granted him by the Khai. He was a curiosity-one of the Khaiem walking
with the swagger of a man who'd sat too long on a horse, his retinue
looking more like a mercenary captain's crew than courtiers. And Otah
suspected that martial air, however undeserved, would serve him. He
scowled the way he imagined Sinja might have in his place.
Ashua Radaani was sitting at the fire grate deep in conversation with
Saya the blacksmith when Otah entered the wide hall that served as the
center of the visitors' palace. Battle and loss and the common enemy of
Galt had mixed with the shared recognition of competence to make the two
men something like friends. They stood and took poses of respect and
welcome that Otah waved away. He sat on a low cushion by the fire and
sent his servant boy to find them tea and something to eat.
"It didn't go well, I take it," Radaani said.
"It didn't go well and it didn't go badly," Otah said. "He's smart
enough to be frightened. "That's good. I was afraid he'd be certain of
himself. But his poet's dead. "Tried to recapture his andat and paid its
price."
Radaani sighed.
"Did he agree to your plan, Most High?" Saya asked.
"No," Otah said. "tie's determined that Cetani not fall without a fight.
I've told him we're leaving with him or without him. How was your
hunting, Ashua-cha?"
Radaani leaned forward. His features were thinner than they had been in
Machi, and the ring he turned on his finger wasn't so snug as it had
once been.
"The court's frightened," he said. "There are a few people who came here
from Yalakeht, and the stories ... well, either they've grown in the
telling, or it wasn't pretty there. And the couriers from Amnat- 'l an
haven't come the last two days."
""I'hat's bad," Otah said. "Will we have time, do you think?"
"I don't know," Ashua said. He seemed to search for more words, but in
the end only shook his head.
"Get the men ready," Otah said. "We'll give Cetani tomorrow to join us.
After that, we'll head home. With enough time, we might be able to tear
up some sections of the road behind us. Slow down the Galts, even if we
can't do all we hoped against them."
"What about the hooks?" Saya asked. "If their poet's dead, it isn't as
if they'll have need of them. Perhaps ours would make something of them."
"I can ask," Otah said. "With luck, we'll have the books and the people
and the food stores."
"But the Khai refused you, Most High," Sava said.
Otah smiled and shook his head. Only now that he found himself a moment
to rest did the weariness drag at him. He tried to think how many days
he'd been riding from first light to last. A lifetime, it felt like. He
remembered the man who'd left Machi to save the I)ai-kvo, but it no
longer felt like something he'd done himself. He was changing. Ills
heart still ached at the thought of Kiyan and F,iah and I)anat. His
apprehension at the struggle still before him was no less. And still, he
was not the man he had once been, and to his surprise and unease, the
man he was becoming seemed quite natural.
"Most High?" Saya repeated.
"Walking away from a negotiation isn't the same as ending it," Otah
said. "Cetani's proud and he's lost, but he's not a fool. He wants to do
what we're asking of him. He just hasn't found the way to say yes."
"\ou sound sure of that," Saya said.
Otah chose his words carefully.
"If someone had come to me after that battle and said that they knew
what to do, that they would take the responsibility, I would have given
it to them. And that's just what I've offered him," Utah said. "The Khai
Cetani will call for me. Tonight."
He was wrong. The Khai Cetani didn't send for him until the next morning.
The man's eyes were bloodshot, his face slack from worry and exhaustion.
Utah doubted the Khai Cetani had slept since they had spoken, and
perhaps not for days before that. Through the wide, unshuttered windows,
the morning was cold and gray, low clouds seeming to bring the sky no
higher than a sparrow might fly. Utah sat on the divan set for him-rich
velvet cloth studded with tiny pearls and silver thread, but smelling of
dust and age. The most powerful man in Cetani sat across from him on an
identical seat. That alone was a concession, and Utah noted it without
giving sign one way or the other.
The Khai Cetani motioned the servants to leave them. From the hesitation
and surprised glances, Otah took it that he'd rarely done so before.
Some men, he supposed, were more comfortable with the constant attention.
"Convince me," the Khai Cetani said when the doors were pulled closed
and they were alone.
Otah took a pose of query.
"That you're right," the Khai said. "Convince me that you're right."
"There was a hunger in the request, almost a need. Otah took a deep
breath and let it out slowly. The fire in the grate popped and shifted
while he gathered his thoughts. He had turned his plans over in his mind
since he'd left the ruin of the I)ai-kvo's village. He'd honed them and
tested them and stayed up late into the night despairing at their
improbability only to wake in the morning convinced once more. The
simplest answer was the best here, and he knew that, but still it was a
struggle to find the words that made his mind clear.
"On the field, we can't match them," he said. "If we stay here and face
them, we'll lose outright. There's nothing that can keep Cetani from
falling to them. But they have two weaknesses. First, the steam wagons.
They let them move faster than any group their size should be able to,
but they're dangerous. It's a price they're prepared to pay, but they
have underestimated the risks. If we start by breaking those-"
"The coal?"
Otah took a confirming pose.
"'l'hey aren't built for forge coal," he said. "And the men we're
facing? "They're soldiers, not smiths and ironmongers. "Where's no
reason for them to look too closely at what they raid out of your
stocks. Especially when they're pushing to get to Machi before the
winter comes. If we leave them mixed coal, it'll burn too hot. The seams
of their metalwork will soften, if the grates don't simply melt out from
underneath."
"And so they have to come on foot or by horse?"
Otah remembered the twisted metal from the I)ai-kvo's village and
allowed himself a smile.
"When those wagons break, it's more than only stopping. "They'll lose
men just from that, and if we play it well, we can use the confusion to
make things worse for them. And there's the other thing. They know we're
going to lose. They have the strength, and we're unprepared. The only
time we've faced them head-on, we were slaughtered. They know that we