Nezha explained. “Fuchai destroyed Goujian’s home state, and then made Goujian his personal servant to humiliate him. Goujian performed the most degrading tasks to make Fuchai believe he bore him no ill will. One time when Fuchai fell sick, Goujian volunteered to taste his stool to tell how bad his illness was. It worked—ten years later, Fuchai set Goujian free. The first thing Goujian did was hire a beautiful concubine and send her to Fuchai’s court in the guise of a gift.”
“The concubine, of course, killed Fuchai,” Kitay said.
Jinzha looked baffled. “You’re saying I send the Ram Warlord a beautiful concubine.”
“No,” Rin said. “I’m saying you should eat shit.”
Tarcquet barked out a laugh.
Jinzha reddened. “Excuse me?”
“The Ram Warlord thinks he holds all the cards,” Rin said. “So initiate a negotiation. Humiliate yourself, present yourself as weaker than you are, and make him underestimate your forces.”
“That won’t tear down his walls,” said Jinzha.
“But it will make him cocky. How does his behavior change if he’s not anticipating an attack? If he instead thinks you’re running away? Then we have an opening to exploit.” Rin cast about wildly in her head for ideas. “You could get someone behind those walls. Open the gates from the inside.”
“There’s no way you manage that,” Nezha said. “You’d need to get an entire platoon to fight through from the inside, and you can’t hide that many men in one ship.”
“I don’t need an entire platoon,” Rin said.
“No squadron is capable of that.”
She crossed her arms. “I can think of one.”
For once, Jinzha wasn’t looking at her with disdain.
“Who do we send to negotiate with the Ram Warlord, then?” he asked.
Rin and Nezha both answered at once. “Kitay.”
Kitay frowned. “Because I’m a good negotiator?”
“No.” Nezha clapped him on the shoulder. “Because you’ll be a really, really bad one.”
“I was under the impression that I was receiving your grand marshal.” The Ram Warlord lounged casually on his chair, tapping his fingers together as he appraised the Republican delegation with sharp, intelligent eyes.
“You’ll be meeting with me,” Kitay said. He spoke in a perfectly tremulous voice, obviously nervous and pretending not to be. “The Dragon Warlord is indisposed.”
The Republican delegation was deliberately shabby. Kitay was guarded only by two infantry soldiers from the Kingfisher. His life had to seem cheap. Jinzha hadn’t wanted to let Rin come, but she refused to stay behind while Kitay went to face the enemy.
Their delegations had met at a neutral stretch along the shore. The backdrop made the meeting seem more like a competitive fishing match than the site of a war negotiation. This move, Rin assumed, was designed to humiliate Kitay.
The Ram Warlord looked Kitay up and down and pursed his lips. “Vaisra can’t be bothered, so he sends a little puppy to negotiate for him.”
Kitay puffed himself up. “I’m not a puppy. I’m the son of Defense Minister Chen.”
“Yes, I wondered why you looked familiar. You’re a far cry from your old man, aren’t you?”
Kitay cleared his throat. “Jinzha sent me here with proposed terms for a truce.”
“A truce should be settled between leaders. Jinzha does not even afford me the respect that he ought a Warlord.”
“Jinzha has entrusted negotiations to me,” Kitay said stiffly.
The Ram Warlord’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, I understand. Injured then? Or dead?”
“Jinzha is fine.” Kitay let his voice tremble just a bit at the end. “He sends his regards.”
The Ram Warlord leaned forward in his chair, like a wolf examining his prey. “Really.”
Kitay cleared his throat again. “Jinzha instructed me to convey that the truce can only benefit you. We will take the north. It’s up to you to decide whether or not you want to join our forces. If you agree to our terms then we’ll leave Xiashang alone, so long as your men serve in our—”
The Ram Warlord cut him off. “I have no interest in joining Vaisra’s so-called republic. It’s just a ploy to put himself on the throne.”
“That’s paranoid,” Kitay said.
“Does Yin Vaisra seem like a man inclined to share power to you?”
“The Dragon Warlord intends to implement the representative democracy style of government practiced in the west. He knows the provincial system isn’t working—”
“Oh, but it’s working very well for us,” said the Ram Warlord. “The only dissenters are those poor suckers in the south, led by Vaisra himself. The rest of us see a system that’s granted us stability for two decades. There’s no need to disrupt that.”
“But it will be disrupted,” Kitay insisted. “You’ve seen the fault lines yourself. You’re