The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,195

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