Like a man playing at tiles who has turned his mark and now sat back to
ask Balasar what he would do to match it.
"Are there no other bodies?" he asked.
Captain "Ievor, at his elbow, shook his great woolly head.
"There's signs that our boys did them harm, sir, but they took their
dead with them. It wasn't all fast, sir. This one here, there's burn
marks on him, and you can see on his wrists where they bound him tip.
Asked him what he knew, I expect."
Sinja knelt, touching the dead man's wounds as if making sure they were
real.
"I have a priest in my company," Captain "Icvor said. "One of the
archers. I can have him say a few words. We'll bury them here and catch
up with the main body tomorrow, sir."
"They're coming with us," Balasar said.
"Sir?"
"Bring a pallet and a horse. I want these bodies pulled through the
camp. I want every man in the army to see them. Then wrap them in
shrouds and pack them in ashes. We'll bury them in the ruins of Udun
with the Khai's skull to mark their place."
Captain "Icvor made his salute, and it wasn't Balasar's imagination that
put the tear in the old man's eye. As "I'evor barked out the orders to
the men who had come with them, Sinja stood and brushed his palms
against each other. A smear of old blood darkened the back of the
captain's hand. Balasar read the disapproval in the passionless eyes,
but neither man spoke.
The effect on the men was unmistakable. The sense of gloating, of
leisure, vanished. The tents were pitched, the wagons loaded and ready,
the soldiers straining against time itself to close the distance between
where they now stood and Udun. "Three of his captains asked permission
to send out parties. Hunting parties still, but only in part searching
for game. Balasar gave each of them his blessing. The dream of the
desert didn't return, but he had no doubt that it would.
In the days that followed, he felt keenly the loss of Eustin. Somewhere
to the west, Pathal was falling or had fallen. The school with its young
poets was burning, or would burn. And through those conflagrations,
Eustin rode. Balasar spent his days riding among his men, talking,
planning, setting the example he wished them all to follow, and he felt
the absence of Eustin's dry pessimism and distrust. The fervor he saw
here was a different beast. The men here looked to him as something
besides a man. They had never seen him weep over Little Ott's body or
call out into the dry, malign desert air for Kellem. To this army, he
was General Gice. They might be prepared to kill or die at his word, but
they did not know him. It was, he supposed, the difference between faith
and loyalty. He found faith isolating. And it was in this sense of being
alone among many that the messenger from Sinja Ajutani found him.
The day's travel was done, and they had made good time again. His
outriders had made contact with local forces twice-farm boys with rabbit
bows and sewn leather armor-and had done well each time. The wells in
the low towns had been fouled, but the river ran clean enough. Another
two days, three at the most, and they would reach iidun. In the
meantime, the sunset was beautiful and birdsong filled the evening air.
Balasar rested beneath the wide, thick branches of a cottonwood, Hat
bread and chicken still hot from the fires on a metal field plate by his
side, their scents mixing with those of the rich earth and the river's
damp. The man standing before him, hands flat at his sides, looked no
more than seventeen summers, but Balasar knew himself a poor judge of
ages among these people. He might have been fifteen, he might have been
twenty. When he spoke, his Galtic was heavily inflected.
"General Gice," the boy said. "Captain Ajutani would like a word with
you, if it is acceptable to your will."
Balasar sat forward.
"He could come himself," Balasar said. "He has before. Why not now?"
The messenger boy's lips went tight, his dark eyes fixed straight ahead.
It was anger the boy was controlling.
"Something's happened," Balasar said. "Something's happened to one of
yours."
"Sir," the boy said.
Balasar took a regretful look at the chicken, then rose to his feet.
""lake me to Captain Ajutani," Balasar said.
Their path ended at the medical tent. The messenger waited outside when
Balasar ducked through the Hap and entered. The thick canvas reeked with
concentrated vinegar and pine pitch. The medic stood over a low cot
where a man lay naked and bloody. One of Sinja's men. The captain
himself stood against the tent's center pole, arms folded. Balasar
stepped forward, taking in the patient's wounds with a practiced eye.
Two parallel cuts on the ribs, shallow but long. Cuts on the hands and
arms where the bov had tried to ward off the blades. Skinned knuckles
where he'd struck out at someone. Balasar caught the medic's eye and
nodded to the man.
"No broken bones, sir," the medic said. "One finger needed sewing, and
there'll be scars, but so long as we keep the wounds from festering, he
should be fine."
"What happened?" Balasar asked.
"I found him by the river," Sinja said. "I brought him here."
Balasar heard the coolness in Sinja's voice, judged the tension in his
face and shoulders. Ile steeled himself.
"Come, then," Balasar said as he lifted open the tent's wide flap, "eat
with me and you can tell me what happened."
"No need, General. It's a short enough story. Coya here can't speak
Galtic. There's been footmen from the fourth legion following him for
days now. At first it was just mocking, and I didn't think it worth con„
cern.
"You have names? Proof that they did this?"
"They're bragging about it, sir," Sinja said.
Sinja looked down at the wounded man. The boy looked up at him. The dark
eyes were calm, perhaps defiant. Balasar sighed and knelt beside the low
cot.
"Coya-cha?" he said in the boy's own language. "I want you to rest. I'll
see the men who did this disciplined."
The wounded hands took a pose that declined the offer.
"It isn't a favor to you," Balasar said. "My men don't treat one another
this way. As long as you march with me, you are my soldier, whatever
tongues you speak. I'll be sure they understand it's my wrath they're
feeling, and not yours."
"Your dead men are the problem, sir," Sinja said, switching the