This is a waste of my time, Heng thought, as she stood at attention beside the myangan-lord, hard at work doing absolutely nothing, pretending to pore over his maps, occasionally stopping halfway through chewing his salted jerky to write down some meaningless note.

She had been summoned to his quarters with the utmost formality, bid to enter the great tent in which Gansukh Kiryat’s RV had been set up, to be awed and perhaps terrified by him. But even as the myangan-lord produced his terrible curved saber (which he placed on the desk in a well-rehearsed, seemingly absent-minded fashion), Heng could not help but sigh at the theatrics. There were men in the care-tents who needed to be treated and monitored and who, she knew, would die if left to the attentions of their fellow battlefield medics. The Mongols were capable of managing and dressing injuries on the fly, but were useless when it came to saving a man’s legs.

But, of course, a façade had to be maintained, so Heng could stay on Kiryat’s good side: an outlook of subordination, of barely-concealed fear. Heng had dealt with warlords in the past, with barbarians and brutes of the kind that sprung up among the ruins of civilization, blossoming outward from the shells of what appeared to be law-abiding men. She had grown wise to their ways, five years into the end of the world and in the art of subtly manipulating such men, who were useless and incapable of creation but only existed as sophisticated machines of wanton destruction:

Grin and bear it her mother had said, as she grasped her hand while a scarred man beat a prisoner of war to a bloody pulp. Grin and bear it she had said, as they were busy trying to wire back his jaw, struggling to hold him down even as he screamed obscenities and spat blood from the red mess that was his mouth.

Her mother had finally married the warlord and become his first-wife: she had been taken from the battlefield and had secured a relatively safe and well-fed future for her daughter, far from the daily horrors that plagued Beijiing and Jiuqin. The skirmishes, the scavenging in the rubble and the mountains of garbage for a bit of food, the terror of tasting running foul water, driven by the fire in their throats and hoping against hope it wasn't brimming with cholera, the work-camps where men and women salved away to their deaths, producing firearms and automobiles that would serve the Chrome Horde. She got away from all this, because she grinned and bore it.

“What of Baraat Buriyat?” the myangan-lord said, biting into his jerky and jotting another meaningless scribble onto the map of Kazakhstan.

“What of him, myangan-lord?” Heng asked. She had earnestly forgotten who he was, the boy’s face lost in the daily whirlpool of other people’s agony that had become her life.

“The boy. The one I made zuun-lord.” Gansukh grumbled through gritted teeth.

“Oh, that one.” Heng said, as she recalled his strained, pained expression. She remembered how she had caressed his hair, to cease his struggles as she tried to get the IV needle in his arm. “He has a broken leg, just above the knee. I advised his second-in-command to refrain the boy from driving or overexerting himself for two months. I also prescribed him some antibiotics, that…”

“Will that affect his clarity of mind?” Gansukh said, throwing a tarp over the map, turning to look at Heng.

More than the fact that you have just made him leader of 200 killers and forced him to take up a responsibility he cannot be ready for? Heng thought. “No, my lord. Not particularly.”

“Good.” Gansukh turned to her, leaning against his makeshift desk. “What would get the desired effect, do you think?”

“Affect his clarity of mind? Do you want him to be groggy, incapable of leading his men, myangan-lord?”

“This is only a rhetorical question, Heng.”

“He is too young and capable of developing a tolerance for any painkillers, myangan-lord. But if you were looking to poison the boy, then I could suggest a-”

“Who said anything about killing the boy? Are you conspiring against a zuun-lord, Heng?”

Heng sighed, fighting against her urge to roll her eyes at the ham-handed attempt of the myangan-lord at subterfuge. She said:

“I was merely trying to do away with any pretenses, myangan-lord. You wish the boy killed or otherwise impaired, correct? But you wish it done in a manner that will not incriminate you, correct?”

“Yes”

“And you wish me to kill him? By perhaps altering something in his prescription?”

The myangan-lord thought of it and nodded no. To have a woman kill a man for you, that would have been a secret that would forever destroy his reputation in the eyes of his men as soon as it got out. Even though he knew he could count on her secrecy, it was only a matter of time before word got around. Rumors had a tendency to spread much faster than any disease.

“I could provide you with a list of substances that could have the desired effect, as well as the means for applying them. They can guarantee impairment, or in higher concentrations, death. The method of application, however, will be up to you. I cannot be involved in this, you understand.” Heng said, matter-of-factly.

“Then do it. Bring me the list. I will take care of the rest.”

“Might I ask why you want this boy dead, myangan-lord?” Heng asked. Gansukh only seized up, his fingers gripping the hilt of his saber.

“That is none of your concern. Now go. Tend to your wounded.”

“As you wish, myangan-lord.” Heng said and left the tent.