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
can't effectively fight them."
""IThat's a weakness?" the Khai Cetani asked.
"l'es. It keeps them from paying attention. To them, it's already over.
Everything's certain but the details. That something else might happen
isn't likely to occur to them. Why should it?"
The Khai Cetani looked into the fire. "I'he flames seemed to glitter in
his dark eyes. When he spoke, his voice was grim.
"'They've made all the same mistakes we did."
Otah considered that for a moment before nodding.
""I'he Galts understand war," he said. "They're the best teachers I
have. And so I'll do to them what they did to us."
"And to do that, you would have rne-Khai of my own cityabandon Cetani to
follow your lead?"
"Yes," Otah said.
The Khai sat in silence for a long time, then rose. The rustle of his
robes as he walked to the window was the only sound. Otah waited as the
man looked out over the city. Over Cetani, the city for which this man
had killed his brothers, for which he had given up his name. Otah felt
the tension in his own hack and neck. Ile was asking this man to abandon
everything, to walk away from the only role he had played in his life.
Cetani would fall. It would be sacked. Even if everything went
perfectly, there might he nothing to rebuild. And what would a Khai he
if there was no city left him?
Many years before, Otah had asked another man to do the right thing,
even though it would cost him his honor and prestige and the only place
he had in the world. Heshai-kvo had refused, and he had died for the
decision.
"Most High," Otah began, but the Khai Cetani held up a hand to stop him
without even so much as looking back. Otah could see it in the man's
shoulders in the moment the decision was made; they lifted as if a
burden had been taken from him.
18
Even the winter she had passed in Yalakeht had not prepared Liat for the
fickleness of seasons in the North. Each day now was noticeably shorter
than the one before, and even when the afternoons were warm, the sun
pressing down benignly on her face, the nights were suddenly hitter. In
the gardens, the leaves all lost their green at once, as if by
conspiracy. It was unlike the near-imperceptible changes in the summer
cities. In Saraykeht, autumn was a slow, lingering thing; the warmth of
the world made a long good-bye. Things came faster here, and Liat found