“Sans Chaghan,” said Baji. “When’s he back? Qara? Estimated location?”

Qara glowered at him.

“Never mind,” said Baji.

“We’re all here? Good.” Altan walked into the office carrying a rolled-up map in one hand. He unfurled it over his desk, then pinned it up against the far wall. The crucial landmarks of the city had been marked in red and black ink, dotted over with circles of varying size.

“Here’s our position in Khurdalain,” he said. He pointed to the black circles. “This is us.” Then to the red ones. “This is Mugen.”

The maps reminded Rin of a game of wikki, the chess variation Irjah had taught them to play in their third-year Strategy class. Wikki play did not involve direct confrontation, but rather dominance through strategic encirclement. Both the Nikara and the Federation had as of yet avoided direct clash, instead filling empty spaces on the complicated network of canals that was Khurdalain to establish a relative advantage. The opposing forces held each other in a fragile equilibrium, gradually raising the stakes as reinforcements flocked to the city from both sides.

“The wharf now stands as the main line of defense. We insulate the civilian quarters against Federation encampments on the beach. They haven’t attempted a press farther inland because all three divisions are concentrated right on the mouth of the Sharhap River. But that balance only holds so long as they’re uncertain about our numbers. We’re not sure how good their intelligence is, but we’re guessing they’re aware that we’d be pretty evenly matched in an open field. After Sinegard, the Federation forces don’t want to risk direct confrontation. They don’t want to bleed forces before their inland campaign. They’ll only attack when they have the sure numbers advantage.”

Altan indicated on the map where he had circled an area to the north of where they were stationed.

“In three days, the Federation will bring in a fleet to supplement the troops at the Sharhap River. Their warship will unload twelve sampans bearing men, supplies, and fire powder off the coast. Qara’s birds have seen them sailing over the narrow strait. At their current speed, we predict they will land after sunset of the third day,” Altan announced. “I want to sink them.”

“And I want to sleep with the Empress.” Baji looked around. “Sorry, I thought we were voicing our fantasies.”

Altan looked unamused.

“Look at your own map,” Baji insisted. “The Sharhap is swarming with Jun’s men. You can’t attack the Federation without escalation. This forces their hand. And the Warlords won’t get on board—they’re not ready, they want to wait for the Seventh to get here.”

“They’re not landing at the Sharhap,” Altan responded. “They’re docking at the Murui. Far away from the fishing wharf. The civilians stay away from Murui; the flat shore means that there’s a broad intertidal zone and a fast-running tide. Which means there’s no fixed coastline. They’ll have difficulty unloading. And the terrain beyond the beaches is nonideal for them; it’s crisscrossed by rivers and creeks, and there are hardly any good roads.”

Baji looked confused. “Then why the hell are they docking there?”

Altan looked smug. “For precisely the same reasons that the First and Eighth are amassing troops by Sharhap. Sharhap’s the obvious landing spot. The Federation don’t think anyone will be guarding Murui. But they weren’t counting on, you know, talking birds.”

“Nice one,” Unegen said.

“Thank you.” Qara looked smug.

“The coast at Murui leads into a tight latticework of irrigation channels by a rice paddy. We will draw the boats as far as possible inland, and Aratsha will ground them by reversing the currents to cut off an escape route.”

They looked to Aratsha.

“You can do that?” Baji asked.

The watery blob that was Aratsha’s head bobbed from side to side. “A fleet that size? Not easily. I can give you thirty minutes. One hour, tops.”

“That’s more than enough,” said Altan. “If we can get them bunched together, they’ll catch fire in seconds. But we need to corral them into the narrow strait. Ramsa. Can you create a diversion?”

Ramsa tossed something round in a sack across the table to Altan.

Altan caught it, opened it, and made a face. “What is this?”

“It’s the Bone-Burning Fire Oil Magic Bomb,” Ramsa said. “New model.”

“Cool.” Suni leaned toward the bag. “What’s in it?”

“Tung oil, sal ammoniac, scallion juice, and feces.” Ramsa rattled off the ingredients with relish.

Altan looked faintly alarmed. “Whose feces?”

“That’s not important,” Ramsa said hastily. “This can knock birds out of the sky from fifty feet away. I can plant some bamboo rockets for you, too, but you’ll have trouble igniting in this humidity.”

Altan raised an eyebrow.

“Right.” Ramsa chuckled. “I love Speerlies.”

“Aratsha will reverse the currents to trap them,” Altan continued. “Suni, Baji, Rin, and I will defend from the shore. They’ll have reduced visibility from the combination of smoke and fog, so they’ll think we’re a larger squad than we are.”

“What happens if they try to storm the shore?” Unegen asked.

“They can’t,” said Altan. “It’s marshland. They’ll sink into the bog. At nighttime it’ll be impossible for them to find solid land. We will defend those crucial points in teams of two. Qara and Unegen will detach supply boats from the back of the van and drag them back to the main channel. Whatever we can’t take, we’ll burn.”

“One problem,” Ramsa said. “I’m out of fire powder. The Warlords aren’t sharing.”

“I’ll deal with the Warlords,” Altan said. “You just keep making those shit bombs.”

The great military strategist Sunzi wrote that fire should be used on a dry night, when flames might spread with the smallest provocation. Fire should be used when one was upwind, so that the wind would carry its brother element, smoke, into the enemy encampment. Fire should be used on a clear night, when there was no chance for rainfall to quench the flames.

Fire should not be used on a night like this, when the humid winds from the beach would prevent it from spreading, when stealth was of utmost importance but any torchlight would give them away.

But tonight they were not using regular fire. They needed nothing so rudimentary as kindling and oil. They didn’t need torches. They had Speerlies.

Rin crouched among the reeds beside Altan, eyes fixed on the darkening sky as she awaited Qara’s signal. They pressed flat against the mud bank, stomachs on the ground. Water seeped through her thin tunic from the moist mud, and the peat emitted such a rank odor of rotten eggs that breathing through her mouth only made her want to gag.

On the opposite bank she could just see Suni and Baji crawl up against the river and drop down among the reeds. Between them, they held the only two strips of solid land in the paddy; two slender pieces of dry peat that reached into the marsh like fingers.

The thick fog that might have dampened regular kindling now gave them the advantage. It would be a boon to the Federation as they made their amphibious landing, but it would also serve to conceal the Cike and to exaggerate their numbers.