The Dragon Republic. R.F. Kuang

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       CHAPTER 1

      Dawn saw the Petrel sail through swirling mist into the port city of Adlaga. Shattered by a storm of Federation soldiers during the Third Poppy War, port security still hadn’t recovered and was almost nonexistent—especially for a supply ship flying Militia colors. The Petrel glided past Adlaga’s port officers with little trouble and made berth as close to the city walls as it could get.

      Rin propped herself up on the prow, trying to conceal the twitching in her limbs and to ignore the throbbing pain in her temples. She wanted opium terribly and couldn’t have it. Today she needed her mind alert. Functioning. Sober.

      The Petrel bumped against the dock. The Cike gathered on the upper deck, watching the gray skies with tense anticipation as the minutes trickled past.

      Ramsa drummed his foot against the deck. “It’s been an hour.”

      “Patience,” Chaghan said.

      “Could be that Unegen’s run off,” Baji said.

      “He hasn’t run off,” Rin said. “He said he needed until noon.”

      “He’d also be the first to seize this chance to be rid of us,” Baji said.

      He had a point. Unegen, already the most skittish by far among the Cike, had been complaining for days about their impending mission. Rin had sent him ahead overland to scope out their target in Adlaga. But the rendezvous window was quickly closing and Unegen hadn’t shown.

      “Unegen wouldn’t dare,” Rin said, and winced when the effort of speaking sent little stabs through the base of her skull. “He knows I’d hunt him down and skin him alive.”

      “Mm,” Ramsa said. “Fox fur. I’d like a new scarf.”

      Rin turned her eyes back to the city. Adlaga made an odd corpse of a township, half-alive and half-destroyed. One side had emerged from the war intact; the other had been bombed so thoroughly that she could see building foundations poking up from blackened grass. The split appeared so even that half houses existed on the line: one side blackened and exposed, the other somehow teetering and groaning against the ocean winds, yet still standing.

      Rin found it hard to imagine that anyone still lived in the township. If the Federation had been as thorough here as they’d been at Golyn Niis, then all that should be left were corpses.

      At last a raven emerged from the blackened ruins. It circled the ship twice, then dove straight toward the Petrel as if locked on a target. Qara lifted a padded arm into the air. The raven pulled out of its dive and wrapped its talons around her wrist.

      Qara ran the back of her index finger over the bird’s head and down its spine. The raven ruffled its feathers as she brought its beak to her ear. Several seconds passed. Qara stood still with her eyes shut, listening intently to something the rest of them couldn’t hear.

      “Unegen’s pinned Yuanfu,” Qara said. “City hall, two hours.”

      “Guess you’re not getting that scarf,” Baji told Ramsa.

      Chaghan yanked a sack out from under the deck and emptied its contents onto the planks. “Everyone get dressed.”

      Ramsa had come up with the idea to disguise themselves in stolen Militia uniforms. Uniforms were the one thing Moag hadn’t been able to sell them, but they weren’t hard to find. Rotting corpses lay in messy piles by the roadside in every abandoned coastal town, and it took only two trips to scavenge enough clothes that weren’t burned or covered in blood.

      Rin had to roll up the arms and legs of her uniform. Corpses of her stature were difficult to come by. She suppressed the urge to vomit as she laced on her boots. She’d pulled the shirt off a body wedged inside a half-burned funeral pyre, and three washes still couldn’t conceal the smell of charred flesh under salty ocean water.

      Ramsa, draped absurdly in a uniform three times his size, gave her a salute. “How do I look?”

      She bent down to tie her boot laces. “Why are you wearing that?”

      “Rin, please—”

      “You’re not coming.”

      “But I want to—”

      “You are not coming,” she repeated. Ramsa was a munitions genius, but he was also short, scrawny, and utterly worthless in a melee. She wasn’t losing her only fire powder engineer because he didn’t know how to wield a sword. “Don’t make me tie you to the mast.”

      “Come on,” Ramsa whined. “We’ve been on this ship for weeks, and I’m so fucking seasick just walking around makes me want to vomit—”

      “Tough.” Rin yanked a belt through the loops around her waist.

      Ramsa pulled a handful of rockets from his pocket. “Will you set these off, then?”

      Rin gave him a stern look. “I don’t think you understand that we’re not trying to blow Adlaga up.”

      “Oh, no, you just want to topple the local government, that’s so much better.”

      “With minimal civilian casualties, which means we don’t need you.” Rin reached out and tapped at the lone barrel leaning against the mast. “Aratsha, will you watch him? Make sure he doesn’t get off the ship.”

      A blurry face, grotesquely transparent, emerged from the water. Aratsha spent most of his time in the water, spiriting the Cike’s ships along to wherever they needed to go, and when he wasn’t calling down his god he preferred to rest in his barrel. Rin had never seen his original human form. She wasn’t sure he had one anymore.

      Bubbles floated from Aratsha’s mouth as he spoke. “If I must.”

      “Good СКАЧАТЬ