Ken Liu - The Wall of Storms

He looked and found a rusty nail in one of the window frames. He took off his left shoe and sock, and scraped the skin against the rusty nail until he had made a deep gash. He grimaced against the pain and replaced the sock and shoe.

Now he had to wait, and hope that he would be given a chance.

Twenty garinafins were deemed healthy enough to go to war. Pékyu Tenryo packed them onto eight city-ships along with three thousand Lyucu warriors. The rest would stay behind to guard Rui and Dasu with the help of surrendered Dara soldiers. Timu, or “Emperor Thaké,” was nominally left in charge, but everyone, perhaps even Timu himself, understood that he was a mere figurehead.

A few of the airships captured from Emperor Ragin would accompany the fleet to act as scouts against surprise attacks by mechanical crubens while the rest would be left behind to defend Rui and Dasu.

On the morning of the day specified in the ultimatum, the fleet of city-ships and smaller escort vessels left Kriphi and sailed for the Big Island. The elders of Rui and Dasu recalled the launches of similar invasion fleets from the Xana home islands decades ago as Emperor Mapidéré and then Emperor Ragin had sailed this same course to the Throne of Dara. Pékyu Tenryo and Emperor Thaké would follow the success of their illustrious predecessors.

The invasion of the Big Island had begun.

The few airships that accompanied the Lyucu fleet sailed ahead and to the side of the ships, and lookouts intently gazed at the surface below, trying to spot the approach of any mechanical crubens. The fleet took a course that avoided the known underwater volcanoes, but Pékyu Tenryo wasn’t going to take any chances.

As further insurance against a sneak attack, the flagship of the pékyu, Pride of Ukyu , displayed a bright red banner charged with the figure of a leaping blue cruben. This was the Imperial standard, and Pékyu Tenryo wanted to make sure that any Dara ship that dared to attack knew that they endangered the Emperor of Dara.

Empress Jia ordered Prince Phyro to stay in Pan with Consort Risana over his strenuous objections.

“I should be at the front, fighting!”

“You’re your father’s only heir after Timu’s error. Your safety is paramount because you must preserve the Imperial line, and, should the marshal and I fail, become the hope of an occupied Dara.”

“And avenge you.”

“No! Never let your love for your family become a hindrance to your duty to the well-being of the people. Vengeance should never be your goal, only freedom.”

She turned to Consort Risana and Prime Minister Cogo Yelu. “If… the gods decide that I should not return, the House of Dandelion is in your hands.”

Risana and Cogo both bowed.

“I am your loyal servant.”

“Be well, Big Sister.”

Near Ginpen, on the shore of the Zathin Gulf, Empress Jia had constructed an observation platform. This was a dais about two hundred feet on each side and about a hundred feet tall. Jia sat on top in a throne carved with leaping dyrans. Around her, the top of the dais was piled with firewood soaked in oil.

Should their stand here today fail, she intended to immolate herself in a final gesture of defiance.

Jia turned to Gin Mazoti, who stood at her side. “How do you like your new sword, Marshal?”

With some effort, Gin unsheathed Na-aroénna, the Doubt-Ender, and held it aloft with both hands. “Still getting used to it.”

“As your soldiers are still getting used to our new weapons?”

Gin nodded. “Their courage is admirable. But untested weapons can’t be trusted.”

“I will stay here and pray for your success. Do you have any doubt?”

“I always have doubt,” said Gin. “And courage, as the Hegemon proved, is not all.”

“That’s an improvement from before, then,” said Jia. “You once told me you had no doubt that we had to yield.”

Gin grinned at this. “May this sword live up to its name.”

“What happened to that confident general who once told my husband that she could conquer Rui with only a thousand men?”

The marshal smiled wistfully. “Experience humbles.”

Jia nodded and looked solemnly at her. “I love my husband with all my heart. I know he would be willing to die for Dara, and the same is true of my son. Do you understand?”

“In the case of Prince Timu,” said Gin, “I’m not sure you’re right.”

Jia looked away. “Sometimes the weak need help to be strong, to do what they should do.”

Gin felt a chill down her spine.

“I love my son,” the empress continued. “But evil must be confronted.”

The marshal gazed at the empress and, after a while, nodded.

As the Lyucu fleet approached the shore of the Big Island, Pékyu Tenryo was growing more confident by the moment.

He was going to land his army at Ginpen, sweep over land like a bolt of lightning on the backs of the garinafins, and bring Pan to her knees in a single, swift strike. Without any kind of effective airpower, the walled cities of Dara could not withstand the might of the garinafins. After all, could the marshal plant her flamethrowers everywhere?

Gazing out over the last mile or so of water that divided his fleet from land, Pékyu Tenryo let out a held breath. No Dara navy sailed from the port of Ginpen to meet his fleet; no army of Dara was lined up onshore to meet his invasion force; and there were no signs of the fabled giant war machines that Ginpen had once been famous for, like the Curved Mirrors that could set ships aflame from a distance. Likely the barbarians of Dara realized that such outdated defenses could not survive a garinafin assault.

The walls of Ginpen were bereft of defenders, and lookouts on the airships reported that the city was surprisingly quiet, with all the civilians apparently huddled in their homes. All signs pointed to the conclusion that Empress Jia’s court had completely given up, and the dream of a new Lyucu homeland was at hand. Cudyu would eventually dispatch another fleet and bring more of the Lyucu to come and live in this paradise. Tenryo envisioned the Lyucu warriors living like kings, each supported by a docile herd of Dara farmers.

“I pity you, old man,” said Tenryo to the supine figure of Kuni Garu. “It must be hard to see your victories come to naught, to see your accomplishments swept away by the vicissitudes of fate and the inconstancy of the gods.”

Kuni remained oblivious in his slumber, turning and muttering inaudibly.

“What’s that?” asked Tanvanaki, standing next to the pékyu. The other Lyucu warriors standing on deck began to point and whisper as well.

Pékyu Tenryo followed where his daughter was pointing, and at first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at: Mounds covered by bushes and beach grass seemed to be expanding, growing, rising, as though some large animals were wriggling underneath, seeking to emerge from their burrows.

“Prepare the garinafin riders,” ordered the pékyu. Perhaps these farmers of Dara had not yet been completely subdued. Even a cornered rabbit would dare to kick and bite at wolves, and he wasn’t going to let victory be snatched from his jaws by overconfidence.