plagued him and the longing for Kiyan at his side, for Eiah and Danat.
The Northern summer was brief, but the days were long. He rode with the
men of the utkhaiem, trotting on their best mounts, while the couriers
ranged ahead and the huntsmen foraged. The wide, green world smelled
rich with the season. The North Road ran only among the winter
cities-Amnat-"Tan, Cetani, Machi. There was no good, paved road direct
from Machi to the village of the Dai-kvo, but there were trade routes
that jumped from low town to low town. Mud furrows worn by carts and
hooves and feet. Around them, grasses rose high as the bellies of their
horses, singing a dry song like fingertips on skin when the wind stirred
the blades. The feeling of the sure-footed animal he rode had been
reassuring at first. Solid and strong.
But the joy of action had wearied while the dread grew stronger. The
steady movement of the horse had become wearisome. The jokes and songs
of the men had lost something of their fire. The epics and romances of
the Empire included some passages about the weariness and longing that
came of living on campaign, but they spoke of endless seasons and years
without the solace of home. Otah and his men hadn't yet traveled two
full weeks. They were still well shy of the journey's halfway mark, and
already they were losing what cohesion they had.
With every day, most men were afoot while huntsmen and scouts and
utkhaiem rode. Horsemen were called to the halt long before the night
should have forced them to make camp, for fear that those following on
foot would fail to reach the tents before darkness fell. And even so,
men continued to straggle in long after the evening meals had been
served, leaving them unrested and fed only on scraps when morning came.
The army, such as it was, seemed tied to the speed of its slowest
members. He needed speed and he needed men at his side, but there was no
good way to have both. And the fault, Otah knew, was in himself.
There had to he answers to this and the thousand other problems that
came of leading a campaign. The Galts would know. Sinja could have told
him, had he been there and not out in some Westlands garrison waiting
for a flood of Galts that wasn't coming. They were men that had
experience in the field, who had more knowledge of war than the casual
study of a few old Empire texts fit in between religious ceremonies and
high court bickering.
The scratch came at the door, soft and apologetic. Otah swung his legs
off the cot and sat up. He called out his permission as he parted the
netting, but the one who came in wasn't the servant boy. It was Nayiit.
He looked tired. His robes had been blue once, but from the hem to the
knee they were stained the pale brown of the mud through which they had
traveled. Otah considered the weight of their situation-the young man's
dual role as Maati's son and his own, the threat he posed to Danat and
the promise to Machi, the aid he might be in this present endeavor to
prevent harm to the Dal-kvo-and dismissed it all. He was too tired and
pained to chew everything a hundred times before he swallowed.
He took a pose of welcome, and Nayiit returned one of greater formality.
Otah nodded to a camp chair and Nayiit sat.
"Your attendant wasn't here. I didn't know what the right etiquette was,
so I just came through."
"He's running an errand. Once he's hack, I can have tea brought," Otah
said. "Or wine."
Nayiit took a pose of polite refusal. Otah shrugged it away.
"As you see fit," Otah said. "And what brings you?"
"There's grumbling in the ranks, Most High. Even among some of the
utkhaiem."
"There's grumbling in here, for that," Otah said. "There's just no one
here to listen to me. Are there any suggestions? Any solutions that the
ranks have seen that escaped me? Because, by all the gods that have ever
been named, I'm not too proud to hear them."
"They say you're driving them too hard, Most High," Nayiit said. "That
the men need a day's rest."
"Rest? Go slower? That's the solution they have to offer? What kind of
brilliance is that?"
Nayiit looked up. His face was long, like a Northerner's. Like Otah's.
His eyes were Liat's tea-with-milk brown. His expression, however, owed
to neither of them. Where Liat would have kept her eyes down or Otah
would have made himself charming, Nayiit's face belonged on a man
hearing a heavy load. Whatever was in his mind, in this moment it was
clear that he would press until the world was the way he wanted it or it
crushed him. It was something equal parts weariness and joy, like a man
newly acquainted with certainty. Otah found himself curious.
"They aren't wrong, Most High. These men aren't accustomed to living on
the road like this. You can't expect the speed of a practiced army from
them. And the walkers have been rising early to drill."
"Have they?"
"They have the impression their lives may rest on it. And the lives of
their families. And, forgive me Most High, but your life too."
Otah leaned forward, his hands taking a questioning pose.
"They're afraid of failing you," Nayiit said. "It's why no one would
come to you and complain. I've been keeping company with a man named
Saya. He's a blacksmith. Plow blades, for the most part. I Iis knees are
swollen to twice their normal size, and he wakes before dawn to tic on
leather and wool and swing sticks with the others. And then he walks
until he can't. And then he walks farther."
Nayiit's voice was trembling now, but Otah couldn't say if it was with
weariness or fear or anger.
"These aren't soldiers, Most High. And you're pushing them too hard."
"We've been moving for ten days-"
"And we're coming near to halfway to the Dai-kvo's village," Nayiit
said. "In ten days. And drilling, and sleeping under thin blankets on
hard ground. Not couriers and huntsmen, not men who are accustomed to
this. Just men. I've spoken to the provisioners. We left Nlachi three
thousand strong. Do you know how many have turned hack? How many have
deserted you?"
Otah blinked. It wasn't a question he'd ever thought to ask.
"How many?"
"None."
Otah felt something loosen in his chest. A warmth like the first drink
of wine spread through him, and he felt tears beginning to well up in
his eyes. If he had been less exhausted, it would never have pierced his
reserve, and still ... none.
"With every low town we pass, we take on a few more," Nayiit was saying.
"They're afraid. The word has gone out that all the andat are gone, that
the Galts are going to invade or are invading. It's the thing every man
had convinced himself would never happen. I hear the things they say."
"The things they say?"
""That you were the only one who saw the danger. You were training men