conversation back to Galtic.
The medic coughed once, then discreetly stepped to the far side of the
tent. Balasar folded his hands and nodded to Sinja that he should
continue. The mercenary sucked his teeth and spat.
"Your men are angry. Having those shrouds along is like putting a burr
under their saddles. They're calling my men things they didn't when this
campaign began. And they act as if it were harmless and in fun, but it
isn't."
"I'll see your men aren't attacked again, Sinja. You have my word on it."
"It's not just that, sir. You're sowing anger. Yes, it keeps them
traveling faster, and I respect that. But once we reach tldun and
tJtani, they're going to have their blood up. It's easier for ten
thousand soldiers to defeat a hundred thousand tradesmen if the
tradesmen don't think defeat means being beaten to death for sport. And
a had sack can burn in resentments that last for lifetimes. All respect,
those cities are as good as taken, and we both know it. There's no call
to make this worse than it has to be."
"I should be careful?" Balasar said. "Move slowly, and let the cities
fall gently?"
"YOU said before you wanted this done clean."
"Yes. Before. I said that before."
""They're going to be your cities," Sinja said doggedly as a man
swimming against the tide. ""There's more to think about than how to
capture them. It's my guess Gait's going to be ruling these places for a
long time. The less the people have to forget, the easier that rule's
going to he."
"I don't care about holding them," Balasar said. "There are too many to
guard, and once the rest of the world scents blood, it's going to he
chaos anyway. This war isn't about finding ways for the High Council to
appoint more mayors."
"Sir?"
"We are carrying the dead because they are my dead." Balasar kept his
voice calm, his manner matter-of-fact. The trembling in his hands was
too slight to be seen. And I haven't come to conquer the Khaiem, Captain
Ajutani. I've come to destroy them."
THE. FIRST REFUGEES APPEARED WHEN OTAII'S LFI"I'LE ARMY WAS STILL three
days' march from the village of the I)ai-kvo. 't'hey were few and
scattered in the morning, and then more and larger groups toward the
day's end. The stories they told Otah were the same. Ships had come to
Yalakeht-warships loaded heavy with Galtic soldiers. Some of the ships
were merchant vessels that had been on trade runs to Chahuri- "lan.
Others were unfamiliar. The harbor master had tried to refuse them
berths, but a force of men had come from the warehouse district and
taken control of the seafront. By the time the Khai had gathered a force
to drive them hack, it was too late. Yalakeht had fallen. Any hope that
Otah's army might he on a fool's errand ended with that news.
In the night, more men came, drawn by the light and scent of the army's
cook fires. Otah saw that they were welcomed, and the tale grew. Boats
had been waiting, half assembled, in the warehouses of Galtic merchants
in \'alakcht. Great metal boilers ran paddle wheels, and pushed their
wide, shallow boats upriver faster than oxen could pull. Boats loaded
with men and steam wagons. The low towns nearest Yalakeht had been
overrun. Another force had been following along the shore, hauling food
and supplies. The soldiers themselves had sped for the Dal-kvo. Just as
Otah had feared they would.
Utah sat in his tent and listened to the cicadas. They sang as if
nothing was changing. As if the world was as it had always been. A
breeze blew from the south, heavy with the smell of rain though the
clouds were still few and distant. Trees nodded their branches to one
another. Utah kept his hack to the fire and stared out at darkness.
"There was no way to know whether the Galtic army had reached the
village yet. Perhaps the Dai-kvo was preparing some defense, perhaps the
village had been encircled and overrun. From the tales he'd heard, once
the Galts and their steam wagons reached the good roads leading from the
river to the village itself, they would be able to travel faster than
news of them.
It had been almost thirty years ago when Otah had traveled tip that
river carrying a message from Saraykeht. The memory of it was like
something from a dream. "There had been an older man-younger, likely,
than Otah was now-who had run the boat with his daughter. They had never
spoken of the girl's mother, and Otah had never asked. That child
daughter would he a woman now, likely with children of her own. Otah
wondered what had become of her, wondered whether that half-recalled
river girl was among those flying out of the storm into which he was
heading, or if she had been in one of the towns that the army had destroyed.
A polite scratch came at the door, his servant announcing himself. Utah
called out his permission, and the door opened. He could see the
silhouettes of Ashua Radaani and his other captains looming behind the
servant boy's formal pose.
"Bring them in," Otah said. "And bring us wine. Wait. Watered wine."
The six men lumbered in. Utah welcomed them all with formal gravity. The
fine hunting robes in which they had come out from Machi had been
scraped clean of mud. The stubble had been shaved from their chins. From
these small signs and from the tightness in their bodies, Utah knew they
had all drawn the same conclusions he had. He stood while they folded
themselves down to the cushion-strewn floor. "Then, silently, Utah sat
on his chair, looking down at these grown men, heads of their houses who
through the years he had known them had been flushed with pride and
self-assurance. The servant boy poured them each a bowl of equal parts
wine and fresh water before ghosting silently out the door. Otah took a
pose that opened the audience.
"We will he meeting the Galts sometime in the next several days," Otah
said. "I can't say where or when, but it will be soon. And when the time
comes, we won't have time to plan our strategy. We have to do that now.
Tonight. You have all brought your census?"
Each man in turn took a scroll from his sleeve and laid it before him.
The number of men, the weapons and armor, the horses and the bows and
the numbers of arrows and bolts. The final tally of the strength they
had managed. Otah looked down at the scrawled ink and hoped it would be
enough.
"Very well," he said. "Let's begin."
None of them had ever been called upon to plan a battle before, but each
had an area of expertise. Where one knew of the tactics of hunting,
another had had trade relations with the Wardens of the Westlands enough