The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,201

the very center.

“To fight the seasickness, you think?” Venka asked.

Rin frowned. “Has to be.”

That seemed like a clever move. The Imperial troops weren’t used to fighting over moving water, so they might do better on a locked platform. But a static formation was also particularly dangerous where battling Rin was concerned. If one ship went up in flames, so did the rest of them.

Had Daji not discovered that Rin had figured a way around the Seal?

“It’s not seasickness,” Kitay said. “It’s so Feylen won’t blow them out of the water. And it gives them the advantage if we try to board. They get troop mobility between ships.”

“We’re not going to board,” said Rin. “We’re going to torch that thing.”

“That’s the spirit,” Venka said with an optimism that nobody felt.

The locked fleet crawled toward the cliffs at a maddeningly slow pace. War drums echoed around the channel as the fortress moved inexorably forward.

“I wonder how many men it takes to propel that thing,” Venka mused.

“They don’t need much paddling force,” Rin said. “They’re sailing downstream.”

“Okay, but what about lateral movement—”

“Please stop talking,” Kitay snapped.

Rin knew their chattering was idiotic, but she couldn’t help it. She and Venka had the same problem. They had to keep running their mouths, because the wait would drive them crazy otherwise.

“The gates aren’t going to hold,” Rin said despite Kitay’s glare. “It’ll be like kicking down a sandcastle.”

“You’re giving it five minutes, then?” Venka asked.

“More like two. Get ready to fire that thing.”

Venka patted Kitay’s shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

He rolled his eyes. “The gate wasn’t my idea.”

In a last-ditch effort, Vaisra had ordered his troops to chain the gates of the channel shut with every spare link of iron in the city. It might have deterred a pirate ship, but against this fleet, it was little more than a symbolic gesture. From the sounds of it, the Militia intended to simply knock the gates over with a battering ram.

Boom. Rin felt stone vibrating beneath her feet.

“How old are those gates?” she wondered out loud.

Boom.

“Older than this province,” said Venka. “Maybe as old as the Red Emperor. Lot of architectural value.”

“That’s a pity.”

“Isn’t it?”

Boom. Rin heard the sharp crack of fracturing wood, and then a noise like fabric ripping.

Arlong’s gates were down.

The Imperial Navy poured through. The channel lit up with pyrotechnics. Massive twenty-foot cannons embedded into Arlong’s cliff walls went off one by one, sending scorching, boulder-sized balls shrieking into the sides of Chang En’s ships. Each one of Kitay’s carefully planted water mines went off in lovely, timed succession to the sound of firecrackers magnified by a thousand.

For a moment the Imperial Fleet was hidden behind a massive cloud of smoke.

“Nice,” Venka marveled.

Kitay shook his head. “That’s nothing. They can absorb the losses.”

He was right. When the smoke cleared, Rin saw that there had been more noise than damage. The fleet pressed on through the explosions. The floating fortress remained untouched.

Rin paced toward the cliff edge, sword in hand.

“Patience,” Kitay muttered. “Now’s not the time.”

“We should be down there,” she said. She felt like a coward waiting up on the cliff, hiding out of sight while soldiers burned below.

“We’re only three people,” Kitay said. “We’d be cannon fodder. You dive in now, you’ll just get shot full of iron.”

Rin hated that he was right.

The cliffs shook continuously under their feet. The Imperial Navy was returning fire. Loaded missiles shot out of the siege towers, showering tiny rockets onto the cliffside artillery stations. Shielded Militia archers returned two crossbow bolts for every one that reached their decks.

Rin’s stomach twisted with horror as she watched. The Militia was using precisely the same siege-breaking strategy that Jinzha had employed on the northern campaign—eviscerate the archers first, then barrel through land resistance.

The Republican warships took the worst damage. One had already been blown so thoroughly out of the water that its fragmented remains were blocking the paths of its sister ships.

The Imperial cannons fired low to aim at the paddle wheels. The Republican ships tried to rotate in the water to keep their back paddles out of the line of fire, but they were rapidly losing mobility. At this rate, Nezha’s ships would be reduced to sitting ducks.

Rin still saw no sign of Feylen.

“Where is he?” Kitay muttered. “You’d think they would bring him out right away.”

“Maybe he’s bad with orders,” Rin said. Feylen had seemed so terrified of Daji, she didn’t want to think about the kind of torture it took to persuade him to