"This is made of iron," Otah said.
"Yes, Most High," Saya agreed.
"But it doesn't melt. So however hot this runs, it can't be hotter than an ironworking forge, ne? How do they measure that, would you guess?"
Saya shrugged again.
"They're likely using soft coal, Most High. Use coal out of a Galt mine, it won't matter how much they put in it, it'll only come so hot. Forging iron needs hard coal. It's why the Galts buy their steel from Eddensea."
"And how long would it take them to reach Amnat-Tan if they were using these?"
"I've no way to know, Most High," Saya said taking a pose of apology. "I've never seen one working."
Otah nodded to himself. His head almost ached, but he could feel himself putting one thing with another like seeing fish moving below glass-clear ice.
"Otah-cha?" Nayiit said. "What is it?"
Otah looked up, and was surprised to find himself grinning.
"Tell the men to rest until midday. We'll start hack to the main force after that."
Nayiit took an accepting pose. But as they walked away, Otah saw him exchange confused glances with the blacksmith. Back at their little camp, Ashua Radaani was organizing a pile of books. He took a pose of greeting, but his expression was grim. Otah stood beside him, hands pulled into the sleeves of his robes, and considered the volumes.
"Phis is everything," Radaani said. "Fourteen hooks out of the greatest library in the world."
Otah glanced at the mouth of the high offices. He tried to guess how much knowledge had been lost there, vanished from the world and never to been found again. Nayiit put a thick, dirty hand reverently on the stack before him.
"I can only read half of them," Radaani said. "The others are too old, I think. One or two from the First Empire."
"We'll take them to Maati and Cehmai," Otah said. "Maybe they'll he of use."
"We're going back to Machi?" Radaani said.
"Those who'd like to, yes. The rest will come with me to Cetani. I'm going to meet with the Khai Cetani. We'll have to hurry, though. The Gaits will he taking the long way, and sacking Amnat-Tan while they're at it. I hope that will give us the time we need."
"You have a plan, Most High?" Radaani sounded dubious.
"Not yet," Otah said. "But when I do, it'll be better than my last one. I don't expect many men to follow me. A few will suffice. If they're loyal."
"We could make for "Ian-Sadar," Radaani said. "If it's allies we need, they're closer."
"We don't, or at least not as badly as we need rough roads and an early winter."
Radaani didn't show any sign of understanding the comment, he only took a pose of acceptance.
"'T'hat does sounds more like Cetani, Most High. I'll have the men ready to go at midday."
Otah took a pose that acknowledged Radaani's words and walked hack to the cart where Saya had found him. The wheat gruel had gone cold and sticky but it was still as sweet. In his mind, he was already on his way to Cetani. The road between Cetani and Machi wasn't one he had traveled often; he had kept to the South in the years he had been a courier, and the Khaiem had always been reluctant to meet one another, preferring to send envoys and girl children to wed. Nonetheless, he had traveled it. He was still trying to recall the details when Nayiit interrupted him.
"What are we going to do in Cetani, Most High?"
The boy's face was sharp and focused. Eager. Otah saw something of what he had been at that age. He knew the answer to Nayiit's question as soon as it was spoken, but still it took him a moment to bring himself to say it.
"You aren't coming, Nayiit-cha. I need you to see those books back to Maati."
"Anyone can do that," Nayiit said. "I'll be of use to you. I've been through Cetani. I was there just weeks ago, when we were coming to Machi. I can-"
"You can't," Otah said, and took the boy's hand. His son's hand. "You called a retreat when no one had given the order. In the Old Empire, I'd have had to see you killed for that. I can't have you come now."
The surprise on Nayiit's face was heartbreaking.
"You said it wasn't my fault," he said.
"And it isn't. I would have called the retreat myself if you hadn't. What happened to our men, what happened here, to the Dai-kvo.. . none of that's yours to carry. If you'd done differently, it would have changed nothing. But there will be a next time, and I can't have someone calling commands who might do what you've done."
Nayiit stepped hack, just out of his reach. Ah, Maati, Otah thought, what kind of son have we made, you and I?
"It won't," Nayiit said. "It won't happen again."
"I know. I know it won't," Otah said, making his tone gentle to soften hard words. "Because you're going back to Machi."
Udun was a river city. It was a city of bridges, and a city of birds. Sinja had lived there briefly while recovering from a dagger wound in his thigh. He remembered the songs of the jays and the finches, the sound of the river. He remembered Kiyan's stories of growing up a wayhouse keeper's daughter-the beggars on the riverside quays who drew pictures with chalks to cover the gray stone or played the small reed flutes that never seemed to be popular anywhere else; the canals that carried as much traffic as the streets. The palaces of the Khai Udun spanned the river itself, sinking great stone stanchions down into the river like the widest bridge in the world. As a girl, Kiyan had heard stories about the ghouls that lived in the darkness under those great palaces. She had gone there in boats with her cohort in the dark of night, the way that Sinja himself had dared burial mounds at midnight with his brothers. She had kissed her first lover in the twilight beneath a bridge just North of here. He had spent so little time in I. dun, and yet he felt he knew it so well.
The wayhouse where Sinja housed his men was south of the palaces. Its walls were stone and mud and thick as the length of his arm. The shutters were a green so dark they seemed almost black. It hadn't been built to fit as many men as Sinja commanded, but the standards of a soldier were lower than those of it normal traveler. And the standards of a soldier as likely to be mistaken for the enemy by his alleged fellows as killed by the defending armsmen were lower still. The great common room was covered from one wall to the other with thin cotton bedrolls. 'T'he upper rooms, intended for four men or fewer, housed eight or ten. 'T'here had been a few men who had ventured as far as the stables, but Sinja had called them hack inside. There was a madness on Balasar Dice's men, and he didn't intend to have his own fall to it.
In the small walled garden at the hack, Sinja sat on a camp stool and drank a howl of mint tea brewed with fresh-plucked leaves. "Thyme and basil grew around him, and a small black-leaf maple gave shade. Smoke rose into the skv, dark and solid as the towers of Machi. The birds were silent or lied. The scouts he'd sent out, their uniforms clearly the colors of Galt, reported that the rivers and canals had all turned red from the blood and the fish were dying of it. Sinja wasn't sure he believed that, but it seemed to catch the flavor of the day. Certainly he wasn't going to go out and look for himself.
An ancient man, spine bent and mouth innocent of anything resembling teeth, poked his head out the wide oaken doors at the end of the garden. The red-rimmed eyes seemed uncertain. The old hands shook so badly Sinja could see the trembling from where he sat. War is no place for the old, Sinja thought. It's meant for young men who can't yet distinguish between excitement and fear. Men who haven't yet grown a conscience.
"Mani-cha," Sinja called to the wayhouse keeper. "Is there something I can do for you?"