"I know it. But it's easier if I don't think too much about it just yet.
When the Dai-kvo's safe, when the Galts are defeated, I'll think about
it all then. Before that, it doesn't help," Otah said as he turned hack
toward the bed they had shared for years now, and would for one more
night at least. Her hand brushed his cheek as he stepped past, and he
turned to kiss her fingers. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor in his.
12
"I gave him too much and not enough men to do it," Ralasar said as they
walked through the rows of men and horses and steam wagons. Eustin
shrugged his disagreement.
Around them, the camps were being broken down. Men loaded rolled canvas
tents onto mules and steam wagons. ''he washerwomen loaded the pans and
stones of their trade into packs that they carried on bent shoulders.
The last of the captured slaves helped to load the last of the ships for
the voyage back to Galt. The gulls whirled and called one to another;
the waves rumbled and slapped the high walls of the seafront; the world
smelled of sea salt and fire. And Balasar's mind was on the other side
of the map, uneased and restless.
"Coal's a good man," Eustin said. "If anyone can do the thing, it's him."
"Six cities," he said. "I set him six cities. It's too much. And he's
got far fewer men than we do."
"We'll get finished here in time to help him with the last few," Eustin
said. "Besides, one of them's just a glorified village, and Chaburi- Tan
was likely burning before we were out of Aren. So that's only four and a
half cities left."
There was something in that. Coal's men had been on the island and in
the city and in ships off the coast, waiting for the signal that would
follow the andat's vanishing. Even now, Coal and his men-between five
thousand and six-were sailing fast to Yalakeht. A handful more waited
there in the warehouses of Galtic traders, preparing for the trip
upstream to the village of the Dai-kvo and the libraries at the heart of
the Khaiem. The other cities would have their scrolls and codices, but
only there, in the palaces carved from the living rock, were the great
secrets of the fallen Empire kept. His war turned on that fire and on
the deaths of the men who knew what those soon-burned books said.
And he wouldn't he there for it.
"'l'he southern legions are ready, sir," Eustin said. "Fight thousand
for Shosheyn-"Ian, Lachi, and Saraykeht. My legion's two thousand
strong. Should he enough for Pathai and that school out on the plains.
"That'll leave you a full half of the forces for the river cities. Udun
and Iltani and "Ian-Sadar."
Balasar struggled with the impulse to send more of the men with Eustin.
It was the illusion he always suffered when tactics required that he
split his forces. Ile would make do with less in order to keep his best
men safe. Pathai was only half the size of Nantani, but Eustin was
taking only a tenth of the men. It was unlikely that word had traveled
fast enough for the Khai Pathai to hire some fleet-footed mercenary
company out of the Westlands, but unlikely wasn't impossible. Two
thousand more men might make the difference if something went wrong.
But he had the longest journey ahead of him-Nantani to Udun, and some of
it over plains where there were no good roads and the steam wagons would
have to he pulled. On rough ground, the boilers were too likely to
explode. The journey would take time, and so Udun and Utani and
"Ian-Sadar would have the longest time to prepare. They would be the
hardest to capture or destroy. It was why he had chosen them for
himself. Except, of course, for what he had tasked to Coal. Five
thousand men to take six cities. Five cities, now. Four and a half.
"We'll get there in time to help him if he needs us, sir," Eustin said,
reading his face. "And keep in mind, there's not a fighting force
anywhere in the Khaiem. Coal's in more danger of tripping on his spear
than of facing an enemy worth sneezing at."
Balasar laughed. Two armsmen busy folding a tent looked up, saw him and
Eustin, and grinned.
"It's like me, isn't it?" Balasar said. "Here we have just made the
greatest sack of a city in living history, captured enough gold to keep
us both fed the best food and housed in the best brothels for the rest
of our lives, and I can't bring myself to enjoy a minute of it."
"You do tend to worry most when things are going well, sir."
They reached a place where the mud path split, one way to the west, the
other to the North. Balasar put out his hand, and Eustin took it. For a
moment, they weren't general and captain. They were friends and
conspirators in the plot to save the world. Balasar found his anxiety
ebbing, felt the grin on his face and saw it mirrored in his man's.
"Meet me in Tan-Sadar before the leaves turn," Balasar said. "We'll see
then whether Coal has use for us or if it's time to go home."
"I'll he there, sir," Eustin said. "Rely on it. And as a favor to nee?
Keep an eye on Ajutani."
"Both, when I can spare them," Balasar promised. And then they parted.
Balasar walked through the thin mud and low grass to the camp at the
head of the first legion. His groom stood waiting, a fresh horse
munching contentedly at the roadside weeds. A second horse stood beside
it, a rider in the saddle looking out bemused at the men and the rolling
hills and the horizon beyond.
"Captain Ajutani," Balasar said, and the rider turned and saluted.
"You're ready for the march?"
"At your command, General."
Balasar swung himself up onto the horse and accepted the reins from his
groom.
"'T'hen let's begin," he said. "We've got a war to finish."
IT HAD TAKEN A FEW LENGI'IIS OF COPPER TO CONVINCE'FIlE KEEPERS OF THE
wide platforms to unhook their chains and haul her skyward, but Liat
didn't care. The dread in her belly made small considerations like money
seem trivial. Money or food or sleep. She stood now at the open sky
doors and looked out to the south and east, where the men of Machi made
their way through the high green grasses of summer. From this distance,
they looked like a single long black mark on the landscape. She could no
more make out an individual wagon or rider than she could take to the
air and fly. And still she strained her eyes, because one part of that
distant mark was her only son.
Ile had only told her when it was already done. She had been in her
apartments-the apartments given her by the man who had once been her
lover. She had been thinking of how a merchant or tradesman who took in