The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,87

water three inches thick, now rank from decomposing corpses. Occasionally, Rin glimpsed signs of life on the banks—either small camps of tents or tiny hamlets of no more than six or seven thatched huts. Never anything larger. These were subsistence hideaways, not long-term settlements.

It would take a long time for this region to sprout cities again. The destruction of the dam hadn’t been the only source of devastation. The Murui was already a fickle river, prone to breaking its banks on unpredictably rainy years, and by destroying all vegetation cover, this great flood had destroyed the region’s natural defenses. And before that, on their warpath inland, Mugenese soldiers had slashed and burned so many fields that they had ensured local starvation for years. Back in Ruijin, Rin had heard stories of children playing in the fields who had dug up explosives buried long ago, of children accidentally wiping out half their villages because they’d opened gas canisters in curiosity.

How many of those canisters still lurked hidden in the fields? Who was going to volunteer to find out?

Every day since the end of the Third Poppy War, Rin had learned that her victory on Speer mattered less and less. War hadn’t ended when Emperor Ryohai perished on the longbow island. War hadn’t ended when Vaisra’s army defeated the Imperial Navy at the Red Cliffs.

She’d been so stupid to once think that if she ended the Federation then she’d ended the hurting. War didn’t end, not so cleanly—it just kept building up in little hurts that piled on one another until they exploded afresh into raw new wounds.

Only when they reached the heart of Boar Province did they find evidence of recent fighting.

No—not fighting. Destruction was the better word. Rin saw the wreckage of thatched houses that still lay clumped near their foundations, instead of scattered in the patterns of older ruins. She saw scorch marks that hadn’t yet been wiped away by wind and rain. Here and there, in ditches and along the stands, she saw bodies that hadn’t fully decomposed—rotting flesh lumped over bones that hadn’t yet been picked clean.

This proved the civil war wasn’t over. Rin had been right—Vaisra hadn’t rewarded the south for betraying her. He must have turned his dirigibles on the Southern Coalition the moment Rin and Daji left for the Chuluu Korikh. He’d chased them into Boar Province, and Boar Province must have put up a resistance. They had no reason to trust the Republic; their warlord had been unceremoniously decapitated at Arlong days after Daji’s defeat. They must have rallied to the Southern Coalition’s side.

From the looks of it, Vaisra had thrashed them for their impudence.

Rin whistled. “What happened here?”

They’d turned a corner of the river onto a bizarre shoreline; the area where trees should have stood was burned and flattened, like some flaming giant had come trampling through on a mindless rampage.

“Same thing that happened last time,” Daji said. “They bring their bombers, and if they can’t find their enemy they attack indiscriminately. They flatten the terrain to make it harder for the rebels to hide.”

“But those aren’t bombing marks,” Rin said, still confused. “They’re not all in crater patterns.”

“No, that’s the jelly,” Jiang said.

“Jelly?”

“It’s what they used last time. Something the Gray Company invented in their towers. It catches fire when it hits any living things—plants, animals, people. We never figured out how to put it out—water and smothering don’t work. You have to wait for it to burn all the way through. And that takes a very long time.”

The implications terrified Rin. This meant the Hesperians didn’t just rule the skies; they also had flames that rivaled her own.

The destruction here was so much worse than the wreckage at Tikany. Boar Province must have fought so hard; that was the only thing that warranted retaliation on this scale. But they must have known they couldn’t win. How did it feel when the heavens rained down a fire that wouldn’t die? What was it like to fight the sky itself? She tried to imagine the moment when this forest turned into a chessboard of green, black, green, and black, when civilians running terrified through trees turned twitching and smoking into charcoal.

“The air campaigns are very clever, actually.” Daji trailed her fingers idly through the water. “You drop bombs over dense areas with no built-in defenses, so they think they’re entirely vulnerable. Then you fly your dirigibles over the widest possible area, so they know no one is safe no matter where they