"He's my burden," Cehmai said. "I gave my word to carry StoneMade-Soft
as long as I could, and I'll do that. I wouldn't want to disappoint the
Khai." Then he chuckled. "You know, there have been whole years when I
would have meant that as a sarcasm. Disappointing the Khaiem seems to be
about half of what we do as poets-no, I can't somehow use the andat to
help you win at tiles, or restore your prowess with your wives, or any
of the thousand stupid, petty things they ask of us. But these last
weeks, I really would do whatever I could, not to disappoint that man. I
don't know what's changed."
"Everything," Maati said. "Times like these remake men. They change what
we are. Otah's trying to become the man we need him to he."
"I suppose that's true," Cehmai said. "I just don't want this all to be
happening, so I forget, somehow, that it is. I keep thinking it's all a
sour dream and I'll wake out of it and stumble down to play a game of
stones against Stone-Made-Soft. That that will be the worst thing I have
to face. And not ..."
Cehmai gestured, his hands wide, including the house and the palaces and
the city and the world.
"And not the end of civilization?" Maati suggested.
"Something like that."
Nlaati sighed.
"You know," he said, "when we were young, the man who was Daikvo then
chose Otah to come train as a poet. He refused, but I think he would
have been good. He has it in him to do whatever needs doing."
Killing a man, taking a throne, marching an army to its death, Nlaati
thought but did not say. Whatever needs doing.
"I hope the price he pays is smaller than ours," Cehmai said.
"I doubt it will he."
14
Balasar had not been raised to put faith in augury. His father had
always said that any god that could create the world and the stars
should he able to put together a few well-formed sentences if there was
something that needed saying; Balasar had accepted this wisdom in the
uncritical way of a boy emulating the man he most admires. And still,
the dream came to him on the night before he had word of the hunting party.
It was far from the first time he had dreamt of the desert. Ile felt
again the merciless heat, the pain of the satchel cutting into his
shoulder. The hooks he had home then had become ashes in the dream as
they had in life, but the weight was no less. And behind him were not
only Coal and Eustin. All of them followed him-Bes, NIayarsin, Little
Ott, and the others. The dead followed him, and he knew they were no
longer his allies or his enemies. They came to keep watch over him, to
see what work he wrought with their blood. They were his judges. As
always before, he could not speak. His throat was knotted. Ile could not
turn to see the dead; he only felt them.
But there seemed more now-not only the men he had left in the desert,
but others as well. Some of them were soldiers, some of them simple men,
all of them padding behind him, waiting to see him justify their
sacrifices and his own pride. The host behind him had grown.
He woke in his tent, his mouth dry and sticky. Dawn had not yet come. He
drank from the water flask by his bed, then pulled on a shirt and simple
trousers and went out to relieve himself among the bushes. The army was
still asleep or else just beginning to stir. The air was warm and humid
so near the river. Balasar breathed deep and slow. lie had the sense
that the world itself-trees, grasses, moon-silvered clouds-was heavy
with anticipation. It would he two weeks before they would come within
sight of the river city Udun. By month's end another poet would be dead,
another library burned, another city fallen.
"Thus far, the campaign had proved as simple as he had hoped, though
slower. He had lost almost no men in Nantani. The low towns that his
army had come across in their journey to the North had emptied before
them; men, women, children, animals-all had scattered before them like
autumn leaves before a windstorm. The only miscalculation he had made
was in how long to rely on the steam wagons. Two boilers had blown on
the rough terrain before Balasar had called to let them cool and be
pulled. Five men had died outright, another fifteen had been scalded too
badly to continue. Balasar had sent them back to Nantani. "There had
been less food captured than he had hoped; the residents of the low
towns had put anything they thought might be of use to Balasar and his
men to fire before they fled. But the land was rich with game fowl and
deer, and his supplies were sufficient to reach the next cities.
As dawn touched the eastern skyline, Balasar put on his uniform and
walked among the men. 'l'he morning's cook fires smoked, filling the air
with the scents of burning grass and wood and coal filched from the
steam wagons, hot grease and wheat cakes and kafe. Captains and footmen,
archers and carters, Balasar greeted them all with a smile and
considered them with approving nods or small frowns. When a man lifted
half a wheat cake to him, Balasar took it with thanks and squatted down
beside the cook to blow it cool and cat it. Every man he met, he had
made rich. Every man in the camp would stand before him on the battle
lines, and only a few, he hoped, would walk behind him in his dream.
Sinja Ajutani's camp was enfolded within the greater army's but still
separate from it, like the Baktan Quarter in Acton. A city within a
city, a camp within a camp. The greeting he found here was less warm.
The respect he saw in these dark, almond eyes was touched with fear.
Perhaps hatred. But no mistake, it was still respect.
Sinja himself was sitting on a fallen log, shirtless, with a bit of
silver mirror in one hand and a blade in the other. He looked tip as
Balasar came close, made his salute, and returned to shaving. Balasar
sat beside him.
"We break camp soon," Balasar said. "I'll want ten of your men to ride
with the scouting parties today."
"Expecting to find people to question?" Sinja asked. There was no rancor
in his voice.
"'T'his close to the river, I can hope so."
"They'll know we're coming. Refugees move faster than armies. The first
news of Nantani likely reached them two, maybe three weeks ago.
"Then perhaps they'll send someone here to speak for them," Balasar
said. Sinja seemed to consider this as he pressed the blade against his
own throat. There were scars on the man's arms and chest-long raised
lines of white.
"Would you prefer I ride with the scouts, or stay close to the camp and
wait for an emissary?"
"Close to camp," Balasar said. "The men you choose for scouting should
speak my language well, though. I don't want to miss anything that would
help us do this cleanly."
"Agreed," Sinja said, and put the knife to his own throat again. Before
Balasar could go on, he heard his own name called out. A boy no older