The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War Trilogy #2)

The Swallow’s crew planned to keep sailing upstream until they weren’t surrounded by dead fish, or until the poison’s source became apparent. The facility would have to be near a main river juncture, and close enough to the Murui that there would be no chance the poison would wash out to the ocean or get blocked up in a dead end. They traveled north up the Murui until they reached the border of Hare Province, where the river branched off into several tributaries.

Here the skimmers split up. The Swallow took the westernmost route, a lazy bending creek that trailed slowly through the province’s interior heartland. They went cautiously with their flag stowed away, disguising themselves as a merchant ship to avoid Imperial suspicion.

Captain Salkhi kept a clean, tightly disciplined ship. The Fourteenth Brigade rotated shifts on deck, either watching the shoreline or paddling down below. The soldiers and crew accepted the Cike into their fold with wary indifference. If they had questions about what the shamans could or couldn’t do, they kept them to themselves.

“Seen anything?” Rin joined Kitay at the starboard railing, legs aching after a long paddling shift. She should have gone to sleep, according to the schedule, but midmorning was the only time that their breaks overlapped.

She was relieved that she and Kitay were on friendly terms again. They hadn’t returned to normal—she didn’t know if they would ever return to normal—but at least Kitay didn’t emanate cold judgment every time he looked at her.

“Not yet.” He stood utterly still, eyes fixed on the water, as if he could trace a path to the chemical source through sheer force of will. He was angry. Rin could tell when he was angry—his cheeks went a pale white, he held himself too rigidly, and he went long periods without blinking. She was just glad that he wasn’t angry with her.

“Look.” She pointed. “I don’t think this is the right tributary.”

Dark shapes moved under the muggy green water. Which meant the river life was still alive and healthy, unaffected by poison.

Kitay leaned forward. “What’s that?”

Rin followed his gaze but couldn’t tell what he was looking at.

He pulled a netted pole from the bulkhead, scooped it into the water, and plucked out a small object. At first Rin thought he’d caught a fish, but when Kitay deposited it onto the deck she saw it was some kind of dark and leathery pouch, about the size of a pomelo, knotted tightly at the end so that it looked oddly like a breast.

Kitay pinched it up with two fingers.

“That’s clever,” he said. “Gross, but clever.”

“What is it?”

“It’s incredible. This has to be a Sinegard graduate’s work. Or a Yuelu graduate. No one else is this smart.” He held the object toward her. She recoiled. It smelled awful—a combination of rank animal odor and the sharp, acrid smell of poison that brought back memories of embalmed pig fetuses from her medical classes with Master Enro.

She wrinkled her nose. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Pig’s bladder.” Kitay turned it over in his palm and gave it a shake. “Resistant to acid, at least to some degree. It’s why the poison hasn’t been diluted before it reached Arlong.”

He rubbed the edge of the bladder between his fingers. “This stays intact so the agent doesn’t dissolve into the water until it reaches downstream. It was meant to last several days, a week at most.”

The bladder popped open under the pressure. Liquid spilled out onto Kitay’s hand, making his skin hiss and pucker. A yellow cloud seeped into the air. The acrid odor intensified. Kitay cursed and flung the bladder back out over the side of the ship, then hastily wiped his skin against his uniform.

“Fuck.” He examined his hand, which had developed a pale, angry rash.

Rin yanked him away from the gas cloud. To her relief, it dissipated in seconds. “Tiger’s tits, are you—”

“I’m fine. It’s not deep, I don’t think.” Kitay cradled his hand inside his elbow and winced. “Go get Salkhi. I think we’re getting close.”

Salkhi split the Fourteenth Brigade into squads of six that dispersed through the surrounding region for a ground expedition. The Cike found the poison source first. It was visible the moment they emerged from the tree line—a blocky, three-story building with bell towers at both ends, erected in the architectural style of the old Hesperian missions.

At the southern wall, a single pipe extended over the river—a channel meant to move waste and sewage into the water. Instead, it dispensed poisonous pods into the river with a mechanical regularity.

Someone, or something, was dropping them off from inside.

“This is it.” Kitay motioned for the rest of the Cike to crouch low behind the bushes. “We’ve got to get someone in there.”

“What about the guard?” Rin whispered.

“What guard? There’s no one there.”

He was right. The mission looked barely garrisoned. Rin could count the soldiers on one hand, and after half an hour of scoping the perimeter, they didn’t find any others on patrol.

“That makes no sense,” she said.

“Maybe they just don’t have the men,” Kitay said.

“Then why poke the dragon?” Baji asked. “If they don’t have backup, that strike was idiotic. This whole town is dead.”

“Maybe it’s an ambush,” Rin said.

Kitay looked unconvinced. “But they’re not expecting us.”

“It could be protocol. They might all just be hiding inside.”

“That’s not how you lay out defenses. You only do that if you’re under siege.”

“So you want us to attack a building with minimal intelligence? What if there’s a platoon in there?”

Kitay pulled a flare rocket from his pocket. “I know a way to find out.”

“Hold on,” Ramsa said. “Captain Salkhi said not to engage.”

“Fuck Salkhi,” Kitay said with a violence that was utterly unlike him. Before Rin could stop him he lit the fuse, aimed, and loosed the flare toward the patch of woods behind the mission.

A bang rocked the forest. Several seconds later Rin heard shouts from inside the mission. Then a group of men armed with farming implements emerged from the doors and ran toward the explosion.

“There’s your guard,” Kitay said.

Rin hoisted her trident. “Oh, fuck you.”

Kitay counted under his breath as he watched the men. “About fifteen. There are twenty-four of us.” He glanced back at Baji and Suni. “Think you can keep them out of the mission until the others get here?”

“Don’t insult us,” Baji said. “Go.”

Only two guards remained at the mission’s doors. Kitay dispatched one with his crossbow. Rin grappled with the other for a few minutes until at last she disarmed him and slammed her trident into his throat. She wrenched it back out and he dropped.

The doors stood wide open before them. Rin peered into the dark interior. The smell of rotting corpses hit her like a wall, so thick and sharp that her eyes watered. She covered her mouth with her sleeve. “You coming?”

Thud.

She turned. Kitay stood over the second guard, crossbow pointed down, wiping flecks of blood off his chin with the back of his hand. He caught her staring at him.

“Just making sure,” he said.

Inside they found a slaughterhouse.

Rin’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Then she saw pig carcasses everywhere she looked—tossed on the floor, piled up in the corners, splayed over tables, all sliced open with surgical precision.

“Tiger’s tits,” she muttered.

Someone had killed them all solely for their bladders. The sheer waste amazed her. So much rotting meat was piled on these floors, and refugees in the next province over were so thin their ribs pushed through their ragged garments.

“Found them,” Kitay said.

She followed his line of sight across the room. A dozen open barrels stood lined up against the wall. They contained the poison in liquid form—a noxious yellow concoction that sent toxic fumes spiraling lazily into the air above them. Above the barrels were shelves and shelves of metal canisters. More than Rin could count.

Rin had seen those canisters before, stacked neatly on shelves just like these. She’d stared up at them for hours while Mugenese scientists strapped her to a bed and forced opiates into her veins.

Kitay’s face had turned a greenish color. He knew that gas from Golyn Niis.

“I wouldn’t touch that.” A figure emerged from the stairwell opposite them. Kitay jerked his crossbow up. Rin crouched back, trident poised to throw as she squinted to make out the figure’s face in the darkness.

The figure stepped into the light. “Took you long enough.”

Kitay let his arms drop. “Niang?”

Rin wouldn’t have recognized her. War had transformed Niang. Even into their third year at Sinegard, Niang had always looked like a child—innocent, round-faced, and adorable. She’d never looked like she belonged at a military academy. Now she just looked like a soldier, scarred and hardened like the rest of them.

“Please tell me you’re not behind this,” said Kitay.

“What? The pods?” Niang traced her fingers over the edge of a barrel. Her hands were covered in angry red welts. “Clever design, wasn’t it? I was hoping someone might notice.”

As Niang moved farther into light, Rin saw that the welts hadn’t just formed on her hands. Her neck and face were mottled red, as if her skin had been scraped raw with the flat side of a blade.

“Those canisters,” Rin said. “They’re from the Federation.”

“Yes, they really saved us some labor, didn’t they?” Niang chuckled. “They produced thousands of barrels of that stuff. The Hare Warlord wanted to use it to invade Arlong, but I was smarter about it. Put it into the water, I said. Starve them out. The really hard part was converting it from a gas into a liquid. That took me weeks.”

Niang pulled a canister off the wall and weighed it in her hand, as if preparing to throw. “Think you could do better?”

Rin and Kitay flinched simultaneously.

Niang lowered her arm, snickering. “Kidding.”

“Put that down,” Kitay said quietly. His voice was taut, carefully controlled. “Let’s talk. Let’s just talk, Niang. I know someone put you up to this. You don’t have to do this.”

“I know that,” Niang said. “I volunteered. Or did you think I’d sit back and let traitors divide the Empire?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rin said.

“I know enough.” Niang lifted the canister higher. “I know you threatened to starve out the north so they’d bow to the Dragon Warlord. I know you’re going to invade our provinces if you don’t get your way.”

“So your solution is to poison the entire south?” Kitay asked.

“You’re one to talk,” Niang snarled. “You made us starve. You sold us that blighted grain. How does it feel getting a taste of your own medicine?”

“The embargo was just a threat,” Kitay said. “No one has to die.”

“People have died!” Niang pointed a finger at Rin. “How many did she kill on that island?”

Rin blinked. “Who gives a fuck about the Federation?”

“There were Militia troops there, too. Thousands of them.” Niang’s voice trembled. “The Federation took prisoners of war, shipped them over to labor camps. They took my brothers. Did you give them a chance to get off the island?”

“I . . .” Rin cast Kitay a desperate look. “That’s not true.”

Was it true?

Surely someone would have told her if it were true.

Kitay wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She swallowed. “Niang, I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t know!” Niang screamed. The canister swung perilously in her hand. “That makes it all better, doesn’t it?”

Kitay held a palm out, crossbow lowered. “Niang, please, put that down.”

Niang shook her head. “This is your fault. We just fought a war. Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?”

“We don’t want to kill you,” Rin said. “Please—”

“How generous!” Niang lifted the canister over her head. “She doesn’t want to kill me! The Republic will take pity on—”

“Fuck this,” Kitay muttered. In one fluid movement he lifted his crossbow, aimed, and shot an arrow straight into Niang’s left breast.

The thud echoed like a final heartbeat.

Niang’s eyes bulged open. She tilted her head down, examined her chest as if idly curious. Her knees gave out beneath her. The canister slipped from her hand and rolled to a halt by the wall.

The canister’s lid burst off with a pop. Yellow smoke streamed out from it, rapidly filling the far end of the room.

Kitay lowered his crossbow. “Let’s go.”

They ran. Rin glanced over her shoulder just as they passed the door. The gas was almost too thick to see clearly, but she couldn’t mistake the sight of Niang, twitching and jerking in a shroud of acid eating ravenously into her skin. Red spots blooming mercilessly across her body, as if she were a paper doll dropped in a pool of ink.

Light rain misted the air over the Swallow as it drifted down the tributary to rejoin the main fleet.

The crew had argued briefly over what to do with the canisters. They couldn’t just leave them in the mission, but none of them wanted to have the gas on board. Finally Ramsa had suggested that they destroy the mission with a controlled burn. This was purportedly to deter anyone from approaching it until Jinzha could send a squadron to retrieve any remaining canisters, but Rin suspected that Ramsa just wanted an excuse to blow something up.

So they’d drenched the place in oil, piled kindling on the roof and in the makeshift slaughterhouse, and then fired flaming crossbow bolts from the ship once they were a safe sailing distance away.

The building had caught fire immediately, a lovely conflagration that remained visible from miles away. The rain hadn’t yet managed to smother all of the flame. Little bursts of red still burned at the base of the building and smoke stretched out to embrace the sky from the towers.

A crack of thunder split the sky. Seconds later the light drizzle turned into fat, hard drops that slammed loudly and relentlessly against the deck. Captain Salkhi ordered the crew to set out barrels to capture fresh water. Most of the crew descended to their cabins, but Rin sat down on the deck, pulled her knees up to her chest, and tilted her head back. Raindrops hit the back of her throat, wonderfully fresh and cool. She gargled the rainwater, let it splash over her face and clothes. She knew the poison hadn’t tainted her or she would have seen its effects, but somehow she couldn’t feel clean.

“I thought you hated water,” Kitay said.

She looked up. He stood over her, a miserable, drenched mess. He still had his crossbow clenched in his hands.

“You all right?” she asked.

His eyes were dead things. “No.”

“Sit with me.”

He obeyed without a word. Only when he was next to her did she see how violently he was trembling.

“I’m sorry about Niang,” she said.

He jerked out a shrug. “I’m not.”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I barely knew her.”

“You did like her. I remember. You thought she was cute. You told me that at school.”

“Yes, and then that bitch went and poisoned half the country.”

He tilted his head upward. His eyes were red, and she couldn’t tell his tears apart from the rain. He took a long, shuddering breath.

Then he broke.

“I can’t keep doing this.” The words spilled out of him between choked, sudden sobs. “I can’t sleep. I can’t go a second without seeing Golyn Niis. I close my eyes and I’m hiding behind that wall again and the screams don’t stop because the killing goes on all night—”

Rin reached for his hand. “Kitay . . .”

“It’s like I’m frozen in one moment. And no one knows it because everyone else has moved on except me, but to me everything that’s happened since Golyn Niis is a dream, and I know it’s not real because I’m still behind the wall. And the worst part—the worst part is that I don’t know who’s causing the screams. It was easier when only the Federation was evil. Now I can’t figure out who’s right or wrong, and I’m the smart one, I’m always supposed to have the right answer, but I don’t.”

She didn’t know what she could possibly say to comfort him, so she curled her fingers around his and held them tight. “Me neither.”

“What happened on that island?” he asked abruptly.

“You know what happened.”

“No. You never told me.” He straightened up. “Was it conscious? Did you think about what you were doing?”

“I don’t remember,” she said. “I try not to remember.”

“Did you know you were killing them?” he pressed. “Or did you just . . .” His fingers clenched into a fist and then unclenched beneath hers.

“I just wanted it to be over,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want to hurt them, not really, I just wanted it to end.”

“I didn’t want to kill her. I just—I don’t know why I—”

“I know.”

“That wasn’t me,” he insisted, but she wasn’t the one he needed to convince.

All she could do was squeeze his hand again. “I know.”

Signals were sent, courses were reversed. Within a day the dispersed skimmers had fled hastily down the Murui to rejoin the main armada.

When Rin saw the Republican Fleet from the front it seemed deceptively small, ships arranged in a narrow formation. Then they approached from the side and the full menace of the flotilla was splayed out in front of her, a marvelous and breathtaking display of force. Compared to the warships, the Swallow was just a tiny thing, a baby bird returning to the flock.

Captain Salkhi lit several lanterns to signal their return, and the patrol ships at the fore signaled back their permission to break through the line. The Swallow slipped into the ranks. An hour later Jinzha boarded their ship. The crew assembled on deck to report.

“We’ve stopped the poison at the source, but there may be canisters left in the ruins,” Salkhi told Jinzha. “You’ll want to send a squadron up there to see if you can retrieve it.”

“Were they producing it themselves?” Jinzha asked.

“That’s unlikely,” Salkhi said. “That wasn’t a research facility, it was a makeshift slaughterhouse. It seems like that was just the distribution point.”

“We think they got it from the Federation facility on the coast,” said Rin. “The one where I was— The one they took me to.”

Jinzha frowned. “That’s all the way out in Snake Province. Why bring it here?”

“They couldn’t have set it off in Snake Province,” Kitay said. “The current takes the poison out to sea instead of to Arlong. So someone must have gone there recently, retrieved the canisters, and carted them over to Hare Province.”

“I hope that’s right,” said Jinzha. “I don’t want to entertain the alternative.”

Because the alternative, of course, was terrifying—that they were fighting a war not only against the Empire, but also against the Federation. That the Federation had survived, and had retained its weapons, and was sending them to Vaisra’s enemies.

“Did you take prisoners?” Jinzha asked.

Salkhi nodded. “Two guardsmen. They’re in the brig. We’ll turn them over for interrogation.”

“There’s no need for that.” Jinzha waved a hand. “We know what we need to know. Bring them out to the beach.”

“Your brother has a flair for public spectacle,” Kitay told Nezha.

The screaming had been going on for more than an hour now. Rin had almost gotten used to it, though it made it difficult to stomach her dinner.

The Hare Province guardsmen were strung up against posts in the ground, beaten for good measure. Jinzha had stripped them, flayed them, then poured diluted poison from one of the pods into a flask and boiled it. Now it ran in rivulets down the guardsmen’s skin, tracing a steaming, angrily red path over their cheeks, their collarbones, down toward their exposed genitals, while the Republican soldiers sat back on the beach and watched.

“This wasn’t necessary,” Nezha said. His dinner rations sat untouched beside him. “This is grotesque.”

Kitay laughed, a flat, hollow noise. “Don’t be naive.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is necessary. The Republic’s just taken a massive blow. Vaisra can’t undo the poisoning of the river, or the fact that thousands of people are going to starve. But give a few men a little pain, do it in public, and it’ll all be all right.”

“Does it make it all right to you?” Rin asked.

Kitay shrugged. “They poisoned a fucking river.”

Nezha wrapped his arms around his knees. “Salkhi says you were in there for a while.”

Rin nodded. “We saw Niang. Meant to tell you that.”

Nezha blinked, surprised. “And how is she?”

“Dead,” said Kitay. He was still staring at the men on the posts.

Nezha watched him for a moment, then raised an eyebrow at Rin. She understood his question. She shook her head.

“I hadn’t thought about fighting our own classmates,” Nezha murmured after a pause. “Who else do we know in the north? Kureel, Arda . . .”

“My cousins,” Kitay said without turning around. “Han. Tobi. Most of the rest of our class, if they’re still alive.”

“I suppose it’s not easy going to war against friends,” Nezha said.

“Yes, it is,” Kitay said. “They have a choice. Niang made her choice. She just happened to be dead fucking wrong.”