An Autumn War (24 page)

Balasar considered him. Sinja met his gaze.

"Yes," Balasar said. "You have. But it's nothing I would be comfortable hanging you for. Not yet at least. The poet, when you killed him. He addressed you in the familiar. Sinja-kya."

"Men begging for their lives sometimes develop an inaccurate opinion of how close they are to the men holding the blades," Sinja said, and the general had the good manners to blush. "I understand your position, sir. I've been living under the Khaiem for a long time now. You don't know my history, and if you did, it wouldn't help you. I've broken contracts before, and I won't lie about it. But I would appreciate it if we could treat each other professionally on this."

Balasar sighed.

"You've managed to shame me, Captain Ajutani."

"I won't brag about that if you'll agree to he certain you've a decent cause to kill me before taking action," Sinja said.

"Agreed," Balasar said. "But your men? I meant what I said about them."

"I'll be sure they understand," Sinja said, then swigged down the last of his wine, took a pose appropriate to taking leave of a superior, and walked hack into the streets of the fallen city, hoping that it wouldn't be clear from his stride that his knees felt loose. Not that a sane measure of fear could be held against him, but there was pride to consider. And someone was watching him. He could be damned sure of that. So he walked straight and calm through the streets and the smoke and the wailing of the survivors until he reached the camp outside the last trailing building of Nantani. The tents were far from empty-the thugs and free armsmen of Nlachi didn't all have a stomach for looting Nantani-but he didn't speak to his men until just after nightfall.

They had a fire burning, though the summer night wasn't cold. The light of it made the tents glow gold and red. The men were quiet. The boasting and swaggering that the Galts were doing didn't have a place here. It would have if the burning city had been made from gray Westlands stone. Sinja stood at the front on a plank set up on chairs in a makeshift dais. He wanted them to see him. The scouts he'd sent out to assure that the conversation was private returned and took a confirming pose. If General (;ice had set a watch over him, they'd gone to their own camps or else come from within his own company. He'd done what he could about the first, and the second there was no protection for. He raised his hands.

"So most of what we've done since the spring opened has been walk," he said. "Well, we're in summer now, and you've seen what war looks like. It's not the war I expected, that's truth. But it's the one we've got, and you can all thank the gods that we're on the side most likely to win. But don't think that because this went well, this is over with. It's a long walk still ahead of us."

He sighed and shifted his weight, the plank wobbling a little under his feet. A log in the fire popped, firing sparks up into the darkness like an omen.

"There arc a few of you right now who are thinking of leaving. Don't ... Quiet now! All of you! Don't lie to yourselves about it and don't lie to me. This is the first taste of war most of you've seen. And some of you might have had family or friends in Nantani. I did. But here's what I have to say to you: Don't do it. Right now it looks like our friends the Galts can't be stopped. All the gods know there's not a fighting force anywhere in the cities that could face them, that's truth. But there's worse things for an army to face than another army. Look at the size of this force, the simple number of men. It can't carry the food it needs with it. It can't haul that much water. We have to rely on the land we're covering. The low towns, the cities. The game we can hunt, the trees and coal we can feed into those traveling kilns of theirs. The water we can get from the rivers.

"If the cities North of here can organize-if they can burn the food and the trees so we have to spend more of our time finding supplies, if they foul the wells so that we can't move far from the rivers, if they get small, fast bands together to harass our hunting parties and scouts-we could still be in for hell's own fight. We took Nantani by surprise. "I'hat won't happen twice. And that's why I need every man among you here, keeping that from happening. And besides that, any of you that leave, the general's going to hunt down like low-town dogs and slit your bellies for you."

Sinja paused, looking out at the earnest, despairing faces of the boys he'd led from Machi. He felt old. He rarely felt old, but now he did.

"Don't be stupid," he said, and got down from the plank.

The men raised a late and halfhearted cheer. Sinja waved it away and headed back to his tent. Overhead, the stars shone where the smoke didn't obscure them. The cooks had made chicken and pepper rice. Stinging flies were out, and, to Sinja's mild disgust, Nantani seemed to be a haven for grass ticks. He spent a quiet, reflective time plucking the insects out of his skin and cracking them with his thumbnails. It was near midnight when he heard the roaring crash, thunder rolling suddenly from the ruined city, and then silence. The dome had fallen, then.

How many of his men would know what the sound had meant, he wondered. And how many would understand that he'd given them all the strategy for slowing the Galts, point by point by point. And how many would have snuck away to the North by morning, thinking they were being clever. But he could tell the general he'd done as he was told, and no man present would be able to say otherwise. So maybe he could lull the general back into trusting him for a while longer at least. And maybe Kiyan's husband would find a good way to make use of the time Sinja won for him.

"Ah, Kiyan-kya," he said to the night and the northern stars, "look what you've done. You've made me into a politician."

"MOST HIGH," ASHUA RADAANI SAID, TAKING A POSE. THAT WAS AN APOLOGY and a refusal, "this is ... this is folly. I understand that the poets are concerned, but you have to see that we have nothing that supports their suspicion. We're in summer. It's only a few weeks before we have to harvest the spring crops and plant for autumn. The men you're asking for ... we can't just send away our laborers."

Otah frowned. It was not a response his father would have gotten. The other Khaiem would have raised a hand, made a speech, perhaps only shifted hands into a pose asking for the speaker to repeat himself. The men and horses and wagons of grain and cheese and salt-packed meats would simply have appeared. But not for Otah Mach], the upstart who had not won his chair, who had married a wayhouse keeper and produced only one son and that one sickly. fie felt the urgency like a hand pressing at his hack, but he forced himself to remain calm. He wouldn't have what he wanted by blustering now. He smiled sweetly at the round, soft man with his glittering rings and calculating eyes.

"Your huntsmen, then," Otah said. "Bring your huntsmen. And come yourself. Ride with me, Ashua-cha, and we'll go see whether there's any truth to this thing. If not, you can bear witness yourself, and reassure the court."

The young man's lips twisted into a half-smile.

"Your offer is kind, Most High," he said. "My huntsmen are yours. I will consult with my overseer. If my house can spare me, I would he honored to ride at your side."

"It would please me, Ashua-cha," Otah said. "I leave in two days, and I look forward to your company."

"I will do all I can."

They finished the audience with the common pleasantries, and a servant girl showed the man out. Otah called for a howl of tea and used the time to consider where he stood. If Radaani sent him a dozen huntsmen, that took the total to almost three hundred men. House Siyanti had offered up its couriers to act as scouts. None of the families of the utkhaiem had refused him; 1)aikani and old Kamau had even given him what he asked. The others dragged their feet, begged his forgiveness, compromised. If Radaani had hacked him, the others would have fallen in line.

And if he had thought Radaani was likely to, he'd have met with him first instead of last.

It was the price, he supposed, of having played the game so poorly up to now. Had he been the man they expected him to be all these years-had he embraced the role he'd accepted and fathered a dozen sons on as many wives and assured the ritual bloodbath that marked the change of generations-they would have been more responsive now. But his own actions had called the forms of court into question, and now that he needed the traditions, he half-regretted having spent years defying them.

The tea came in a bowl of worked silver carried on a pillow. The servant, a man perhaps twenty years older than Otah himself with a long, well-kept beard and one clouded eye, presented it to him with a grace horn of long practice. This man had done much the same before Otah's father, and perhaps his grandfather. The presentation of this howl of tea might be the study and center of this man's life. The thought made the tea taste worse, but Otah took as warm a pose of thanks as would be permitted between the Khai Machi and a servant, however faithful.

Utah rose, gesturing to the doorway. One of his half-hundred attendants rushed forward, robes flowing like water over stones.

"I'll see him now," Otah said. "In the gardens. And see we aren't disturbed."

The sky was gray and ivory, the breeze from the south warm as breath and nearly as gentle. The cherry trees stood green-the pink of the blossoms gone, the crimson of the fruit not yet arrived. The thicker blossoms of high summer had begun to unfurl, rose and iris and sun poppy. The air was thick with the scent. Utah walked down the path, white gravel fine as salt crunching like snow under his feet. Ile found Nlaati sitting on the lip of a stone pool, gazing up at the great fountain. Twice as high as a man, the gods of order stood arrayed in has-relief shaped from a single sheet of bronze. The dragons of chaos lay cowed beneath their greened feet. Water sluiced down the wall, clear until it touched the brows and exultant, upraised faces of the gods, and there it splattered white. Utah sat beside his old friend and considered.

"The dragon's not defeated," Nlaati said. "Look. You see the third head from the left? It's about to bite that woman's calf. And the man on the end? The one who's looking down? I le's lost his balance."

"I hadn't noticed," Utah said.

"You should have another one made with the dragons on top. Just to remind people that it's never over. Even when you think it's done, there's something waiting to surprise you."

Utah nodded, dipping his fingers into the dancing ripples of the pool. Gold and white koi darted toward his fingertips and then as quickly away.

"I understand if you're angry with me," Otah said. "But I didn't ask him. Nayiit came to me. He volunteered."

"Yes. Liat told me."

"He's spent half a season in the Dai-kvo's village. He knows it better than anyone but you or Cehmai."

Nlaati looked up. There was a darkness in his expression.

"You're right," Maati said. "If this is the Galts and they've freed the andat, then protecting the Dai-kvo is critical. But it would be faster to send for him to come to us. We can build defenses here, train men. Pre„ pare.

"And if the Uai-kvo didn't come?" Otah asked. "How long has he been mulling over Liat's report that the Galts have a poet of their own? I've sent word. I've sent messages. The world can't afford to wait and see if the I)ai-kvo suddenly becomes decisive."

"And you speak for the world now, do you?" There was acid in Maati's tone, but Otah could hear the fear behind it and the despair. "If you insist on charging out into whatever kind of war you find out there, take one of us with you. We've lived there. We know the village. Cehmai's still young. Or strap me on the back of a horse and pull me there. Leave Nayiit out of this."

"He's a grown man," Otah said. "He's not a child any longer. He has his own mind and his own will. I thought about refusing him, for your sake and for Liat's. But what would that be to him? He's not still wrapped in crib cloths. How would I say that I wanted him safe because his mother would worry for him?"

"And what about his father," Maati said, but it had none of the inflection of a question. "You have an opinion, Most High, on what his father would think."

Utah's belly sank. He dried his hand on his sleeve, only thinking afterward that it was the motion of a commoner-a dockfront laborer or a midwife's assistant or a courier. The Khai Machi should have raised an arm, summoned a servant to dry his fingers for him on a cloth woven for the purpose and burned after one use. His face felt mask-like and hard as plaster. Ile took a pose that asked clarification.

"Is that the conversation we're having, then?" he asked. "We're talking about fathers?"

"We're talking about sons," Maati said. "We're talking about you scraping up all the disposable men that the utkhaiem can drag out of comfort houses and slap sober enough to ride just so they can appease the irrational whims of the Khai. Taking those men out into the field because you think the armies of Galt are going to slaughter the Dal-kvo is what we're talking about, and about taking Nayiit with you."

"You think I'm wrong?"

"I know you're right!" Maati was breathing hard now. His face was flushed. "I know they're out there, with an army of veterans who are perfectly accustomed to hollowing out their enemies' skulls for wine bowls. And I know you sent Sinja-cha away with all the men we had who were even half trained. If you come across the Galts, you will lose. And if you take Nayiit, he'll die too. He's still a child. He's still figuring out who he is and what he intends and what he means to do in the world. And-"

"Maati. I know it would be safer for me to stay here. For Nayiit to stay here. But it would only be safe for the moment. If we lose the Daikvo and all he knows and the libraries he keeps, having one more safe winter in Machi won't mean anything. And we might not even manage the winter."

hlaati looked away. Otah bowed his head and pretended not to have seen the tears on his old friend's cheeks.

"I've only just found him again," Maati said, barely audible over the splashing water. "I've only just found him again, and I don't want him taken away."