Of course Rin’s recruits could have used another week of training. Of course it would have been ideal if they’d had time to fine-tune their abilities, to learn consistently to force the gods back out of their minds when the voices became too loud. But Rin also knew that every day they waited to move out east was another day Nezha had to prepare.

Nezha was licking his wounds now. She had to acquire as much territory as possible before he was ready to strike back. Armies were marching one way or another, and she wanted to be the first.

“For once, time’s on our side,” she said. “We won’t get this chance again.”

“You’re sure they’re ready?”

She shrugged. “About as ready as I was.”

He sighed. “I’m sure you know that thought gives me no comfort at all.”

Chapter 25

Rin’s first major metropolitan target in Republican territory was Jinzhou—the Golden City, the opulent pearl of the Nikara mideast. After three weeks’ march it rose out of the treetops, all high walls and thin, reaching pagodas. Its blue, dragon-emblazoned flags streamed from atop sentry towers like a glaring invitation to attack.

Jinzhou’s other, less savory moniker was the Whore. It sat square on the intersection of three provinces and, thanks to its proximity to thriving mulberry farms that provided wagonfuls of silkworm cocoons and some of the largest coal deposits in the Empire, could afford to pay taxes to all three. In return, Jinzhou had received thrice the military aid throughout the Poppy Wars. Not once in recent history had it been sacked; it had only ever been passed from ruler to ruler, trading compliance and riches for protection.

Rin intended to end that streak.

The military strategist Sunzi once wrote that it was best to take enemy cities intact. Prolonged, destructive campaigns benefited no one. Jinzhou, which offered a potential taxation base and was positioned well against multiple transport routes, would have served better as a sustained resource base than as a ruined city left in the Southern Army’s wake.

Once again, Rin rejected Sunzi’s advice.

In the south she’d been fighting to claim territory back from the Federation. That was a war of liberation. But now her army was homeless, fighting in territory where they’d never lived, and they could never return to their home provinces in peace while the Republic was still angling for control. The problem with trying to hold on to territory was that she would bleed troops expending them to maintain conquered areas. That was the same reason why Nezha was bound to lose—he’d been forced to split his troops across both the northern and southern fronts.

The upshot of all this was that Jinzhou was expendable.

Rin didn’t care about preserving it. She didn’t want Jinzhou’s economy, she wanted to cut Nezha off from its riches.

What I can’t have, he can’t have.

Jinzhou was a flagrant display of power. Jinzhou was a message.

As her troops approached the city’s thick stone gates, Rin didn’t feel the same nervous flutter she always had before a fight. She wasn’t anxious about the outcome, because this was not a contest of strategy, numbers, or timing. This wasn’t a battle of chance.

This time the victor was guaranteed. She had seen what her shamans could do and knew, no matter how good the city’s defenses, they had nothing that could defy an army that could move the earth itself.

Jinzhou’s fate was already a foregone conclusion. Rin was just curious to see how badly they could break it.

But first, they had to settle the question of battlefield etiquette. Prudence prevailed, because Kitay prevailed. Rin couldn’t feed and clothe her army if she didn’t amass resources as they went, and those were harder to obtain from burned, sacked cities.

“I know you want a fight out of this,” Kitay said. “But if you start tearing walls down without giving them the chance to surrender, then you’re just being stupid.”

“Negotiations give them time to prepare defenses,” she objected.

He rolled his eyes at that. “What defenses could they possibly mount against you?”

The first messenger they sent returned almost immediately. “No surrender,” he reported. “They, ah, laughed in my face.”

“That’s it, then.” Rin stood up. “We’ll head out in five. Someone get Dulin and Pipaji—”

“Hold on,” Kitay said. “We haven’t given them fair warning.”

“Fair warning? We just offered them surrender!”

“They think you’re a scruffy peasant army with rusty swords and no artillery to speak of.” Kitay gave her a stern look. “They don’t know what they’re sentencing themselves to. And you’re not being fair.”

“Sunzi said—”

“I think we both agree Sunzi’s playbook stopped being relevant a long time ago. And when Sunzi wrote about preserving information asymmetries so that your enemy would underestimate you, he was talking about troop numbers and supplies. Not earth-shattering, godlike powers.” Kitay smoothed a piece of parchment over the table. He didn’t even wait for her response before he began penning another missive. “We give them another chance.”

She made a noise of protest. “What, you’re just going to reveal our new weapons before they’ve even seen their first battle?”

“I’m a bit concerned that you’re referring to people as weapons. And no, Rin, I’m only telling them that they ought to consider the many innocent lives at risk. I won’t include details.” Kitay scribbled for a bit longer, glanced up, and reached toward his forehead to tug at a hank of hair. “This confirms one thing, though. Nezha’s not in the city.”

Rin frowned. “How do you figure?”

They’d decided there was perhaps a fifty-fifty chance that Nezha would remain at the front to defend Jinzhou in person. On one hand, Jinzhou was such a massive treasure trove it was hard to imagine the Republic would relinquish it so easily—the coal stockpiles alone could have kept the airships flying indefinitely. On the other hand, every report they received indicated that Nezha had fled east as far as he could. And Jinzhou, though rich, did not have the strongest defense structures—it was a city founded on trade, and trading cities were designed to invite the outside world in, not to keep it out. This would have been a stupid place for Nezha to make his last stand.

“We know he’s not here because the magistrate would have invoked his name if he was,” Kitay said. “Or he would have shown up to negotiate himself. The whole country knows what he can do now. They know he’d be a better deterrent than anything else they could muster.”

“He could be trying to ambush us,” Rin said.

“Maybe. But Nezha sticks even harder to Sunzi’s principles than you do. Don’t push where there’s already resistance; don’t bleed troops where you’re already at a disadvantage.” Kitay shook his head. “I suppose we can’t be certain. But if I were Nezha, I wouldn’t try to kill you here. Not enough water access. No, I think he’s going to give you this one.”

“How romantic,” she sneered. “Then let’s make him regret it.”