The Poppy War (The Poppy War Trilogy #1)
The Poppy War: Part 2 – Chapter 13

Clang.

Rin barely got her sword up in time to stop Altan’s trident from slicing her face in half. She did her best to ground herself, to dispel the ki of the blow evenly across her body and into the dirt, but even so, her legs trembled from the impact.

She and Altan had been at this for hours, it seemed. Her arms ached; her lungs seized for air.

But Altan wasn’t done. He shifted the trident, caught the blade of her sword between two prongs, and twisted hard. The pressure wrenched the sword out of Rin’s hands and sent it clattering against the ground. Altan pressed the tip of his trident to her throat. She raised her arms hastily in surrender.

“You’re reacting based on fear,” Altan said. “You’re not controlling this fight. You need to clear your mind and concentrate. Concentrate on me. Not my weapon.”

“It’s a bit hard when you’re trying to jab my eyes out,” she muttered, pushing his trident away from her face.

Altan lowered his weapon. “You’re still hedging. You’re resisting. You’ve got to let the Phoenix in. When you’ve called the god, when the god is walking in you, that’s a state of ecstasy. It’s a ki amplifier. You don’t get tired. You’re capable of extraordinary exertion. You don’t feel pain. You have to sink into that state.”

Rin could recall vividly the state of mind he wanted her to embrace. The burning feeling in her veins, the red lenses that shielded her vision. How other people became not people but targets. How she didn’t need rest, only pain, pain to fuel the fire.

The only times Rin had consciously been in this state were during the Trials, and then again at Sinegard. Both times she had been furious, desperate.

She hadn’t been able to rekindle the same state of mind since. She hadn’t been that angry since. She had only been confused, agitated, and, like right now, exhausted.

“Learn to tame it,” Altan said. “Learn to sink in and out of it. If you’re focused only on your enemy’s weapon, you’ll always be on the defensive. Look past the weapon to your target. Focus on what you want to kill.”

Altan was a much better teacher than Jiang. Jiang was frustratingly vague, absentminded, and deliberately obtuse. Jiang liked to dance around the answers, liked to make her circle around the truth like a starving vulture before he would give her a gratifying morsel of understanding.

But Altan wasted no time. He cut straight to the chase, gave her precisely the answers that she wanted. He understood her fears, and he knew what she was capable of.

Training with Altan was like training with an older brother. It was so bizarre for someone to tell her that they were the same—that his joints hyperextended like hers did, so she should turn out her foot in such a way. To have similarities with someone else, similarities that lay deep in their genes, was an overwhelmingly wonderful sensation.

With Altan she felt as if she belonged—not just to the same division or army, but to something deeper and older. She felt situated within an ancient web of lineage. She had a place. She was not a nameless war orphan; she was a Speerly.

At least, everyone seemed to think so. But despite everything, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. She couldn’t call the god as easily as Altan could. Couldn’t move with the same grace as he could. Was that heritage, or training?

“Were you always like this?” she asked.

Altan appeared to tense. “Like what?”

“Like . . . you.” She gestured vaguely at him. “You’re—you’re not like the other students. Other soldiers. Could you always summon the fire? Could you always fight like you do?”

Altan’s expression was unreadable. “I trained at Sinegard for a long time.”

“But so did I!”

“You weren’t trained like a Speerly. But you’re a warrior, too. It’s in your blood. I’ll beat your heritage into you soon enough.” Altan gestured to her with his trident. “Weapons up.”

“Why a trident?” she asked when he finally let her take a break. “Why not a sword?” She hadn’t seen any other soldier who didn’t wield the standard Militia halberd and sword.

“Longer reach,” he said. “Opponents don’t come in close quarters when you’re fighting inside a silo of fire.”

She touched the prongs. The ends had been sharpened many times over; they were not shiny or smooth, but etched with the evidence of multiple battles. “Is that Speerly-made?”

It had to be. The trident was metal all the way through, not like Nikara weapons, which had wooden hilts. The trident was heavier, true, but Altan needed a weapon that wouldn’t burn through when he touched it.

“It came from the island,” he said. He poked her with the blunt end and gestured for her to pick up her sword. “Stop stalling. Come on, get up. Again.”

She threw her arms down in exhaustion. “Can’t we just get high?” she asked. She didn’t see how relentless physical training got her any closer to calling the Phoenix at all.

“No, we can’t just get high,” Altan said. He poked her again. “Lazy. That kind of thinking is a rookie mistake. Anyone can swallow some seeds and reach the Pantheon. That part’s easy. But forming a link with the god, channeling its power to your will and calling it back down—that takes discipline. Unless you’ve had practice honing your mind, it’s too easy for you to lose control. Think of it as a dam. The gods are sources of potential energy, like water flowing downhill. The drug is like the gate—it opens the way to let the gods through. But if your gate is too large, or flimsily constructed, then power rushes through unobstructed. The god ignores your will. Chaos ensues. Unless you want to burn down your own allies, you have to remember why you called the Phoenix. You’ve got to direct its power.”

“It’s like a prayer,” she said.

Altan nodded. “It’s exactly like a prayer. All prayer is simply repetition—a imposition of your demands upon the gods. The difference between shamans and everyone else is that our prayers actually work. Didn’t Jiang teach you this?”

Jiang had taught her the opposite of that. Jiang had asked her to clear her mind in meditation, to forget her own ego; to forget that she was a being separate from the universe. Jiang had taught her to erase her own will. Altan was asking her to impose her will on the gods.

“He only ever taught me to access the gods. Not to pull them back to our world.”

Altan looked amazed. “Then how did you call the Phoenix at Sinegard?”

“I wasn’t supposed to,” she said. “Jiang warned me not to. He said the gods weren’t meant to be weaponized. Only consulted. He was teaching me to calm myself, to find my connection to the larger cosmos and correct my imbalance, or . . . or whatever,” she finished lamely.

It was becoming apparent how little Jiang had really taught her. He hadn’t prepared her for this war at all. He had only tried to restrain her from wielding the power that she now knew she could access.

“That’s useless.” Altan looked disdainful. “Jiang was a scholar. I am a soldier. He was concerned with theology; I am concerned with how to destroy.” He opened his fist, turned it outward, and a small ring of fire danced over the lines of his palm. With his other hand he extended his trident. The flame raced from the ends of his fingers, danced across his shoulders, and licked all the way out to the trident’s three prongs.

She marveled at the utter command Altan held over the fire, the way he shaped it like a sculptor might shape clay, how he bent it to his will with the slightest movement of his fingers. When she had summoned the Phoenix, the fire had poured out of her in an uncontrolled flood. But Altan controlled it like an extension of his own self.

“Jiang was right to be cautious,” he said. “The gods are unpredictable. The gods are dangerous. And there’s no one who understands them, not fully. But we at the Night Castle have practiced the weaponization of the gods to an art. We have come closer to understanding the gods than the old monks ever did. We have developed the power to rewrite the fabric of this world. If we don’t use it, then what’s the point?”

After two weeks of hard marching, four days of sailing, and another three days’ march, they reached Khurdalain’s city gates shortly before nightfall. When they emerged from the tree line toward the main road, Rin glimpsed the ocean for the first time.

She stopped walking.

Sinegard and Tikany were both landlocked regions. Rin had seen rivers and lakes, but never such a large body of water as this. She gaped openmouthed at that great expanse of blue, stretching on farther than she could see, farther than she could imagine.

Altan halted beside her. He glanced down at her dumbfounded expression, and he smiled. “Never seen the ocean before?”

She couldn’t look away. She felt like she had the first day she had glimpsed Sinegard in all of its splendor, like she had been dropped into a fantastical world where the stories she’d heard were somehow true.

“I saw paintings,” she said. “I read descriptions. In Tikany the merchants would ride up from the coast and tell us about their adventures at sea. But this—I never dreamed anything could look like this.”

Altan took her hand and pointed it out toward the ocean. “The Federation of Mugen lies just across the narrow strait. If you climb the Kukhoni range, you can just glimpse it. And if you take a ship south of there, down close by Golyn Niis and into Snake Province, you’ll get to Speer.”

She couldn’t possibly see it from where they stood, but still she stared out over the shimmering water, imagining a small, lonely island in the South Nikan Sea. Speer had spent decades in isolation before the great continental powers tore the island apart in the struggle between them.

“What’s it like?”

“Speer? Speer was beautiful.” Altan’s voice was soft, wistful. “They call it the Dead Island now, but all I can remember of it is green. On one side of the island you could see the shore of the Nikara Empire; on the other was boundless water, a limitless horizon. We would take boats out and sail into that ocean without knowing what we would find; journeys into the endless dark to seek out the other side of the world. The Speerlies divided the night sky into sixty-four houses of constellations, one for each god. And as long as you could find the southern star of the Phoenix, you could always find your way back to Speer.”

Rin wondered what the Dead Island was like now. When Mugen destroyed Speer, had they destroyed the villages as well? Or did the huts and lodges still stand, ghost towns waiting for inhabitants who would never return?

“Why did you leave?” she asked.

She realized then that she knew very little about Altan. His survival was a mystery to her, just as her very existence was a mystery to everyone else.

He must have been very young when he came to Nikan, a refugee of the war that killed his people. He couldn’t have been older than four or five. Who had spirited him off that island? Why only him?

And why her?

But Altan didn’t answer. He stared silently at the darkening sky for a long moment and then turned back toward the path.

“Come on,” he said, and reached for her arm. “We’re going to fall behind.”

Officer Yenjen raised a Nikara flag outside the city walls, and then ordered his squadron to take cover behind the trees until they received a response. After a half hour’s wait, a slight girl, dressed head to toe in black, peeked out from the city gate. She motioned frantically for the party to hurry up and get inside, then quickly shut the gate once they were through.

“Your division is waiting in the old fishing district. That’s north of here. Follow the main road,” she instructed Officer Yenjen. Then she turned and saluted her commander. “Trengsin.”

“Qara.”

“That’s our Speerly?”

“That’s her.”

Qara tilted her head as she sized Rin up. She was a tiny woman—girl, really—reaching only to Rin’s shoulder. Her hair hung past her waist in a thick, dark braid. Her features were oddly elongated, not quite Nikara but not quite anything that Rin could put her finger on.

A massive hunting falcon sat perched on her left shoulder, tilting its head at Rin with a disdainful expression. Its eyes and Qara’s were an identical shade of gold.

“How are our people?”

“Fine,” said Qara. “Well. Mostly fine.”

“When’s your brother back?”

Qara’s falcon stretched its head up and then hunched back down, feathers raised as if unsettled. Qara reached up and stroked the bird’s neck.

“When he’s back,” she said.

Yenjen and his squadron had already disappeared down the winding alleys of the city. Qara motioned for Rin and Altan to follow her up a set of stairs adjacent to the city walls.

“Where is she from?” Rin muttered to Altan.

“She’s a Hinterlander,” Altan said, and grabbed her arm just as she stumbled against the rickety stairs. “Don’t trip.”

Qara led them up a high walkway that spanned over the first few blocks of Khurdalain. Once at the top, Rin turned and got her first good look at the port city.

Khurdalain could have been a foreign city uprooted at the foundations and dropped straight onto the other side of the world. It was a chimera of multiple architectural styles, a bizarre amalgamation of building types from different countries spanning continents. Rin saw churches of the kind she’d seen only sketches of in history textbooks, the proof of former Bolonian occupation. She saw buildings with spiraling columns, buildings with elegant monochrome towers with deep grooves etched in their sides instead of the sloping pagodas native to Sinegard. Sinegard was the beacon of the Nikara Empire, but Khurdalain was Nikan’s window to the rest of the world.

Qara led them across the walkway and onto a flat rooftop. They covered another block by running over the level-topped houses, built in the style of old Hesperia, and then dropped down to walk on the street when the buildings became too far apart. Between the gaps of the buildings, Rin could see the dying sun reflected in the ocean.

“This used to be a Hesperian settlement,” said Qara, pointing out over the wharf. The long strip was a waterfront boulevard, ringed with blocky storefronts. The walkway was built of thick wooden planks soggy from seawater. Everything in Khurdalain smelled faintly of the sea; the breeze itself was laced with a salty ocean tang. “That ring of buildings over there—the ones with those terraced roofs—those used to be the Bolonian consulates.”

“What happened?” Rin asked.

“The Dragon Emperor happened,” said Qara. “Don’t you know your history?”

The Dragon Emperor had expelled the foreigners from Nikan in the days of turmoil following the Second Poppy War, but Rin knew that a scattering of Hesperians still remained—missionaries intent on spreading the word of their Holy Maker.

“Are there still any Hesperians in the city?” she asked hopefully. She had never seen a Hesperian. Foreigners in Nikan were not permitted to travel as far north as Sinegard; they were restricted to trading at a handful of port cities, of which Khurdalain was the largest. She wondered if Hesperians were really pale-skinned and covered with fur, if their hair was really carrot red.

“A couple hundred,” Altan said, but Qara shook her head.

“Not anymore. They’ve cleared out since the attack on Sinegard. Their government sent a ship for them. Nearly tipped over, they were trying to cram so many people in. There are one or two of their missionaries left, and a few foreign ministers. They’re documenting what they see, sending it to their governments back at home. But that’s it.”

Rin remembered what Kitay had said about calling on Hesperia for aid, and snorted. “They think that’s helping?”

“They’re Hesperians,” said Qara. “They always think they’re helping.”

The old section of Khurdalain—the Nikara quarter—was set in low-rise buildings embedded inside a grid of alleyways, intersected by a webbed system of canals, so narrow that even a cart would have a hard time getting through. It made sense that the Nikara army had set up base in this part of the city. Even if the Federation knew vaguely where they were, their overwhelming numbers would be no advantage in these crooked, tunneling streets.

Architecture aside, Rin imagined that under normal circumstances, Khurdalain might be a louder, dirtier version of Sinegard. Before occupation, this place must have been a bustling hub of exchange, more exciting even than the Sinegardian downtown markets. But Khurdalain under siege was quiet and muted, almost sullenly so. She saw no civilians as they walked; they either had already evacuated or were heeding the warnings of the Militia, keeping their heads down and staying away from where Federation soldiers might see them.

Qara briefed them on the combat situation as they walked. “We’ve been under siege for almost a month now. We’ve got Federation encampments on three sides, all except the one you came from. Worst is that they’ve been steadily encroaching into urban areas. Khurdalain has high walls, but they have trebuchets.”

“How much of the city have they taken?” Altan asked.

“Only a narrow strip of beach by the sea, and half of the foreign quarter. We could take back the Bolonian embassies, but the Fifth Division won’t cooperate.”

“Won’t cooperate?”

Qara scowled. “We’re having some, ah, difficulties with integration. That new general of theirs doesn’t help. Jun Loran.”

Altan looked as dismayed as Rin felt. “Jun’s here?”

“Shipped in three days ago.”

Rin shuddered. At least she wasn’t serving directly under him. “Isn’t the Fifth from Tiger Province? Why isn’t the Tiger Warlord in command?”

“The Tiger Warlord is a three-year-old kid whose steward is a politician with no military experience. Jun has resumed command of his province’s army. The Ram and Ox Warlords are here too, with their provincial divisions, but they’ve been squabbling with each other over supplies more than they’ve been fighting the Federation. And no one can figure out an attack plan that doesn’t put civilian areas in the line of fire.”

“What are the civilians still doing here?” Rin asked. It seemed to her that the Militia’s job would be a lot easier if civilian protection were not a priority. “Why haven’t they evacuated, like the Sinegardians?”

“Because Khurdalain is not a city that you can easily leave,” said Qara. “Most of the people here make their living from fishing or in the factories. There’s no agriculture out here. If they move further inland, they have nothing. Most of the peasants moved here to escape rural squalor in the first place. If we ask them to leave, they’ll starve. The people are determined to stay, and we’ll just have to make sure they stay alive.”

Qara’s falcon cocked its head suddenly, as if it heard something. When she walked forward several paces Rin could hear it, too: raised voices coming from behind the general’s compound. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the FɪndNøvel.ɴᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Cike!”

Rin cringed. She would recognize that voice anywhere.

General Jun Loran stormed down the alley toward them, purple-faced with fury.

“Ow-ow!”

By his side, Jun dragged a scrawny boy by the ear, jerking him along with brutal tugs. The boy wore an eyepatch over his left eye, and his right eye watered in pain as he tottered along behind Jun.

Altan stopped short. “Tiger’s tits.”

“Ramsa,” Qara swore under her breath. Rin couldn’t tell if it was a name or a curse in Qara’s language.

“You.” Jun stopped in front of Qara. “Where is your commander?”

Altan stepped forward. “That’d be me.”

“Trengsin?” Jun regarded Altan with open disbelief. “You’re joking. Where’s Tyr?”

A spasm of irritation flickered across Altan’s face. “Tyr is dead.”

“What?”

Altan crossed his arms. “No one bothered to tell you?”

Jun ignored the jibe. “He’s dead? How?”

“Occupational hazard,” Altan said, which Rin suspected meant that he didn’t have a clue.

“So they put the Cike in the hands of a child,” Jun muttered. “Incredible.”

Altan looked between Jun and the boy, who was still bent over by Jun’s side, whimpering in pain. “What’s this about?”

“My men caught him elbows-deep in their munitions stores,” Jun said. “Third time this week.”

“I thought it was our munitions wagon!” the boy protested.

“You don’t have a munitions wagon,” Jun snapped. “We established that the first two times.”

Qara sighed and rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand.

“I wouldn’t have to steal if they’d just share,” the boy said plaintively, appealing to Altan. His voice was thin and reedy, and his good eye was huge in his thin face. “I can’t do my job if I don’t have fire powder.”

“If your men are lacking equipment, you might have thought to bring it from the Night Castle.”

“We used up all ours at the embassy,” the boy grumbled. “Remember?”

Jun jerked the boy’s ear downward, and the boy howled in pain.

Altan reached behind his back for his trident. “Let go, Jun.”

Jun glanced at the trident, and the side of his mouth quirked up. “Are you threatening me?”

Altan did not extend his weapon—to point his blade at a commander of another division would be the highest treason—but he didn’t take his hand off the shaft. Rin thought she saw fire flicker momentarily across his fingertips. “I’m making a request.”

Jun took one step back, but did not let go of the boy. “Your men do not have access to Fifth Division supplies.”

“And disciplining him is my prerogative, not yours,” said Altan. “Unhand him. Now, Jun.”

Jun made a disgusted noise and let go of the boy, who skirted away quickly and scampered over to Altan’s side, rubbing the side of his head with a rueful expression.

“Last time they hung me up by my ankles in the town square,” the boy complained. He sounded like a child tattling on a classmate to a teacher.

Altan looked outraged.

“Would you treat the First or Eighth like this?” he demanded.

“The First and Eighth have better sense than to root around in the Fifth’s equipment,” Jun snapped. “Your men have been causing nothing but trouble since they got here.”

“We’ve been doing our damn job!” the boy burst out. “You’re the ones hiding behind walls like bloody cowards.”

“Quiet, Ramsa,” Altan snapped.

Jun barked out a short, derisive laugh. “You are a squad of ten. Do not overestimate your value to this Militia.”

“Be that as it may, we serve the Empress just as you do,” Altan said. “We left the Night Castle to be your reinforcements. So you’ll treat my men with respect, or the Empress will hear of it.”

“Of course. You’re the Empress’s special brats,” Jun drawled. “Reinforcements. What a joke.”

He shot a last disdainful look at Altan and stalked off. He pretended not to see Rin.

“So that’s been the last week,” Qara said with a sigh.

“I thought you said everything was fine,” Altan said.

“I exaggerated.”

Ramsa peered up at his commander. “Hi, Trengsin,” he said cheerfully. “Glad you’re back.”

Altan pressed his hands against his face and then tilted his head up, inhaling deeply. His arms dropped. He sighed. “Where’s my office?”

“Down that alley to the left,” said Ramsa. “Cleared out the old customs office. You’ll like it. We brought your maps.”

“Thanks,” Altan said. “Where are the Warlords stationed?”

“The old government complex around the corner. They’ve been holding councils on the regular. They don’t really invite us, on account of, well. You know.” Ramsa trailed off, suddenly looking very guilty.

Altan shot Qara a questioning look.

“Ramsa blew up half the foreign quarter at the docks,” she reported. “Didn’t give the Warlords advance warning.”

“I blew up one building.”

“It was a big building,” Qara said flatly. “The Fifth still had two men inside.”

“Well, did they survive?” Altan asked.

Qara stared at him in disbelief. “Ramsa detonated a building on them.”

“I take it you lot have done nothing useful while I’ve been gone, then,” Altan said.

“We set up fortifications!” Ramsa said.

“Of the defense line?” Altan asked hopefully.

“No, just around your office. And our barracks. Warlords won’t let us near the defense line anymore.”

Altan looked deeply aggravated. “I need to go get that squared up. The government complex is down that way?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine.” Altan cast a distracted look at Rin. “Qara, she’ll need equipment. Get her geared up and moved in. Ramsa, come with me.”

“Are you Altan’s lieutenant?” Rin asked as Qara led her down another winding set of alleyways.

“Not me. My brother,” Qara said. She quickened her pace, ducked under a round gate embedded in a wall, and waited for Rin to follow her through. “I’m filling in until he’s back. You’ll stay here with me.”

She pulled Rin down yet another stairwell that led to a damp underground room. It was a tiny chamber, barely the size of the Academy outhouse. A draft blew in from the cellar opening. Rin rubbed her arms and shivered.

“We get the women’s barracks all to ourselves,” Qara said. “Lucky us.”

Rin glanced about the room. The walls were packed dirt, not brick, which meant no insulation. A single mat had been unfurled in the corner, surrounded by a bundle of Qara’s things. Rin supposed she’d have to get her own blanket unless she wanted to sleep among the cockroaches. “There aren’t any women in the divisions?”

“We don’t share barracks with the divisions.” Qara fumbled in a bag near her mat, pulled out a bundle of clothing, and tossed it at Rin. “You should probably change out of that Academy uniform. I’ll take your old things. Enki wants old linens for bandages.”

Rin quickly wriggled out of her travel-worn Academy tunic, pulled on the uniform, then handed her old clothes to Qara. Her new uniform was a nondescript black tunic. Unlike the Militia uniforms, it bore no insignia of the Red Emperor over her left breast. The Cike uniforms were designed to have no identifying marks at all.

“Armband, too.” Qara’s hand was outstretched, expectant.

Rin touched her white armband, feeling self-conscious. She hadn’t taken it off since the battle, even though she was no longer officially Jiang’s apprentice. “Do I have to?” She’d seen plenty of academy armbands among the soldiers in Yenjen’s squadron, even though they looked well past academy age. Officers from Sinegard often wore those armbands for years after they graduated as a mark of pride.

Qara folded her arms. “This isn’t the Academy. Your apprentice affiliation doesn’t matter here.”

“I know that—” Rin began to say, but Qara cut her off.

“You don’t understand. This is not the Militia, this is the Cike. We were all sent here because we were deemed fit to kill, but unfit for a division. Most of us didn’t go to Sinegard, and the ones who did don’t have great memories of the place. Nobody here cares who your master was, and advertising it won’t earn you any goodwill. Forget about approval or rankings or glory, or whatever bullshit you were angling for at Sinegard. You are Cike. By default, you don’t get a good reputation.”

“I don’t care about my reputation—” Rin protested, but again Qara cut her off.

“No, you listen to me. You’re not at school anymore. You aren’t competing with anyone; you’re not trying to get good marks. You live with us, you fight with us, you die with us. From now on, your utmost loyalty is to the Cike and the Empire. You want an illustrious career, you should have joined the divisions. But you didn’t, which means something’s wrong with you, which means you’re stuck with us. Understand?”

“I didn’t ask to come here,” Rin snapped defensively. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“None of us did,” Qara said curtly. “Try to keep up.”

Rin tried to keep a map of the base in her head as they walked, a mental picture of the labyrinth that was Khurdalain, but she gave up after the fifteenth turn. She half suspected Qara was taking a deliberately convoluted route to wherever they were going.

“How do you guys get anywhere?” she asked.

“Memorize the routes,” Qara responded. “The harder we are to find, the better. And if you want to find Enki, just follow the whining.”

Rin was about to ask what this meant when she heard another set of raised voices from around the corner.

“Please,” begged a male voice. “Please, it hurts so much.”

“Look, I sympathize, I really do,” said a second, much deeper voice. “But frankly it’s not my problem, so I don’t care.”

“It’s just a few seeds!”

Rin and Qara rounded the corner. The voices belonged to a slight, dark-skinned man and a hapless-looking soldier with an insignia that marked him as a private of the Fifth. The soldier’s right arm ended in a bloody stub at the elbow.

Rin cringed at the sight; she could almost see the gangrene through the poor bandaging. No wonder he was begging for poppy.

“It’s just a few seeds to you, and the next poor chap who asks, and the next after that,” said Enki. “Eventually I’m all out of seeds, and my division hasn’t got anything to fight with. Then the next time your division’s backed up in a corner, my division can’t do their jobs and save your sorry asses. They are a priority. You are not. Understand?”

The soldier spat on Enki’s doorstep. “Freaks.”

He brushed past Enki and backed out into the alleyway, casting dark glances at Rin and Qara as he passed them.

“I need to move shop,” Enki complained to Qara as she shut the door behind her. Inside was a small, crowded room filled with the bitter smell of medicinal herbs. “This is no condition to store materials in. I need somewhere dry.”

“Move closer to the division barracks and you’ll have a thousand soldiers on your doorstep demanding a quick fix,” said Qara.

“Hm. You think Altan would let me move into the back closet?”

“I think Altan likes having his closet to himself.”

“You’re probably right. Who’s this?” Enki examined Rin from head to toe, as if looking for signs of injury. His voice was truly lovely, rich and velvety. Simply listening to him made Rin feel sleepy. “What’s ailing you?”

“She’s the Speerly, Enki.”

“Oh! I’d forgotten.” Enki rubbed the back of his shaved head. “How did you slip through Mugen’s fingers?”

“I don’t know,” said Rin. “I only just found out myself.”

Enki nodded slowly, still studying Rin as if she were a particularly fascinating specimen. He wore a carefully neutral expression that gave nothing away. “But of course. You had no idea.”

“She’ll need equipment,” said Qara.

“Sure, no problem.” Enki disappeared into a closet built into the back of the room. They listened to him bustling around for a moment, and then he reappeared with a tray of dried plants. “Any of these work for you?”

Rin had never seen so many different kinds of psychedelics in one place. There were more drug varieties here than in Jiang’s entire garden. Jiang would have been delighted.

She brushed her fingers along the opium pods, the shriveled mushrooms, and the muddy white powders.

“What difference does it make?” she asked.

“It’s really a matter of preference,” said Enki. “These drugs will all get you nice and tripped up, but the key is to find a mixture that lets you summon the gods without getting so stoned that you can’t wield your weapon. The stronger hallucinogens will shoot you right up to the Pantheon, but you’ll lose all perception of the material world. Fat lot of good summoning a god will do you if you can’t see an arrow right in front of your face. The weaker drugs require a bit more focus to get in the right mind state, but they leave you with more of your bodily faculties. If you’ve had meditation training, then I’d stick with more moderate strains if you can.”

Rin didn’t think that a siege was a great time to experiment, so she decided to settle for the familiar. She found the poppy seed variety that she had stolen from Jiang’s garden among Enki’s collection. She reached out to grab a handful, but Enki pulled the tray back out of her reach.

“No you don’t.” Enki brought a scale out from under the counter and began measuring precise amounts into little pouches. “You come to me for doses, which I will document. The amount you receive is calibrated to your body weight. You’re not big; you definitely won’t need as much as the others. Use it sparingly, and only when ordered. A shaman who’s addicted is better off dead.”

Rin hadn’t considered that. “Does that happen often?”

“In this line of work?” Enki said. “It’s almost inevitable.”

The Militia’s food rations made the Academy canteen look like a veritable restaurant in comparison. Rin stood in line for half an hour and received a measly bowl of rice gruel. She swirled her spoon around the gray, watery soup, and several uncooked lumps drifted up to the surface.

She looked around the mess hall for black uniforms, and found a few of her contingent clustered at one long table at the end of the hall. They sat far away from the other soldiers. The two tables closest to them were empty.

“This is our Speerly,” Qara announced when Rin sat down.

The Cike looked up at Rin with a mixture of apprehension and wary interest. Qara, Ramsa, and Enki sat with a man she didn’t recognize, all four of them garbed in pitch-black uniforms without any insignia or armband. Rin was struck by how young they all were. None looked older than Enki, and even he didn’t look like he’d seen a full four zodiac cycles. Most appeared to be in their late twenties. Ramsa barely looked fifteen.

It was no surprise that they had no problem with a commander of Altan’s age, or that they were called the Bizarre Children. Rin wondered if they were recruited young, or if they simply died before they had the chance to grow older.

“Welcome to the freak squad,” said the man next to her. “I’m Baji.”

Baji was a thickly built mercenary type with a loud booming voice. Despite his considerable girth he was somewhat handsome, in a coarse, dark sort of way. He looked like one of the Fangs’ opium smugglers. Strapped to his back was a huge nine-pointed rake. It looked amazingly heavy. Rin wondered at the strength it took to wield it.

“Admiring this?” Baji patted the rake. The pointed ends were crusted over with something suspiciously brown. “Nine prongs. One of a kind. You won’t find its make anywhere else.”

Because no smithy would create a weapon so outlandish, Rin thought. And because farmers have no use for lethally sharp rakes. “Seems impractical.”

“That’s what I said,” Ramsa butted in. “What are you, a potato farmer?”

Baji directed his spoon at the boy. “Shut your mouth or I swear to heaven I will put nine perfectly spaced holes in the side of your head.”

Rin lifted a spoonful of rice gruel to her mouth and tried not to picture what Baji had just described. Her eyes landed on a barrel placed right behind Baji’s seat. The water inside was oddly clouded, and the surface erupted in occasional ripples, as if a fish were swimming around inside.

“What’s that in the barrel?” she asked.

“That’s the Friar.” Baji twisted around in his seat and rapped his knuckles against the wooden rim. “Hey, Aratsha! Come say hello to the Speerly!”

For a second the barrel did nothing. Rin wondered whether Baji was entirely in his right mind. She had heard rumors that Cike operatives were crazy, that they had been sent to the Night Castle when they lost their sanity.

Then the water began rising out of the barrel, as if falling in reverse, and solidified into a shape that looked vaguely like a man. Two bulbous orbs that might have been eyes widened as they swiveled in Rin’s direction. Something that looked vaguely like a mouth moved. “Oh! You cut your hair.”

Rin was too busy gaping to respond.

Baji made an impatient noise. “No, you dolt, this is the new one. From Sinegard,” he emphasized.

“Oh, really?” The water blob made a gesture that seemed like a bow. Vibrations rippled through his entire form when he spoke. “Well, you should have said so. Careful, you’ll catch a moth in your mouth.”

Rin’s jaw shut with a click. “What happened to you?” she finally managed.

“What are you talking about?” The watery figure sounded alarmed. He dipped his head, as if examining his torso.

“No, I mean—” Rin stammered. “What—why do you—”

“Aratsha prefers to spend his time in this guise if he can help it,” Baji interjected. “You don’t want to see his human form. Very grisly.”

“Like you’re such a visual delight.” Aratsha snorted.

“Sometimes we let him out into the river when we need a drinking source poisoned,” Baji said.

“I am quite handy with poisons,” Aratsha acknowledged.

“Are you? I thought you just fouled things up with your general presence.”

“Don’t be rude, Baji. You’re the one who can’t be bothered to clean his weapon.”

Baji dipped his rake threateningly over the barrel. “Shall I clean it off in you? What part of you is this, anyway? Your leg? Your—”

Aratsha yelped and collapsed back into the barrel. Within seconds the water was very still. It could have been a barrel of rainwater.

“He’s a weird one,” Baji said cheerfully, turning back to Rin. “He’s an initiate of a minor river god. Far more committed to his religion than the rest of us.”

“Which god do you summon?”

“The god of pigs.”

“What?”

“I summon the fighting spirit of a very angry boar. Come off it. Not all gods are as glorious as yours, sweetheart. I picked the first one I saw. The masters were disappointed.”

The masters? Had Baji gone to Sinegard? Rin remembered Jiang had told her there had been Lore students before her, students who had gone mad, but they were supposed to be in mental asylums or Baghra. They were too unstable, they had been locked up for their own good. “So that means—”

“It means I smash things very well, sweetheart.” Baji drained his bowl, tilted his head back, and belched. His expression made it clear he didn’t want to discuss it further.

“Will you slide down?” A very slight young man with a whispery goatee walked over to their table with a heaping bowl of lotus root and slid into the seat on the other side of Rin.

“Unegen can turn into a fox,” Baji said by way of introduction.

“Turn into—?”

“My god lets me shift shapes,” Unegen said. “And yours lets you spit fire. Not a big deal.” He spooned a heap of steamed lotus into his mouth, swallowed, grimaced, and then belched. “I don’t think the cook’s even trying anymore. How are we low on salt? We’re next to an ocean.”

“You can’t just pour seawater on food,” interjected Ramsa. “There’s a sanitation process.”

“How hard can it be? We’re soldiers, not barbarians.” Unegen leaned down the table, tapping to get Qara’s attention. “Where’s your other half?”

Qara looked irritated. “Out.”

“Well, when’s he back?”

“When he’s back,” Qara said testily. “Chaghan comes and goes on his own schedule. You know that.”

“As long as his schedule accommodates the fact that we’re, you know, fighting a war,” said Baji. “He could at least hurry.”

Qara snorted. “You two don’t even like Chaghan. What do you want him back for?”

“We’ve been eating rice gruel for days. It’s about time we had some dessert up here.” Baji smiled, displaying sharp incisors. “I’m talking sugar.”

“I thought Chaghan was getting something for Altan,” Rin said, confused.

“Sure,” said Unegen. “Doesn’t mean he can’t stop at a bakery on the way back.”

“Is he at least close?” Baji asked.

“I’m not my brother’s homing pigeon,” Qara grumbled. “We’ll know where he is when he’s back.”

“Can’t you two just, you know, do that thing?” Unegen tapped his temples.

Qara made a face. “We’re anchor twins, not mirror-wells.”

“Oh, you can’t do mirror-wells?”

“Nobody can do mirror-wells,” Qara snapped. “Not anymore.”

Unegen looked at Rin over the table and winked, as if winding Qara up was something he and Baji regularly did for fun.

“Oh, leave Qara alone.”

Rin twisted around in her seat to see Altan. He walked up to them, looking over her head. “Someone needs to patrol the outer perimeter. Baji, it’s your turn.”

“Oh, I can’t,” Baji said.

“Why not?”

“I’m eating.”

Altan rolled his eyes. “Baji.”

“Send Ramsa,” Baji whined. “He hasn’t been out since—”

Bang. The door to the mess hall slammed open. All heads whipped toward the far end of the room, where a figure garbed in the black robes of the Cike was staggering through the doorway. The division soldiers standing by the exit hastily skirted away, clearing a path for the massive stranger.

Only the Cike were unfazed.

“Suni’s back,” Unegen said. “Took him long enough.”

Suni was a giant man with a boyish face. A thick golden dusting of hair covered his arms and legs, more hair than Rin had ever seen on a man. He walked with an odd lope, like an ape’s walk, like he’d rather be swinging through a tree instead of moving ponderously over land. His arms were almost thicker than Rin’s entire torso; he looked as if he could crush her head in like a walnut if he wanted to.

He made a beeline toward the Cike.

“Great Tortoise,” Rin muttered under her breath. “What is he?”

“Suni’s mom fucked a monkey,” Ramsa said happily.

“Shut up, Ramsa. Suni channels the Monkey God,” Unegen reported. “Makes you glad he’s on our side, doesn’t it?”

Rin wasn’t sure that made her any less scared of him, but Suni was already at their table.

“How’d it go?” Unegen asked cheerfully. “Did they see you?”

Suni didn’t seem to hear Unegen. He cocked his head, as if sniffing at them. His temples were caked with dried blood. His tousled hair and vacant stare made him appear more animal than human, like some wild beast that couldn’t decide whether to attack or flee.

Rin tensed. Something was wrong.

“It’s so loud,” Suni said. His voice was a low growl, gritty and guttural.

The smile slid off Unegen’s face. “What?”

“They keep shouting.”

“Who keeps shouting?”

Suni’s eyes darted around the table. They were wild and unfocused. Rin tensed a split second before Suni leaped over the table at them. He slammed his arm into Unegen’s neck, pinning him to the floor. Unegen choked, batted frantically at Suni’s hulking torso.

Rin jumped to the side, lifting up her chair as a weapon just as Qara grabbed for her longbow.

Suni was grappling furiously with Unegen on the floor. There was a popping noise and then a little red fox was where Unegen had been before. It almost slithered out of Suni’s grip, but Suni tightened his hold and seized the fox by the throat.

“Altan!” Qara shouted.

Altan hurtled over the fallen table, pushing Rin out of the way. He jumped onto Suni just before Suni could wrench Unegen’s neck. Startled, Suni lashed out with his left arm, catching Altan in the shoulder. Altan ignored the blow and slapped Suni hard across the face.

Suni roared and let go of Unegen. The fox wriggled away and scampered toward Qara’s feet, where he collapsed, sides heaving for air.

Suni and Altan were now wrestling on the floor, each trying to pin the other. Altan looked tiny against the massive Suni, who had to be twice his weight. Suni got a hold around Altan’s shoulders, but Altan gripped Suni’s face and squeezed his fingers toward his eyes.

Suni howled and flung Altan away from him. For a moment Altan looked like a limp puppet, tossed in the air, but he landed upright, tensed like a cat, just as Suni charged him again.

The Cike had formed a ring around Suni. Qara held an arrow fitted to her bow, ready to pierce Suni through the forehead. Baji held his rake at the ready, but Suni and Altan were rolling around so wildly he couldn’t get a clean blow in. Rin’s fingers closed tightly around the hilt of her sword.

Altan landed a solid kick to Suni’s sternum. A crack echoed through the room. Suni tottered back, stunned. Altan rose to a low crouch, standing between Suni and the rest of the Cike.

“Get back,” Altan said softly.

“They’re so loud,” Suni said. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded scared. “They’re so loud!”

“I said get back!”

Baji and Unegen retreated reluctantly. But Qara remained where she was, keeping her arrow trained at Suni’s head.

“They’re being so loud,” said Suni. “I can’t understand what they’re saying.”

“I can tell you everything you need to know,” Altan said quietly. “Just put your arms down, Suni, can you do that for me?”

“I’m scared,” Suni whimpered.

“We don’t point arrows at our friends,” Altan snapped without moving his head.

Qara lowered her longbow. Her arms shook visibly.

Altan walked slowly toward Suni, arms spread out in supplication. “It’s me. It’s just me.”

“Are you going to help me?” Suni asked. His voice didn’t match his demeanor. He sounded like a little child—terrified, helpless.

“Only if you let me,” Altan answered.

Suni dropped his arms.

Rin’s sword trembled in her hands. She was certain that Suni would snap Altan’s neck.

“They’re so loud,” Suni said. “They keep telling me to do things, I don’t know who to listen to . . .”

“Listen to me,” said Altan. “Just me.”

With brisk, short steps, he closed the gap between himself and Suni.

Suni tensed. Qara’s hands flew to her longbow again; Rin crouched to spring forward.

Suni’s massive hand closed around Altan’s. He took a deep breath. Altan touched his forehead gently and brought Suni’s forehead down to his own.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re fine. You’re Suni and you belong to the Cike. You don’t have to listen to any voices. You just have to listen to me.”

Eyes closed, Suni nodded. His heavy breathing subsided. A lopsided grin broke out over his face. When he opened his eyes, the wildness had left them.

“Hi, Trengsin,” he said. “Good to have you back.”

Altan exhaled slowly, then nodded and clapped Suni on the shoulder.

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