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Dinner was measly, baked cornmeal wotou and unseasoned rice gruel. The Monkey Warlord hadn’t let Rin take anything but the stalest provision sacks out of Ruijin, arguing that if she failed on this expedition then she at least shouldn’t starve Ruijin at the same time. Rin hadn’t pressed the point; she didn’t want to push her luck.
But the Iron Wolves were eating suspiciously well. Rin didn’t know where they’d found the ingredients, but the steam wafting from their bubbling cauldrons smelled good. Had they stolen extra rations from Ruijin? She wouldn’t put it past Souji; he was enough of an asshole.
“If it’s bothering you then just go ask them,” Kitay said.
“That’s stupid,” Rin muttered. “I’m not going to make a fuss—”
But Souji was already walking toward them, carrying stacked bamboo steamers in both hands. His eyes alighted on their rations. His lip curled. “Looks appetizing.”
Rin curled her fingers possessively around her wotou. “It’s enough.”
Souji sat down across from them and set the steamers on the ground. “You haven’t learned to forage for yourselves?”
“Of course we can, there’s just nothing edible on this stretch—”
“Really?” Souji lifted the steamer lids. “Look. Bamboo shoots. Freshly killed partridges. Cook all this up with a little salt and vinegar, and you have a three-course meal.”
“But there’s none of that around here,” Kitay said.
“Right, we picked it up on the march. There was a bamboo grove right at the base of Ruijin, didn’t you see it? Lots of baby saplings. Whenever you see something edible, you put it in your sack. First rule of march, no?”
The smell of partridge meat was making Rin salivate. She eyed the steamers with envy. “And how’d you catch the birds?”
“Simple. You can rig up a trap with next to nothing as long as you’ve got some cornmeal for bait. We can set some overnight and wake up to crackling partridge wings. I can teach you how.”
Rin pointed to something yellow and mushy buried under the bamboo shoots. “What’s that?”
“Bajiao bananas.”
“Do they taste good?”
“You’ve never eaten these before?” Souji gave her an incredulous look. “They grow everywhere in these parts.”
“We thought they might be poisonous,” Kitay admitted. “They gave some men at Ruijin a bad stomachache, so we’ve stayed clear of them since.”
“Ah, no, that’s just when they’re not ripe. If you can’t tell from the color—darkish brown, you see?—you can peel it open and tell from the smell. If it’s sour, put it back. None of your men knew about that?”
“None at our camp.”
“Incredible,” Souji said. “I suppose after a few centuries you start to forget the little things.”
Rin pointed to a bowl of what looked like black, crispy, oversize beans. “What’s that?”
“Bees,” Souji said casually. “They’re very tasty when you fry them up. You’ve just got to make sure you take all the stingers out.”
She stared. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”
“I’m not kidding.” He picked one up and showed her the husk. “See? The legs are the best part. They soak up all the oil.” He popped it into his mouth and chewed loudly. “Incredible. You want?”
“I’m good,” she muttered.
“You’re from the south. Thought you could eat anything.”
“We never ate bugs in Tikany.”
He laughed. “Tikany’s hardly the poorest village in the south. Makes sense that you’ve never known famine.”
She had to admit that was true. She’d gone hungry on plenty of nights, both in Tikany and at the Academy in Sinegard, but that was because of food withheld and not the sheer lack of it. Even after the Third Poppy War kicked off in earnest, when villagers across the Empire grew so desperate they resorted to eating wood bark, Rin had been able to rely on at least two square meals from army rations every day.
Of course. When things got bad, soldiers were fed first, and everyone else was left to die. Rin had been living so long on the extractive capabilities of the empire she fought for, she’d never learned to forage for herself.
“That wasn’t an insult. Just being frank.” Souji held the bowl of bees out toward her. “Want to try?”
They smelled terribly good. Rin’s stomach let loose an embarrassingly loud growl.
“Eat up.” Souji chuckled. “We’ve got rations to spare.”
They continued their march at dawn, trailing by the edge of the road, always ready to bolt back into the trees at the first signal from the scouts ahead. They quickened their pace slightly from the day before. Rin had wanted to make straight for the Beehive, but Souji had drawn a zigzag pattern on her map instead, creating a circuitous route that took them all around local power bases but avoided the center until the very end.
“But then they’ll know we’re coming,” Rin said. “Isn’t the whole point to keep the element of surprise until Leiyang?”
Souji shook his head. “No, they’ll know we’re out here in five days at most. We can’t keep our approach a secret for that much longer, so we may as well get some good hits in when we can.”
“Then what is the point of all these measures?”
“Think, Princess. They know we’re coming. That’s all they know. They don’t know how many we are. We could be a band of ten. We could be an army of a million. They’ve got absolutely no clue what to be on the guard for, and the threat of the unknown hamstrings defense preparations. Preserve that.”
Of course Rin had learned at Sinegard to strategize accounting for the enemy’s state of mind. But she’d always thought of it as a matter of dominant strategies. What, given the circumstances, was their best option? And how should she prepare for their best option? The issues Souji obsessed over—fear, apprehension, anxiety, irrationality—were details she’d never much considered. But now, in this war of uncertainty and unbalanced forces, they seemed paramount.
So whenever the Southern Coalition encountered Mugenese soldiers, they either hid in the trees and watched them march past if they appeared not to have noticed anything, or pulled the same kind of lure tactic the Iron Wolves had used the first day. And whenever they came past occupied hamlets, they employed much the same sort of strategy—cautious baiting accompanied by strikes of limited force, just enough to achieve limited tactical objectives without ever escalating into a real battle.
Over eight days and numerous engagements, Rin witnessed the full range of Souji’s favorite tactics. They revolved almost entirely around deception, and they were brilliant. The Iron Wolves were fond of waylaying small groups of Mugenese soldiers, always at night and never twice in the same spot. When the Mugenese returned with larger bands, the guerrillas were long gone. They feigned beggars, farmers, and village drunkards to draw Mugenese attacks. They deliberately created false campsites to agitate Mugenese patrols. Souji’s favorite ploy was to send a group of Iron Wolves, all young women, out to fields near Mugenese encampments wearing the most brightly colored, provocative clothing that village women had access to. They were, without fail, assaulted. But girls with fire rockets and knives were harder to take down than the Mugenese soldiers’ usual prey.
