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“Safe?” Nezha echoed, incredulous.
“Safer than the rest of us,” Rin amended.
“But she’s not done . . .” Nezha looked Venka up and down, hesitating, clearly at a loss for the right words. “You’re not done, uh . . .”
“Healing?” Venka asked. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
“Venka, please.”
“How long did you think I’d need? I’ve been sitting on my ass for months. Come on, please, I’m ready.”
Nezha looked helplessly at Rin, as if hoping she’d make the entire situation dissipate. But what did he expect her to say? Rin didn’t even understand the problem.
“There has to be room on the ships,” she said. “Let her go.”
“That’s not your call. She could die out there.”
“Occupational hazard,” Venka shot back. “We’re soldiers.”
“You are not a soldier.”
“Why not? Because of Golyn Niis?” Venka barked out a laugh. “You think once you’re raped you can’t be a soldier?”
Nezha shifted uncomfortably. “That’s not what I said.”
“Yes, it is. Even if you won’t say it, that’s what you’re thinking!” Venka’s voice rose steadily in pitch. “You think that because they raped me, I’m never going to go back to normal.”
Nezha reached for her shoulder. “Meimei. Come on.”
Meimei. Little sister. Not by blood, but by virtue of the closeness of their families. He was trying to invoke his ritual concern for her to dissuade her from going. “What happened to you was horrible. Nobody blames you. Nobody here agrees with your father, or my mother—”
“I know that!” Venka shouted. “I don’t give a shit about that!”
Nezha looked pained. “I can’t protect you out there.”
“And when have you ever protected me?” Venka slapped his hand away from her shoulder. “Do you know what I thought when I was in that house? I kept hoping someone might come for me, I really thought someone was coming for me. And where the fuck were you? Nowhere. So fuck you, Nezha. You can’t keep me safe, so you might as well let me fight.”
“Yes, I can,” Nezha said. “I’m a general. Go back. Or I’ll have someone drag you back.”
Venka grabbed the crossbow back from Rin and pointed it at Nezha. A bolt whizzed out, narrowly missed Nezha’s cheek, and embedded itself into a post several feet behind his head, where it quivered in the wood, humming loudly.
“You missed,” Nezha said calmly.
Venka tossed the crossbow on the pier and spat at Nezha’s feet. “I never miss.”
Captain Salkhi of the Swallow stood waiting for the Cike at the base of the gangplank. She was a lean, petite woman with closely cropped hair, narrow eyes, and pinkish-brown skin—not the dusky tint of a southerner, but the tanned hue of a pale northerner who had spent too much time in the sun.
“I’m assuming I’m to treat you lot as I would any other soldiers,” she said. “Can you handle ground operations?”
“We’ll be fine,” said Rin. “I’ll walk you through their specialties.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Salkhi paused. “And what about you? Eriden told me about your, ah, problem.”
“I’ve still got two arms and two legs.”
“And she has a trident,” Kitay said, walking up behind her. “Very helpful for catching fish.”
Rin turned around, pleasantly surprised. “You’re coming with us?”
“It’s either your ship or Nezha’s. And frankly, he and I have been getting on each other’s nerves.”
“That’s mostly your fault,” she said.
“Oh, it absolutely is,” he said. “Don’t care. Besides, I like you better. Aren’t you flattered?”
That was about as close to a peace offering from Kitay as she was going to get. Rin grinned. Together they boarded the Swallow.
The vessel was no multidecked warship. This was a sleek, tiny model, similar in build to an opium skimmer. A single row of cannons armed it on each side, but no trebuchets mounted its decks. Rin, who had gotten used to the amenities of the Seagrim, found the Swallow uncomfortably cramped.
The Swallow belonged to the first fleet, one of seven light, fast skimmers capable of tight tactical maneuvers. They would sail ahead two weeks in advance while the heavier fleet commanded by Jinzha prepared to ship out.
During that time they would be cut off from the chain of command at Arlong.
That didn’t matter. Their instructions were short and simple: find the source of the poison, destroy it, and punish every last man involved. Vaisra hadn’t specified how. He’d left that up to the captains, which was why everyone wanted to get to them first.
Chapter 15
The Swallow’s crew planned to keep sailing upstream until they weren’t surrounded by dead fish, or until the poison’s source became apparent. The facility would have to be near a main river juncture, and close enough to the Murui that there would be no chance the poison would wash out to the ocean or get blocked up in a dead end. They traveled north up the Murui until they reached the border of Hare Province, where the river branched off into several tributaries.
Here the skimmers split up. The Swallow took the westernmost route, a lazy bending creek that trailed slowly through the province’s interior heartland. They went cautiously with their flag stowed away, disguising themselves as a merchant ship to avoid Imperial suspicion.
Captain Salkhi kept a clean, tightly disciplined ship. The Fourteenth Brigade rotated shifts on deck, either watching the shoreline or paddling down below. The soldiers and crew accepted the Cike into their fold with wary indifference. If they had questions about what the shamans could or couldn’t do, they kept them to themselves.
“Seen anything?” Rin joined Kitay at the starboard railing, legs aching after a long paddling shift. She should have gone to sleep, according to the schedule, but midmorning was the only time that their breaks overlapped.
She was relieved that she and Kitay were on friendly terms again. They hadn’t returned to normal—she didn’t know if they would ever return to normal—but at least Kitay didn’t emanate cold judgment every time he looked at her.
“Not yet.” He stood utterly still, eyes fixed on the water, as if he could trace a path to the chemical source through sheer force of will. He was angry. Rin could tell when he was angry—his cheeks went a pale white, he held himself too rigidly, and he went long periods without blinking. She was just glad that he wasn’t angry with her.
“Look.” She pointed. “I don’t think this is the right tributary.”
Dark shapes moved under the muggy green water. Which meant the river life was still alive and healthy, unaffected by poison.
Kitay leaned forward. “What’s that?”
Rin followed his gaze but couldn’t tell what he was looking at.
He pulled a netted pole from the bulkhead, scooped it into the water, and plucked out a small object. At first Rin thought he’d caught a fish, but when Kitay deposited it onto the deck she saw it was some kind of dark and leathery pouch, about the size of a pomelo, knotted tightly at the end so that it looked oddly like a breast.
