The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,109

Rin crept forward, shoes moving silently across the marble floor. At the end of the hall she saw a single silkscreen door. The baby’s cries were getting louder. She placed a hand on the door and pulled. Locked. She took a step back and kicked it down. The flimsy bamboo frame gave way with no trouble.

A crowd of at least fifteen women stared up at her, tears of terror streaming down their fat and puffy cheeks, clumped together like flightless birds fattened for the slaughter.

They were the Warlord’s wives, Rin guessed. His daughters. Their servant girls and nursemaids.

“Where is Tsung Ho?” she demanded.

They huddled closer together, mute and trembling.

Rin’s eyes fell on the baby. An old woman at the back of the room had it clutched in her hands. It was swaddled in red cloth. That meant it was a baby boy. A potential heir.

The Ram Warlord would not let that child die.

“Give him to me,” Rin said.

The woman frantically shook her head and pressed the child closer to her chest.

Rin leveled her trident at her. “This is not worth dying for.”

One of the girls dashed forward, flailing at her with a curtain pole. Rin ducked down and kicked out. Her foot connected with the girl’s midriff with a satisfying whumph. The girl collapsed on the ground, wailing in pain.

Rin put a foot on the girl’s sternum and pressed down, hard. The girl’s agonized whimpers gave her a savage, amused satisfaction. She felt a distinct lack of sympathy toward the women. They chose to be here. They were Federation allies, they knew what was happening, this was their fault, they should all be dead . . .

No. Stop. She took a deep breath. The red cleared from her eyes.

“Any of you try that again and I’ll gut you,” she said. “The baby. Now.”

Whimpering, the old woman relinquished the baby into her hands.

He immediately started to scream. Rin’s hands moved automatically to cup around his rear and the back of his head. Leftover instincts from days she’d spent carrying around her infant foster brother.

She had a sudden urge to coo to the baby and rock him until his sobbing ceased. She shut it down. She needed the baby to scream, and to scream loudly.

She backed out of the women’s quarters, waving her trident in front of her.

“You lot stay here,” she warned the women. “If any of you move, I will kill this child.”

The women nodded silently, tears streaking their powdered faces.

Rin backed out of the chamber and returned to the center of the main hall.

“Tsung Ho!” she shouted. “Where are you?”

Silence.

The baby quivered in her arms. His cries had diminished to distressed whimpers. Rin briefly considered pinching his arms to make him scream.

There was no need. The sight of her bloody trident was enough. He caught one glimpse of it, opened his mouth, and shrieked.

Rin shouted over the baby, “Tsung Ho! I’ll murder your son if you don’t come out.”

She heard him approaching long before he attacked.

Too slow. Too fucking slow. She spun around, dodged his blade, and slammed the butt of her trident into his stomach. He doubled over. She caught his blade inside the trident’s prongs and twisted it out of his hand. He dropped to all fours, scrambling for his weapon. She kicked it out of the way and jammed the hilt of her trident into the back of his head. He dropped to the floor.

“You traitor.” She aimed a savage strike at his kneecaps. He howled in pain. She hit them again. Then again.

The baby wailed louder. She walked to a corner, placed him delicately on the floor, then resumed her assault on his father. The Ram Warlord’s kneecaps were visibly broken. She moved on to his ribs.

“Please, mercy, please . . .” He curled into a pathetic bundle, arms wrapped over his head.

“When did you let the Mugenese into your gates?” she asked. “Before they burned Golyn Niis, or after?”

“We didn’t have a choice,” he whispered. He made a high keening noise as he drew his shattered knees to his chest. “They were lined up at our gates, we didn’t have any options—”

“You could have fought.”

“We would have died,” he gasped.

“Then you should have died.”

Rin slammed her trident butt against his head. He fell silent.

The baby continued to scream.

Jinzha was so pleased by their victory that he temporarily relaxed the army prohibition on alcohol. Jugs of fine sorghum wine, all plundered from the Ram Warlord’s mansion, were passed through the ranks. The soldiers camped out