Altan instructed her to pack her things and meet him at the gate. They were scheduled to march out that afternoon with the squadron of Officer Yenjen of the Fifth Division to the war front, where the rest of the Cike had gone a week prior.
All of Rin’s belongings had been confiscated after the battle. She barely had time to pick up a new set of weapons from the armory before making her way across the city. The Fifth Division soldiers bore light traveling packs and two sets of weapons each. Rin had only a sword with a slightly dull blade and its accompanying sheath. She looked and felt woefully unprepared. She did not even have a second set of clothing. She suspected she would begin to smell very bad very soon.
“Where are we headed?” she asked as they began descending the mountain path.
“Khurdalain,” Altan said. “Tiger Province. It’ll be two weeks’ march south until we get to the Western Murui River, and then we’ll catch a ride down to the port.”
Despite everything, Rin felt a thrill of excitement. Khurdalain was a coastal port city by the eastern Nariin Sea, a thriving center of international trade. It was the only city in the Empire that regularly dealt with foreigners; the Hesperians and Bolonians had established embassies there centuries ago. Even Federation merchants had once occupied the docks, until Khurdalain became a central theater of the Poppy Wars.
Khurdalain was a city that had seen two decades of warfare and survived. And now the Empress had established a front in Khurdalain once again to draw the Federation invaders into eastern and central Nikan.
Altan relayed the Empress’s defense strategy to Rin as they marched.
Khurdalain was an ideal location to establish the initial front. The Federation armored columns would have enjoyed a crushing advantage in the wide-open plains of northern Nikan, but Khurdalain abounded in rivers and creeks, which favored defensive operations.
Routing the Federation into Khurdalain would force them onto their weakest ground. The attack on Sinegard had been a bold attempt to separate the northern provinces from the southern. If the Federation generals could choose, they would almost certainly have cut directly into the Nikara heartland by marching directly south. But if Khurdalain was well defended, the Federation would be forced to change the north-to-south direction of their offensive to east-to-west. And Nikan would have room in the southwest to retreat and regroup should Khurdalain fall.
Ideally, the Militia would have attempted a pincer maneuver to squeeze the Federation from both sides, cutting them off from both their escape routes and supply lines. But the Militia was nowhere near competent or large enough for such an attempt. The Twelve Warlords had barely coordinated in time to rally to Sinegard’s defense; now each was too preoccupied defending his own province independently to genuinely attempt joint military action.
“Why can’t they just unite like they did during the Second War?” Rin asked.
“Because the Dragon Emperor is dead,” said Altan. “He can’t rally the Warlords to him this time, and the Empress can’t command the same allegiance that he did. Oh, the Warlords will kowtow to Sinegard and swear vows of loyalty to the Empress’s face, but when it comes to it, they’ll put their own provinces first.”
Holding Khurdalain would not be easy. The recent offensive at Sinegard had proven the Federation had clear military superiority in terms of mobility and weaponry. And Mugen held the advantage on the northern coastline; their troops were easily reinforced over the narrow sea; fresh troops and supplies were just a ship’s journey away.
Khurdalain had little advantage in the way of defense structures. It was an open port city, designed as an enclave for foreigners prior to the Poppy Wars. Nikan’s best defense structures had been built along the lower river delta of the Western Murui, far south of Khurdalain. Compared to the heavily garrisoned wartime capital at Golyn Niis, Khurdalain was a sitting duck, arms flung open to welcome invaders.
But Khurdalain had to be defended. If Mugen advanced down the heartland and managed to take Golyn Niis, they could then easily turn east, chasing whatever remnants of the Militia were left onto the coast. And if they were trapped by the sea, the pitifully small Nikara fleet could not save them. So Khurdalain was the vital crux on which the fate of the rest of the country lay.
“We’re the final front,” said Altan. “If we fail, this country’s lost.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Excited?”
Chapter 13
Clang.
Rin barely got her sword up in time to stop Altan’s trident from slicing her face in half. She did her best to ground herself, to dispel the ki of the blow evenly across her body and into the dirt, but even so, her legs trembled from the impact.
She and Altan had been at this for hours, it seemed. Her arms ached; her lungs seized for air.
But Altan wasn’t done. He shifted the trident, caught the blade of her sword between two prongs, and twisted hard. The pressure wrenched the sword out of Rin’s hands and sent it clattering against the ground. Altan pressed the tip of his trident to her throat. She raised her arms hastily in surrender.
“You’re reacting based on fear,” Altan said. “You’re not controlling this fight. You need to clear your mind and concentrate. Concentrate on me. Not my weapon.”
“It’s a bit hard when you’re trying to jab my eyes out,” she muttered, pushing his trident away from her face.
Altan lowered his weapon. “You’re still hedging. You’re resisting. You’ve got to let the Phoenix in. When you’ve called the god, when the god is walking in you, that’s a state of ecstasy. It’s a ki amplifier. You don’t get tired. You’re capable of extraordinary exertion. You don’t feel pain. You have to sink into that state.”
Rin could recall vividly the state of mind he wanted her to embrace. The burning feeling in her veins, the red lenses that shielded her vision. How other people became not people but targets. How she didn’t need rest, only pain, pain to fuel the fire.
The only times Rin had consciously been in this state were during the Trials, and then again at Sinegard. Both times she had been furious, desperate.
She hadn’t been able to rekindle the same state of mind since. She hadn’t been that angry since. She had only been confused, agitated, and, like right now, exhausted.
“Learn to tame it,” Altan said. “Learn to sink in and out of it. If you’re focused only on your enemy’s weapon, you’ll always be on the defensive. Look past the weapon to your target. Focus on what you want to kill.”
Altan was a much better teacher than Jiang. Jiang was frustratingly vague, absentminded, and deliberately obtuse. Jiang liked to dance around the answers, liked to make her circle around the truth like a starving vulture before he would give her a gratifying morsel of understanding.
But Altan wasted no time. He cut straight to the chase, gave her precisely the answers that she wanted. He understood her fears, and he knew what she was capable of.
Training with Altan was like training with an older brother. It was so bizarre for someone to tell her that they were the same—that his joints hyperextended like hers did, so she should turn out her foot in such a way. To have similarities with someone else, similarities that lay deep in their genes, was an overwhelmingly wonderful sensation.
With Altan she felt as if she belonged—not just to the same division or army, but to something deeper and older. She felt situated within an ancient web of lineage. She had a place. She was not a nameless war orphan; she was a Speerly.
At least, everyone seemed to think so. But despite everything, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. She couldn’t call the god as easily as Altan could. Couldn’t move with the same grace as he could. Was that heritage, or training?
“Were you always like this?” she asked.