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

seconds passed. Qara stood still with her eyes shut, listening intently to something the rest of them couldn’t hear.

“Unegen’s pinned Yuanfu,” Qara said. “City hall, two hours.”

“Guess you’re not getting that scarf,” Baji told Ramsa.

Chaghan yanked a sack out from under the deck and emptied its contents onto the planks. “Everyone get dressed.”

Ramsa had come up with the idea to disguise themselves in stolen Militia uniforms. Uniforms were the one thing Moag hadn’t been able to sell them, but they weren’t hard to find. Rotting corpses lay in messy piles by the roadside in every abandoned coastal town, and it took only two trips to scavenge enough clothes that weren’t burned or covered in blood.

Rin had to roll up the arms and legs of her uniform. Corpses of her stature were difficult to come by. She suppressed the urge to vomit as she laced on her boots. She’d pulled the shirt off a body wedged inside a half-burned funeral pyre, and three washes still couldn’t conceal the smell of charred flesh under salty ocean water.

Ramsa, draped absurdly in a uniform three times his size, gave her a salute. “How do I look?”

She bent down to tie her boot laces. “Why are you wearing that?”

“Rin, please—”

“You’re not coming.”

“But I want to—”

“You are not coming,” she repeated. Ramsa was a munitions genius, but he was also short, scrawny, and utterly worthless in a melee. She wasn’t losing her only fire powder engineer because he didn’t know how to wield a sword. “Don’t make me tie you to the mast.”

“Come on,” Ramsa whined. “We’ve been on this ship for weeks, and I’m so fucking seasick just walking around makes me want to vomit—”

“Tough.” Rin yanked a belt through the loops around her waist.

Ramsa pulled a handful of rockets from his pocket. “Will you set these off, then?”

Rin gave him a stern look. “I don’t think you understand that we’re not trying to blow Adlaga up.”

“Oh, no, you just want to topple the local government, that’s so much better.”

“With minimal civilian casualties, which means we don’t need you.” Rin reached out and tapped at the lone barrel leaning against the mast. “Aratsha, will you watch him? Make sure he doesn’t get off the ship.”

A blurry face, grotesquely transparent, emerged from the water. Aratsha spent most of his time in the water, spiriting the Cike’s ships along to wherever they needed to go, and when he wasn’t calling down his god he preferred to rest in his barrel. Rin had never seen his original human form. She wasn’t sure he had one anymore.

Bubbles floated from Aratsha’s mouth as he spoke. “If I must.”

“Good luck,” Ramsa muttered. “As if I couldn’t outrun a fucking barrel.”

Aratsha tilted his head at him. “Please be reminded that I could drown you in seconds.”

Ramsa opened his mouth to retort, but Chaghan spoke over him. “Everyone take your pick.” Steel clattered as he dumped out a chest of Militia weapons onto the deck. Baji, complaining loudly, traded his conspicuous nine-pointed rake for a standard infantry sword. Suni scooped up an Imperial halberd, but Rin knew the weapon was purely for show. Suni’s specialty was bashing heads in with his shield-sized hands. He didn’t need anything else.

Rin fastened a curved pirate scimitar to her waist. It wasn’t Militia standard, but Militia swords were too heavy for her to wield. Moag’s blacksmiths had fashioned her something lighter. She wasn’t yet used to the grip, but she also doubted the day would end in a sword fight.

If things got so bad that she needed to get involved, then it would end in fire.

“Let’s reiterate.” Chaghan’s pale eyes roved over the assembled Cike. “This is surgical. We have a single target. This is an assassination, not a battle. You will harm no civilians.”

He looked pointedly at Rin.

She crossed her arms. “I know.”

“Not even by accident.”

“I know.”

“Come off it,” Baji said. “Since when did you get so high and mighty about casualties?”

“We’ve done enough harm to your people,” said Chaghan.

“You did enough harm,” Baji said. “I didn’t break those dams.”

Qara flinched at that, but Chaghan acted as if he hadn’t heard a word. “We’re finished hurting civilians. Am I understood?”

Rin jerked out a shrug. Chaghan liked to play commander, and she was rarely in a state to be bothered. He could boss them around all he liked. All she cared about was that they got this job done.

Three months. Twenty-nine targets, all killed without error. One more head in a sack, and then they’d be sailing