“But water moves steadily out to sea,” said Lady Saikhara. “You never step in the same stream twice. In a matter of days the poisonous agent should have washed out into Omonod Bay, and we’ll be fine.” She looked imploringly around the table for someone to agree. “Shouldn’t it?”
“But it’s not just the fish.” Kitay’s voice was a strangled whisper. He said it again, and this time the room fell quiet when he spoke. “It’s not just the fish. It’s the entire country. The Murui supplies tributaries to all of the major southern regions. We’re talking about all agricultural irrigation channels. Rice paddies. The water doesn’t stop flowing there; it stays, it lingers. We are talking about massive crop failure.”
“But the granaries,” Lady Saikhara said. “Every province has stockpiled grain for lean years, yes? We could requisition those.”
“And leave the south to eat what?” Kitay countered. “You force the south to give up their grain stores, and you’re going to start bleeding allies. We don’t have food, we don’t even have water—”
“We have water,” Saikhara said. “We’ve tested the aquifers, they’re untouched. The wells are fine.”
“Fine,” said Kitay. “Then you’ll just starve to death.”
“What about them?” Charouk jabbed a finger in Tarcquet’s direction. “They can’t send us food aid?”
Tarcquet raised an eyebrow and looked expectantly at Vaisra.
Vaisra sighed. “The Consortium will not make investments until they feel better assured of our chances at victory.”
There was a pause. The entire council looked toward General Tarcquet. The Warlords wore uniform expressions of desperate, pathetic, pleading hope. Sister Petra continued to scratch at her writing pad.
Nezha broke the silence. He spoke in deliberate, unaccented Hesperian. “Millions of people are going to die, sir.”
Tarcquet shrugged. “Then you’d better get this campaign started, hadn’t you?”
The Empress’s ploy had the effect of setting fire to an anthill. Arlong erupted in a frenzy of activity, finally triggering battle plans that had been in place for months.
A war over ideology had suddenly become a war of resources. Now that waiting out the Empire was clearly no longer an option, the southern Warlords had no choice but to donate their troops to Vaisra’s northern campaign.
Executive orders went out to generals, then filtered down through commanders to squadron leaders to soldiers. Within minutes Rin had orders to report to the Fourteenth Brigade on the Swallow, departing in two hours from Pier Three.
“Nice, you’re in the first fleet,” Nezha said. “With me.”
“Joyous day.” She stuffed a change of uniform into a bag and hoisted it over her shoulder.
He reached over to ruffle her hair. “Look alive, little soldier. You’re finally getting what you wanted.”
En route to the pier they dodged through a maze of wagons carrying hemp, jute, lime for caulking, tung oil, and sailing cloth. The entire city smelled and sounded like a shipyard; it echoed everywhere with the same faint, low groan, the noise of dozens of massive ships detaching their anchors, paddle wheels beginning to turn.
“Move!” A wagon driven by Hesperian soldiers narrowly missed running them over. Nezha pulled Rin to the side.
“Assholes,” he muttered.
Rin’s eyes followed the Hesperians to the warships. “I guess we’ll finally get to see Tarcquet’s golden troops in action.”
“Actually, no. Tarcquet’s only bringing a skeleton platoon. The rest are staying in Arlong.”
“Then why are they even going?”
“Because they’re here to observe. They want to know if we’re capable of coming close to winning this war, and if we are, if we’re capable of running this country effectively. Tarcquet told Father some babble about stages of human evolution last night, but I think they really just want to see if we’re worth the trouble. Everything Jinzha does gets reported to Tarcquet. Everything Tarcquet sees goes back to the Consortium. And the Consortium decides when they want to lend their ships.”
“We can’t take this Empire without them, and they won’t help us until we take the Empire.” Rin made a face. “Those are the terms?”
“Not quite. They’ll intervene before this war is over, once they’re sure it isn’t a lost cause. They’re willing to tip the scales, but we have to prove first that we can pull our own weight.”
“So just another fucking test,” Rin said.
Nezha sighed. “More or less, yes.”
The sheer arrogance, Rin thought. It must be nice, possessing all the power, so that you could approach geopolitics like a chess