The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,106

to follow you out,” he continued. “You’ll have to be discreet about it. If Souji tried selling you to Vaisra once, he might do so again. Is there anyone in the coalition you still trust?”

“Venka,” Rin said immediately. “Qinen, too, probably, if he’s still alive. We could try to swing Zhuden’s officers, but they’ll take convincing.”

“Can Venka mobilize at least half the army?” Daji asked.

Rin considered that for a moment. She didn’t know how much sway Venka held. Venka wasn’t terribly popular among the southerners; she was by nature curt and abrasive, a pale-skinned northerner with a harsh Sinegardian accent who clearly didn’t belong. But she could be charming when she wanted to be. She might have managed to talk her way out of any suspected ties to Rin. Or Souji might have had her killed long ago.

Rin decided to be optimistic. “Probably. We can get her to scare up a crowd, and once the battle’s started, the rest should follow.”

“I suppose we can’t do better than that.” Jiang pointed to Rin and Kitay. “You two go in first and find your people. Round up as many of them as you can within the next twenty-four hours, and tell them to press hard to the west-facing mines when we break through the front lines. If you have to break cover before then, just send up a flare and we’ll break the front early.”

“There are at least two thousand Republican troops on the front,” Kitay said.

Jiang surveyed the forts for a moment, and then shook his head. “Oh, no. Double that, at least.”

Kitay furrowed his brows. “Then how are you going to . . . ?”

“I said we’ll break the front,” Jiang said very calmly.

Kitay blinked at him, clearly at a loss for words.

“Just trust him,” Rin muttered.

She thought back to memories of howling screeches, shapes of darkness furling out of nowhere. She thought of Tseveri’s stricken face as Jiang’s clawed fingers went into her rib cage.

She didn’t trust this newly confident, capable Jiang. She had no idea who he was, or what he could do. But she feared him, which meant the Republic should, too.

“Fine.” Kitay still looked baffled, but he didn’t push the point. “What’s your signal, then?”

Jiang just chuckled. “Oh, I think you’ll know.”

“You’re shitting me,” Venka said.

She looked terrible. She’d lost a startling amount of weight. She was wrung out, rangier, sharp cheekbones jutting beneath hollow, purple-ringed eyes.

She hadn’t been easy to find. Rin and Kitay had climbed out of the river into what looked like a long-deserted army camp. The sentry posts nearest them were unmanned; the few sandbags visible were scattered uselessly across the dirt. Rin would have assumed the Southern Coalition had already fled, except that the charred logs near the mountainside were evidence of freshly doused campfires, and the latrine dugouts stank of fresh shit.

The entire army, it appeared, had gone underground.

Rin and Kitay had ventured into the tunnels, ambushed the first soldier they encountered, and demanded he lead them to Venka. He sat tamely now in the corner of the dimly lit room, gagged with rope, eyes darting back and forth in equal parts terror and confusion.

“Hello to you, too.” Kitay headed for a pile of maps lying on the floor and began to rummage through them. “Are these up to date? Mind if I take a look?”

“Do whatever you want,” Venka said faintly. She didn’t even glance at him. Her eyes, still wide in disbelief, were fixed on Rin. “I thought they carted you to that mountain. Souji kept crowing on and on about that, said you were stuck in stone for good.”

“Some old friends broke me out,” Rin said. “Looks like you’ve been doing far worse.”

“Gods, Rin, it’s been a nightmare.” Venka pressed her palms against her temples. “I honestly don’t know what Souji’s plan is at this point. I was starting to think we’d be buried here.”

“So Souji’s in charge?” Rin asked.

“He and Gurubai together.” Venka looked abashed. “You, ah, might hear about some things I said. I mean, after Tikany, they were out for me, too, and I—”

“I’m sure you said whatever you needed to to get them off your back,” Rin said. “I don’t care about that. Just fill us in on what’s happened.”

Venka nodded. “The Republic launched a second assault a few days after the first air raid. Souji led us in a retreat north—the idea was to get back to Ruijin—but the Republic kept pushing us eastward, so we got trapped up against these mountains