone in her body.

Kitay twisted around, waved his hands over his head, and mouthed, Hold on.

The balloon inflated with a whoosh above their heads. The carriage tilted hard to the right, lurched off the ground, then wobbled in the air as Kitay worked frantically to stabilize their flight. Rin clutched the handrail and tried not to vomit.

“We’re fine!” Kitay shouted over the engine.

“Guys?” Pipaji pointed over the side of the carriage. “We’ve got company.”

Something shot past her head as she spoke. The rope by her arm snapped, ends frayed by an invisible arrow. Pipaji flinched back, shrieking.

“Get down,” Rin ordered. That was redundant—everyone had already dropped to the carriage floor, arms over their heads as bullets whizzed above them.

Rin crawled to the far edge of the basket and pressed her eye against a slit in the carriage. She saw a mass of blue uniforms racing toward the riverbanks, arquebuses pointed to the sky.

Fuck. Nezha must have deployed troops along every stretch of the river once he’d realized the Southern Army had split into parts. And their aircraft was now visible from miles off, a clear target hanging plump in the air.

Another round of fire rocked the basket. Someone screamed in pain. Rin glanced over her shoulder to see one of her soldiers clutching his leg, his foot a bloody mess below the ankle.

“Use the cannons!” Kitay shouted, wrestling at the levers. He was managing to steer, but badly—the dirigible veered sharply east, wrenching them closer to both the opposite shore and the ambush. “They’re loaded!”

“I don’t know how!” Rin screamed back. But she ducked down beside him and fumbled at the cannons regardless. Ingenious, she thought, dazed. The handles let her swerve the gun mouths nearly 360 degrees, aiming at anything except herself.

Squinting, she aimed one cannon as best she could toward the ground platoon and funneled a stream of fire into the barrel.

The blowback flung her against the wall of the carriage. She scrambled to her knees, clambered forth, and grabbed the handle of the second cannon. Same process. This time she knew to drop down before the blowback could hit her. She couldn’t see the fallout, not from where she was crouched, but the ensuing crash and screams promised good results.

The carriage lurched to the left. Rin careened into Kitay’s side.

“The balloon,” Kitay gasped. He’d given up with the levers. “They’ve pierced it, we’re falling—”

She opened her mouth to respond just as they tilted again, veering hard in the other direction.

“Get out,” Kitay said sharply.

She understood. Together they scrambled out of the steering chamber into the main carriage. They had no hope of flying this thing anymore; they just had to hold steady until they got near enough to the ground. Closer, closer—

Rin jumped from the basket, landing knees bent, hoping to distribute the impact across her body. It didn’t work. Pain shocked through both her ankles, so intense that she doubled over for several seconds, screaming wordlessly, before she caught a grip on herself. “Kitay—”

“Right here.” He clambered to his knees, coughing. Scorch marks streaked through his wiry hair. He pointed at something behind her. “Take care of—”

Rin reached out with her palm. Fire exploded out, arced around them in a parabola, and pushed forth twenty, then thirty yards. Rin forced as much fury as she could into that inferno, made it wickedly, devastatingly hot. If anyone in the Republican ambush had survived the airship cannons, they were ashes now.

“Enough.” Kitay put a hand on her arm. “That’s enough.”

Rin called the flame back in.

Pipaji and Dulin climbed out of the basket, coughing. Pipaji moved with a limp, hopping along with her arm slung over Dulin’s shoulder, but neither looked seriously wounded. A handful of soldiers filtered out of the dirigible behind them,

Rin loosed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t been too high up before they’d crashed. This could have been so much worse.

“General?” Pipaji pointed at the wreck behind her. “There—there’s someone . . .”

Only one of the soldiers hadn’t made it out. He lay pinned under the side of the engine. He was still conscious—he groaned, face twisting in anguish. His legs were a ruin under the mass of warped steel.

Rin recognized him. He was one of Qinen’s friends, one of the young, stubble-chinned men who had unhesitatingly followed her all the way from Leiyang to Mount Tianshan.

Ashamed, she realized she couldn’t remember his name.

Together the soldiers strained against the side of the carriage, but nobody could move it. And what was the point? It had crushed more than half of the soldier’s body. Rin could see fragments of his hip bone littered across the scorched earth. They couldn’t possibly get him to Lianhua in time. There was no recovery from this.

“Please,” said the soldier.

“I understand,” Rin said, and knelt down to slit his throat.

Once she would have hesitated; now she didn’t even blink. His agony was so obvious, and death so necessary. She jerked her knife through his jugular, waited several seconds for the blood to run its course, then pulled the soldier’s eyes shut.

She stood up. Dulin’s eyes were huge. Pipaji had a hand clamped over her mouth.

“Let’s go,” Rin said curtly. “Time to kill a dragon.”