The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,126
Altan said.
“Yes, and now you’ve dragged pride into it. Do you know how much reputation matters to Federation commanders? We needed time for fortifications, but you’ve doubled their timetables. What, did you think they would just turn tail and go home? You want to know what they’ll do next? They’re going to come for us.”
But when the Federation did come, it was with a white flag and a plea for a cease-fire.
When Qara’s birds spotted the incoming Federation delegation, she sent Rin to alert Altan with the news. Thrilled, Rin barged past Jun’s aides to force her way into the office of the Ram Warlord.
“Three Federation delegates,” she reported. “They brought a wagon.”
“Shoot them,” Jun suggested immediately.
“They’re carrying a white flag,” Rin said.
“A strategic gambit. Shoot them,” Jun repeated, and his junior officers nodded their assent.
The Ox Warlord held up a hand. He was a tremendously large man, two heads taller than Jun and thrice again his girth. His weapon of choice was a double-bladed battle-axe that was the size of Rin’s torso, which he kept on the table in front of him, stroking the blade obsessively. “They could be coming under peace.”
“Or they could be coming to poison our water supply, or to assassinate any one of us,” Jun snapped. “Do you really think we’ve won this war so easily?”
“They’re bearing a white flag,” the Ox Warlord said slowly, as if speaking to a child.
The Ram Warlord said nothing. His wide-set eyes darted nervously between Jun and the Ox Warlord. Rin could see what Ramsa had meant; the Ram Warlord seemed like a child waiting to be told what to do.
“A white flag doesn’t mean anything to them,” Jun insisted. “This is a ruse. How many false treaties did they sign during the Poppy Wars?”
“Would you take a gamble on peace?” the Ox Warlord challenged.
“I wouldn’t gamble with any of these citizens’ lives.”
“It’s not your cease-fire to refuse,” the Ram Warlord pointed out.
Jun and the Ox Warlord both glared at him, and the Ram Warlord stammered in his haste to explain. “I mean, we ought to let the boy handle it. The marsh victory was his doing. They’re surrendering to him.”
All eyes turned to Altan.
Rin was amazed at the subtle interdivisional politics at play. The Ram Warlord was shrewder than she’d guessed. His suggestion was a clever way of absolving responsibility. If negotiations went sour, then blame would fall on Altan’s shoulders. And if they went well, then the Ram Warlord still came out on top for his magnanimity.
Altan hesitated, clearly torn between his better judgment and desire to see the full extent of his victory at Khurdalain. Rin could see the hope reflected clearly on his face. If the Federation surrender was genuine, then he would be single-handedly responsible for winning this war. He would be the youngest commander ever to have achieved a military victory on this scale.
“Shoot them,” Jun repeated. “We don’t need a peace negotiation. Our forces are tied now; if the assault on the wharf goes well, we can push them back indefinitely until the Seventh gets here.”
But Altan shook his head. “If we reject their surrender, then this war goes on until one party has decimated the other. Khurdalain can’t hold out that long. If there’s a chance we can end this war now, we need to take it.”
The Federation delegates who met them in the town square bore no weapons and wore no armor. They dressed in light, form-fitting blue uniforms designed to make it clear that they concealed no weapons in their sleeves.
The head delegate, whose uniform stripes indicated his higher rank, stepped forward when he saw them.
“Do you speak our language?” He spoke in a halting and outdated Nikara dialect, complete with a bad approximation of a Sinegardian accent.
The Warlords hesitated, but Altan cut in, “I do.”
“Good,” the delegate responded in Mugini. “Then we may proceed without misunderstanding.”
It was the first time Rin had gotten a good look at the Mugenese outside the chaos of a melee, and she was disappointed by how very similar they looked to the Nikara. The slant of their eyes and the shape of their mouths were nowhere near as pronounced as the textbooks reported. Their hair was the same pitch-black as Nezha’s, their skin as pale as any northerner’s.
In fact, they looked more like Sinegardians than Rin and Altan did.
Aside from their language, which was more clipped and rapid than Sinegardian Nikara, they were virtually indistinguishable from the Nikara themselves.