The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,148

wonder. If Altan’s got a lieutenant who’s so powerful that he scares the Warlords, why is he sending him away from Khurdalain? What are they planning?”

“I’m not spying on my own division for you,” Rin said.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Nezha said delicately. “I’m just saying you might want to keep an open mind.”

“And you might want to keep your nose out of my division’s matters.”

But Nezha had stopped listening; he stared over Rin’s shoulder at something farther along the wharf, where the first line of Nikara soldiers was pressing. “What is that?”

Rin craned her neck to see what he was looking at. Then she squinted in confusion.

An odd greenish-yellow fog had begun wending its way over the blockade toward the two division squadrons in front of them.

As if in a dream, the fighting stopped. The foremost squadron ceased moving, lowering their weapons with an almost hypnotic fascination as the cloud reached the wall, paused, gathered itself like a wave, and then ponderously lapped over into the dugouts.

Then the screaming began.

“Retreat,” shouted a squadron officer. “Retreat!”

The Militia reversed direction immediately, commencing a disorganized stampede away from the gas. They abandoned their hard-won stations along the wharf in a frenzy to get away from the gas.

Rin coughed and glanced over her shoulder as she ran. Most of the soldiers who hadn’t escaped the gas lay gasping and twitching on the ground, clawing at their faces as if their own throats were attacking them. Others lay quite still.

An arrowhead lashed across her cheek and embedded itself in the ground before her. The side of her mouth exploded in pain; she cupped a hand against it and continued running. The Federation soldiers were firing from behind the poisonous fog, they were going to pick them off one by one . . .

The forest line loomed up before her. She would be fine once she could take cover behind the foliage. Rin ducked her head and sprinted for the trees. Only a hundred yards . . . fifty . . . twenty . . .

Behind her she heard a strangled cry. She twisted her head to look and tripped over a rock, just as another arrow whistled over her head. Blood streamed from her cheek into her eyes. Rin wiped it furiously off and rolled over flat against the ground.

The source of the cry was Nezha. He was crawling furiously forward, but the gas had caught up to him. He met her eyes through the fog. He might have lifted one hand toward her.

She watched in horror, mouth open in a silent scream, as the gas enveloped him.

Through the gas, she saw forms advancing. Federation soldiers. They wore bulky contraptions over their heads, masks that concealed their necks and faces. They seemed unaffected by the gas.

One of them lifted a bulky gloved hand and pointed where Nezha lay.

Without thinking, Rin took a deep breath of air and rushed into the fog.

It burned her skin as soon as she touched it.

She clenched her teeth and forged ahead through the pain—but she’d hardly gone ten paces when someone grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her back out of the gas zone. She struggled furiously to escape their grip.

Altan didn’t let go.

“Back off!” She elbowed him in the face. Altan stumbled and grabbed at his nose. Rin tried to duck past him, but Altan wrenched her backward by her wrist.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“They’ve got Nezha!” she screamed.

“I don’t care.” He pushed her in the direction of the tree line. “Retreat.”

“You’re leaving one of our men to die!”

“He’s not one of our men, he’s one of the Seventh’s men. Go.”

“I won’t leave my friend behind!”

“You will do as I command.”

“But Nezha—”

“I’m not sorry about this,” Altan said, and jammed a fist into her solar plexus.

Stunned, paralyzed, she sank to her knees.

She heard Altan shout out an order, and then someone picked her up and slung her over their shoulders as if she were a child. She beat and screamed as the soldier began jogging in the direction of the barracks. From the soldier’s back, she thought she could see the masked Federation soldiers dragging Nezha away.

The gas attack created the precisely the effect that the Federation intended. The sugar bomb had been devastating—the gas attack was monstrous. Khurdalain erupted into a state of terror. Though the gas itself dissipated within an hour, rumors of it spread quickly. The fog was an invisible enemy, one that killed indiscriminately. There was no hiding from the fumes. Civilians