The Poppy War

She found that she was fueled by praise from her masters. Praise meant that she had finally, finally received validation that she was not nothing. She could be brilliant, could be worth someone’s attention. She adored praise—craved it, needed it, and realized she found relief only when she finally had it.

She realized, too, that she felt about praise the way that addicts felt about opium. Each time she received a fresh infusion of flattery, she could think only about how to get more of it. Achievement was a high. Failure was worse than withdrawal. Good test scores brought only momentary relief and temporary pride—she basked in her grace period of several hours before she began to panic about her next test.

She craved praise so deeply that she felt it in her bones. And just like an addict, she did whatever she could to get it.

In the following weeks, Rin clawed her way up from the bottom of the ranks to become one of the top students in each class. She competed regularly with Nezha and Venka for the highest marks in nearly every subject. In Linguistics, she was second now only to Kitay.

She particularly enjoyed Strategy.

Gray-whiskered Master Irjah was the first teacher she’d ever had who didn’t rely principally on rote memorization as a learning method. He made the students solve logical syllogisms. He made them define concepts they had taken for granted, concepts like advantage and victory and war. He forced them to be precise and accurate in their answers. He rejected responses that were phrased vaguely or could have multiple interpretations. He stretched their minds, shattered their preconceptions of logic, and then pieced them back together.

He gave praise only sparingly, but when he did, he made sure that everyone in the class heard. Rin craved his approval more than anything.

Now that they had finished analyzing Sunzi’s Principles of War, Irjah spent the second half of class lobbing hypothetical military situations at them, challenging them to think their way out of various quagmires. Sometimes these simulations involved only questions of logistics (“Calculate how much time and how many supplies you need to move a force of this size across this strait”). Other times he drew up maps for them, indicating with symbols how many troops they had to work with, and forced them to come up with a battle plan.

“You are stuck behind this river,” said Irjah. “Your troops stand in a prime position for a ranged assault, but your main column has run out of arrows. What do you do?”

Most of their class suggested raids on the enemy’s weapons carriages. Venka wanted to abandon the ranged idea entirely and pursue a direct frontal assault. Nezha suggested they commission the nearby farmers to mass-produce arrows in one night.

“Gather scarecrows from the nearby farmers,” said Kitay.

Nezha snorted. “What?”

“Let him talk,” said Irjah.

“Dress them in spare uniforms, stick them in a boat, and send them downriver,” Kitay continued, ignoring him. “This area is a mountainous region notorious for heavy precipitation. We can assume it has rained recently, so there should be fog. That makes it difficult for the enemy forces to see the river clearly. Their archers will mistake the scarecrows for soldiers, and shoot until they resemble pincushions. We will then send our men downstream and have them collect the arrows. We use our enemy’s arrows to kill our enemies.”

Kitay won that one.

Another day Irjah presented them with a map of the Wudang mountain region marked with two red crosses to indicate two Federation battalions surrounding the Nikara army from both ends of the valley.

“You’re trapped in this valley. The villagers have mostly evacuated, but the Federation general holds a school full of children hostage. He says he will set the children free if your battalion surrenders. You have no guarantee he will honor the terms. How do you respond?”

They stared at the map for many minutes. Their troops had no advantage, no easy way out.

Even Kitay was puzzled. “Try an assault on the left flank?” he suggested. “Evacuate the children while they’re preoccupied with a small guerrilla force?”

“They’re on higher ground,” said Irjah. “They’ll shoot you down before you get the chance to draw your weapons.”

“Light the valley on fire,” Venka tried. “Distract them with the smoke?”

“Good way to burn yourselves to death.” Irjah snorted. “Remember, you do not have the high ground.”

Rin raised her hand. “Cut around the second army and get onto the dam. Break the dam. Flood the valley. Let everyone inside drown.”

Her classmates turned to stare at her in horror.

“Leave the children,” she added. “There’s no way to save them.”

Nezha laughed out loud. “We’re trying to win this simulation, idiot.”

Irjah motioned for Nezha to be silent. “Runin. Please elaborate.”

“It’s not a victory either way,” said Rin. “But if the costs are so high, I would throw all my tiles in. This way they die, and we lose half our troops but no more. Sunzi writes that no battle takes place in isolation. This is just one small move in the grand scheme of the war. The numbers you’ve given us indicate that these Federation battalions are massive. I’m guessing they constitute a large percentage of the entire Federation army. So if we give up some of our own troops, we lessen their advantage in all subsequent battles.”

“You’d rather kill your own people than let the opponent’s army walk away?” Irjah asked.

“Killing isn’t the same as letting die,” Rin objected.

“They’re casualties nonetheless.”

Rin shook her head. “You don’t let an enemy walk away if they’ll certainly be a threat to you later. You get rid of them. If they’re that far inland, they know the lay of almost the entire country. They have a geographical advantage. This is our one chance to take out the enemy’s greatest fighting force.”

“Sunzi said to always give the enemy a way out,” Irjah said.

Rin privately thought that this was one of Sunzi’s stupider principles, but hastily pulled together a counterargument. “But Sunzi didn’t mean to let them take that way out. The enemy just has to think the situation is less dire than it is, so they don’t grow desperate and do stupid and mutually destructive things.” Rin pondered for a moment. “I suppose they could try to swim.”

“She’s talking about decimating entire villages!” Venka protested. “You can’t just break a dam like that. Dams take years to rebuild. The entire river delta will flood, not just that valley. You’re talking about famine. Dysentery. You’ll mess with the agriculture of the entire region, create a whole host of problems that mean decades of suffering down the line—”

“Problems that can be solved,” Rin maintained stubbornly. “What was your solution, to let the Federation walk free into the heartland? Fat lot of good the agricultural regions will do you when your whole country’s been occupied. You would offer up the whole country to them on a platter.”

“Enough, enough.” Irjah slammed the table to silence them. “Nobody wins this one. You’re dismissed for today. Runin, I want to have a word. My office.”

“Where did you come by this solution?” Irjah held up a booklet.

Rin recognized her scrawling handwriting at the top.

Last week Irjah had assigned them to write essay responses to another simulated quagmire—a counterfactual scenario where the Militia had lost popular support for a war of resistance against the Federation. They couldn’t rely on peasants to supply soldiers with food or animal feed, could not use peasant homes as lodging without forceful entry. In fact, outbreaks of rebellion in rural areas added several layers of complication to coordinating troop movements.

Rin’s solution had been to burn down one of the minor island villages.

The twist was that the island in question belonged to the Empire.

“The first day of Yim’s class we talked about how losing Speer ended the Second Poppy War,” she said.

Irjah frowned. “You based this essay on the Speerly Massacre?”

She nodded. “Losing Speer during the Second Poppy War pushed Hesperia over the edge—made them uncomfortable enough that they didn’t want Mugen expanding farther into the continent. I thought the destruction of another minor island might do the same for the Nikara population, convince them that the real enemy was Mugen. Remind them what the threat was.”

“Surely Militia troops attacking a province of the Empire would send the wrong message,” Irjah objected.

“They wouldn’t know it was Militia troops,” she said. “We would pose as a Federation squadron. I suppose I should have been clearer about that in the essay. Better still if Mugen just went ahead and attacked the island for us, but you can’t leave these things to chance.”

He nodded slowly as he perused her essay. “Crude. Crude, but clever. Do you think that’s what happened?”

It took her a moment to understand his question. “In this simulation, or during the Poppy Wars?”

“The Poppy Wars.” Irjah tilted his head, watching her carefully.

“I’m not entirely sure that’s not what happened,” Rin said. “There’s some evidence that the attack on Speer was allowed to succeed.”

Irjah’s expression betrayed nothing, but his fingers tapped thoughtfully against his wooden desk. “Explain.”

“I find it very difficult to believe that the strongest fighting force in the Militia could have been annihilated so easily. That, and the island was suspiciously poorly defended.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well, I’m not certain, but it seems as if—I mean, maybe someone on the inside—a Nikara general, or someone else who was privy to certain information—knew about the attack on Speer but didn’t alert anyone.”

“Now why would we have wanted to lose Speer?” Irjah asked quietly.

She took a moment to formulate a coherent argument. “Maybe they knew Hesperia wouldn’t stand for it. Maybe they wanted to generate popular support to distract from the Red Junk movement. Maybe because we needed a sacrifice, and Speer was expendable in a way other regions weren’t. We couldn’t let any Nikara die. But Speerlies? Why not?”

She had been grasping at straws when she had started to speak, but the moment she said it, her answer sounded startlingly plausible to her.

Irjah looked deeply uncomfortable. “You must understand that this is a very awkward part of Nikan’s history,” he said. “The way that the Speerlies were treated was … regrettable. They were used and exploited by the Empire for centuries. Their warriors were regarded as little more than vicious dogs. Savages. Until Altan came to study at Sinegard, I don’t believe anyone really thought the Speerlies were capable of sophisticated thought. Nikan does not like to speak of Speer, and for good reason.”

“Yes, sir. It was just a theory.”

“Anyhow.” Irjah leaned back in his chair. “That isn’t all I wanted to discuss. Your strategy in the valley worked for the purposes of the exercise, but no competent ruler would ever give those orders. Do you know why?”

She contemplated in silence for a minute. “I confused tactics with grand strategy,” she said finally.

Irjah nodded. “Elaborate.”

“The tactic would have worked. We might have even won the war. But no ruler would have chosen that option, because the country would have fallen apart afterward. My tactic doesn’t grant the possibility of peace.”

“Why is that?” Irjah pressed.

“Venka was right about destroying the agricultural heartland. Nikan would suffer famine for years. Rebellions like the Red Junk Opera would spring up everywhere. People would think it was the Empress’s fault that they were starving. If we used my strategy, what would happen next is probably a civil war.”

“Good,” said Irjah. He raised his eyebrows. “Very good. You know, you are astoundingly bright.”

Rin tried to conceal her delight, though she felt a flutter of warmth spread across her body.

“Should you perform well in the Trials,” Irjah continued, “you might do well as a Strategy apprentice.”

Under any other circumstances his words would have thrilled her. Rin managed a resigned smile. “I’m not sure I’ll make it that far, sir.”

His brow crinkled. “Why’s that?”

“Master Jun kicked me out of his class. I probably won’t pass the Trials.”

“How on earth did that happen?” Irjah demanded.

She recounted her last, disastrous class with Jun without bothering to edit the story. “He let Nezha off with a suspension, but told me not to come back.”

“Ah.” Irjah frowned. “Jun didn’t punish you because you were brawling. Tobi and Altan did far worse than that their first year. He punished you because he’s a purist about the school—he thinks any student who isn’t descended from a Warlord isn’t worth his time. But never mind what Jun thinks. You’re clever, you’ll pick up whatever techniques they covered this month without much trouble.”

Rin shook her head. “It won’t make much difference. He’s not letting me back in.”

“What?” Irjah looked outraged. “That’s absurd. Does Jima know?”

“Jima can’t intervene in a Combat matter. Or won’t. I’ve asked.” Rin stood up. “Thanks for your time, sir. If I make it past the Trials, I’d be honored to study with you.”

“You’ll find a way,” Irjah said. His eyes twinkled. “Sunzi would.”

Rin hadn’t been completely forthcoming with Irjah. He was right—she would find a way.

Starting with the fact that she hadn’t given up on martial arts.

Jun had banned her from his class, but he hadn’t banned her from the library. The stacks at Sinegard contained a wealth of martial arts instruction tomes, the largest collection in all the Empire. Rin had within reach the secrets of most inherited arts, excepting those tightly guarded techniques like the House of Yin’s.

In the course of her research Rin discovered that existing martial arts literature was hugely comprehensive and dauntingly complex. She learned that martial arts revolved largely around lineage: different forms belonged to different families, similar techniques taught and improved upon by pupils who had shared the same master. More often than not, schools became torn by rivalries or schisms, so techniques splintered and developed independently of others.

The history was deeply enjoyable, almost more entertaining than novels. But practicing the techniques turned out to be devilishly hard. Most tomes were too dense to serve as useful manuals. A majority assumed that the student was reading the book along with a master who could demonstrate the techniques in real life. Others expounded for pages about a certain school’s breathing techniques and philosophy of fighting, but only sporadically mentioned things like kicking and punching.

“I don’t want to read about the balance in the universe,” Rin grumbled, tossing aside what seemed like the hundredth text she’d tried. “I want to know how to beat people up.”

She attempted asking the apprentices for help.

“Sorry,” Kureel said without meeting her eyes. “Jun said that teaching first-years outside of the practice rooms was against the rules.”

Rin doubted this was a real rule, but she should have known better than to ask one of Jun’s apprentices.

Asking Arda was also not an option; she spent all her time in the infirmary with Enro and never returned to the bunks before midnight.

Rin was going to have to teach herself.

A month and a half in, she finally found a gold mine of information in the texts of Ha Seejin, quartermaster under the Red Emperor. Seejin’s manuals were wonderfully illustrated, filled with detailed descriptions and clearly labeled diagrams.

Rin perused the pages gleefully. This was it. This was what she needed.

“You can’t take this one out,” said the apprentice at the front desk.

“Why not?”

“It’s from the restricted shelves,” said the apprentice, as if this were obvious. “First-years don’t get access to those.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’ll take it back.”

Rin walked to the back end of the library. She glanced furtively about to make sure no one was watching. She stuffed the tome down her shirt. Then she turned around and walked back out.

Alone in the courtyard, book in hand, Rin learned. She learned to shape the air with her fists, to imagine a great spinning ball in her arms to guide the shape of her movements. She learned to root her legs against the ground so she couldn’t be tipped over, not even by opponents twice her weight. She learned to form fists with her thumb on the outside, to always keep her guard up around her face, and to shift her balance quickly and smoothly.

She became very good at punching stationary objects.

She attended the matches at the rings regularly. She arrived in the basement early and secured a place by the railing so that she didn’t miss a single kick or throw. She hoped that by watching the apprentices fight, she could absorb their techniques.

This actually helped—to some extent. By closely examining the apprentices’ movements, Rin learned to identify the right place and time for various techniques. When to kick, when to dodge, when to roll madly on the floor to avoid—wait, no, that was an accident, Jeeha had simply tripped. Rin didn’t have muscle memory of sparring against another person, so she had to hold these contingencies in her head. But vicarious sparring was better than nothing.

She also attended the matches to watch Altan.

She would have been lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she derived great aesthetic pleasure from staring at him. With his lithe, muscled form and chiseled jawline, Altan was undeniably handsome.

But he was also the paragon of good technique. Altan did everything that the Seejin text recommended. He never let his guard down, never allowed an opening, never let his attention slip. He never telegraphed his next move, didn’t bounce erratically or go flat on his heels to advertise to his opponent when he was going to kick. He always attacked from angles, never from the front.

Rin had initially conceived of Altan as simply a good, strong fighter. Now she could see that he was, in every sense, a genius. His fighting technique was a study in trigonometry, a beautiful composition of trajectories and rebounded forces. He won consistently because he had perfect control of distance and torque. He had the mathematics of fighting down to a science.

He fought more often than not. Throughout the semester his challengers only grew in number—it seemed every single one of Jun’s apprentices wanted to have a go at him.

Rin watched Altan fight twenty-three matches before the end of the fall. He never lost.

CHAPTER 6

Winter descended on Sinegard with a vengeance. The students enjoyed one last pleasant day of autumn sun, and woke the next morning to find that a cold sheet of snow had fallen over the Academy. The snow was lovely to observe for all of two serene minutes. Then it became nothing but a pain in the ass.

The entire campus turned into a risk zone for broken limbs—the streams froze over; the stairways became slushy and treacherous. Outdoor classes moved indoors. The first-years were assigned to scatter salt across the stone walkways at regular intervals to melt the snow, but the slippery paths sent a regular stream of students to the infirmary regardless.

As far as Lore went, the icy weather was the last straw for most of the class, who had been intermittently frequenting the garden in hopes that Jiang might make an appearance. But waiting around in a drug garden for a never-present teacher was one thing; waiting in freezing cold temperatures was another.

In the months since the semester began, Jiang hadn’t shown up once to class. Students occasionally spotted him around campus doing inexcusably rude things. He had in turn flipped Nezha’s lunch tray out of his hands and walked away whistling, petted Kitay on the head while making a pigeon-like cooing noise, and tried to snip Venka’s hair off with garden shears.

Whenever a student managed to pin him down to ask about his course, Jiang made a loud farting noise with his mouth and elbow and skirted away.

Rin alone continued to frequent the Lore garden, but only because it was a convenient place to train. Now that first-years avoided the garden out of spite, it was the one place where she was guaranteed to be alone.

She was grateful that no one could see her fumbling through the Seejin text. She had picked up the fundamentals with little trouble, but discovered that even just the second form was devilishly hard to put together.

Seejin was fond of rapidly twisting footwork. Here the diagrams failed her. The models’ feet in the drawings were positioned in completely different angles from picture to picture. Seejin wrote that if a fighter could extricate himself from any awkward placement, no matter how close he was to falling, he would have achieved perfect balance and therefore the advantage in most combat positions.

It sounded good in theory. In practice, it meant a lot of falling over.

Seejin recommended pupils practice the first form on an elevated surface, preferably a thick tree branch or the top of a wall. Against her better judgment, Rin climbed to the middle of the large willow tree overhanging the garden and positioned her feet hesitantly against the bark.

Despite Jiang’s absence throughout the semester, the garden remained impeccably well kept. It was a kaleidoscope of garishly bright colors, similar in color scheme to the decorations outside Tikany’s whorehouses. Despite the cold, the violet and scarlet poppy flowers had remained in full blossom, their leaves trimmed in tidy rows. The cacti, which were twice the size they had been at the start of term, had been moved into a new set of clay pots painted in eerie patterns of black and burnt orange. Underneath the shelves, the luminescent mushrooms still pulsed with a faintly disturbing glow, like tiny fairy lamps.

Rin imagined that an opium addict could pass entire days in here. She wondered if that was what Jiang did.

Poised precariously on the willow tree, struggling to stand up straight against the harsh wind, Rin held the book in one hand, mumbling instructions out loud while she positioned her feet accordingly.

“Right foot out, pointing straight forward. Left foot back, perpendicular to the straight line of the right foot. Shift weight forward, lift left foot …”

She could see why Seejin thought this might be good balance practice. She also saw why Seejin strongly recommended against attempting the exercise alone. She wobbled perilously several times, and regained her balance only after a few heart-stopping seconds of frantic windmilling. Calm down. Focus. Right foot up, bring it around …

Master Jiang walked around the corner, loudly whistling “The Gatekeeper’s Touches.”

Rin’s right foot slid out from beneath her. She teetered off the edge of the branch, dropped the book, and would have plummeted to the stone floor if her left ankle hadn’t snagged in the crook of two dividing branches.

She jolted to a halt with her face inches from the ground and gasped out loud in relief.

Jiang stared down silently at her. She gazed back, head thundering while the blood rushed down into her temples. The last notes of his song dwindled and faded away in the howling wind.

“Hello there,” he said finally. His voice matched his demeanor: placid, disengaged, and idyllically curious. In any other context, it might have been soothing.

Rin struggled ungracefully to haul herself upward.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m stuck,” she mumbled.

“Mmm. Appears so.”

He clearly wasn’t going to help her down. Rin wriggled her ankle out of the branch, tumbled to the floor, and landed in a painful heap at Jiang’s feet. Cheeks burning, she clambered to her feet and brushed the snow off her uniform.