An Autumn War

22

When Sinja finished his report and was silent, Otah forced his breath to be deep and regular, waiting until he could speak. His voice was tight and controlled.

"You have spent the season fighting beside the Galts?"

"'T'hey were winning."

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

Ile was thinner than Otah remembered him. The months on the road had left Sinja's face drawn, his cheekbones sharp. Ills skin was leathery from the sun and wind. He hadn't changed his robes, and he smelled of horses. Ills casual air seemed false, a parody of the certain, amused, detached man whom Otah had sent away, and Otah couldn't say if it was the captain who'd changed more or himself.

Kivan, the only other person in the chamber, sat apart from the pair of them, at the couch nearest the fire. Her hands were fists in her lap, her spine straight and still as a tree. Her face was expressionless. Sinja's gaze flickered toward her, and then came back to Otah. The captain took a pose that apologized.

"I'm not trying to he light about this, Most I ligh," Sinja said. "But it's truth. By the time I knew they weren't attacking the \Vestlands, I could no more have excused myself and ridden on than flapped my arms and flown. I did what I could to slow them, but yes, when they called on us, we fought beside them. When they needed interpreters, we spoke for them. I suppose we could have thrown ourselves on their spears and died nobly, but then I wouldn't he here to warn you now."

"You betrayed the Khaiem," Otah said.

"And I'm betraying the Galts now," Sinja replied, his voice calm. "If you can judge the balance on that, you're smarter than I am. I've done what I've done,: Most Iligh. If I chose wrong, I'll apologize, except I don't think I have."

"Let it go," Utah said. "W'e'll deal with it later."

"I'd rather do it now," Sinja said, shifting his weight. "If I'm going to be drowned as a traitor, I'd like to know it."

Utah felt the rage rise up in his breast like a flame uncurling. IIe heard it in his ears.

"You want pardon?"

"For the boys too," Sinja said. "I swear I'll do everything I can to earn it."

You'll swear anything you like and break the oath when it suits you, Otah thought. He bit his lip until he thought it might bleed, but he didn't shout. He didn't call for the armsmen who waited outside the great blue doors. It would have been simple to have the man killed. It would have even felt like justice, he thought. I Its own man. His friend and advisor. Walking beside the Galttc general. Giving him advice. But the rage wasn't only rage. It was also fear. And despair. And so no matter how right it felt, it couldn't be trusted.

"Don't ask me for anything again."

"I won't, Otah-cha." And then a moment later, "You're a harder man than when I left."

"I've earned it."

"It suits von.

A rattle came from the door, and then a polite scratching, and Cehmai, Nlaati, and Liat came in the room. "Their faces were flushed, and Nlaati's breath was heavy as if he'd been running. Otah frowned. He wouldn't have chosen to have Ifiat here, but she'd helped Kiyan with the preparations of the city and the quartering of the refugees of Cetani, so perhaps it was for the best after all. I Ic took a general pose of greeting.

"What's… happened," \Iaati wheezed.

"Wc have a problem," Otah said.

"The Galts?" Liat asked.

"'l'en thousand of them," Kiyan said, speaking for the first time since Sinja had begun his report. Her voice was solid as stone. "Foot soldiers and archers and horsemen. They won't reach it today. But tomorrow, perhaps. 'T'hree days at the most."

Nlaati's face went white and he sat down hard, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I, iat and Cchmai didn't move to help him. The room was silent except for the murmur of the fire. Otah let the moment pass. "There was nothing he could say just now that they wouldn't think for themselves in the next few heartbeats. Cehmai recovered the fastest, his brows rising, his mouth going tight and hard.

"What do we do?" the younger poet asked.

"We have some advantages," Otah said. "We outnumber them. We know the city. We're in a position to defend, and holding a city's easier than forcing your way in."

"On the other hand," Sinja said, "they're soldiers. You aren't. They know that they need shelter from the cold and need it quickly. Taking Machi's their only option. And they know a fair amount about the city as well."

"You told them that too?" Otah asked.

"They've had their agents and traders in all the cities for generations," Kiyan said softly. "They've put their hands in our affairs. They've walked the streets and sat in the bathhouses. They have trading houses that wintered here when your father was Khai."

"Not to mention the several hundred native guides working for them who aren't me," Sinja said. "I was leading a militia, you'll recall. I've left as many as I could behind, but they've had a season to get any information they wanted."

Otah raised his hands in a pose that abandoned his point. He had the feeling of trembling that he remembered from the aftermath of his battles. From hearing Danat's struggles to breathe when his cough had been at its worst. It wasn't time to feel; he couldn't afford to feel. He tried to push the fear and despair away; he couldn't. It was in his blood now.

"I can try," Nlaati said. "I'll have to try."

"You have a binding ready?" Sinja asked.

"Not ready," Cehmai said. "We have it in outline. It would need weeks to refine it."

"I'll try," Maati said. His voice was stronger now. His lips were pulled thin. "But I don't know that it will help if it comes to a battle. If it works, I can see they never hear children, but that won't stop them in the near term."

"You could make it hurt," Sinja suggested. "Men don't fight as well newly gelded."

Nlaati frowned deeply, his fingers moving on their own, as if tracing numbers in the air.

"Do what you can," Otah said. "If you think a change will make the binding less likely to work, don't do it. We need an andat-any andat. The details aren't important."

"Could we pretend?" Liat asked. "Dress someone as an andat, and send them out with Maati. How would the Galts know it wasn't true?"

"The costume would have to involve not breathing," Cehmai said. Liat looked crestfallen.

"Kiyan," Otah said. "Can we arm the people we have?"

"We can improvise something," his wife said. "If we put men in the towers, we can rain stones and arrows on them. It would make it hard for them to keep to the streets. And if we block the stairways and keep the platforms locked at the top, it would be hard work to get them out."

"Until the cold kills them," Sinja said. "There's not enough coal in the ground to keep those towers warm enough to live in."

"They can survive a few days," Otah said. "We'll see to it."

"We can also block off the entrances to the tunnels," Liat said. "Hide the ventilation shafts and fill as many of the minor ways down as we can find with stones. It would be easier, wouldn't it, if there were only one or two places that we needed to defend?"

"There's another option," Sinja said. "I don't like to mention it, but… If you surrender, Balasar-cha will kill Otah and Eiah and Danat. Cehmai and Maati. The Khai Cetani and his family too, if they're here. He'll burn the hooks. But he'd accept surrender from the utkhaiem after that. It's a dozen or so people. There's no way to do this that kills fewer."

Otah felt himself rock hack. A terrible weight seemed to fall on his shoulders. He wouldn't. Of course he would not. He would let every man and woman in the city die before he offered up his children to be slaughtered, but it meant that every one that died in the next few days would be doubly upon his conscience. Every life that ended here, ended because he had refused to he a sacrifice. He swallowed to loosen the knot in his throat and took a pose that dismissed the subject.

"I had to say it," Sinja said, apologizing with his tone.

"You didn't say my name," Kiyan said. Her eyes turned to Sinja's. "Why didn't you say my name?"

"Well, assuming that you don't all opt for slaughter, there is one other thing we have in our favor," Sinja said. "They sent me here to betray you. Kiyan's safety was my asking price. They expect a report from me when they arrive. If I give them had information, we may he able to trap some of them. Thin their forces. It won't win the battle, but it could help."

Otah raised his hand, and the mercenary stopped. Kiyan was the one who took a querying pose, and it was to Kiyan that he answered.

"The general. Balasar-cha. He doesn't want a bloody battle. He wants it over quickly, with as few of his men lost as he can manage. I agreed to come here and discover your defenses if he spared you. Gave you to me when it was all over with. Prize of war. It's not all that uncommon.

Kiyan rose, her small foxlike face turned feral. Her fingers were splayed in claws, and her chest pressed forward like a bantam ready for the fighting pit. Otah's heart warmed with something like pride. ,, If you let them touch l iah and Danat, I would kill you in your sleep," she said.

"But Balasar-cha doesn't know that," Sinja said, shrugging and looking into the fire. He couldn't meet her eyes. "He expects a report from me, and I'll give him one. I'll give him whatever report you'd like."

"Gods," Kiyan said, her eyes still ablaze. "Is there anyone you haven't betrayed?"

Sinja smiled, but Otah thought there was sorrow in his dark eyes.

"Yes, there is. But she was in love with someone else."

Cchmai coughed, embarrassed. Otah raised his hands.

"Enough," he said. "We haven't got time for this. We may have a little as a day to get ready. Maati, you prepare your binding. Cehmai will help you. Kiyan. Liat. You've arranged food and quarters for two cities. Do what you can to arm them and keep people from panicking. Sinja and I will work out a plan to defend the city and a report to deliver to the Galts."

Kiyan's eyes carried a question, but Otah didn't answer. There was no reason to trust Sinja-cha. It was just the risk he chose to take.

Servants brought maps of the city, of the low towns to the south, and the mountains and mines to the North. Machi hadn't been built to withstand a war; there were no walls to defend, no pits that the enemy would have to bridge. The only natural barrier-the river-was already frozen solid enough to walk across. Any real defense would have to he on the black-cobbled streets, in the alleys and tunnels and towers. They talked late into the night, joined by the Khai Cetani and Ashua Radaani, Saya the blacksmith and Kiyan when she wasn't out among the tunnels spreading the word and making preparations. Sinja's shame, if it was still there, was hidden and his advice was well considered. By morning, even the Khai Cetani suffered interruption from Sinja-cha. Otah took it as another sign that the Khai had changed.

If things went poorly, there was still the mine in the northern moun tains. A few people could take shelter there. Eiah and I)anat. Nayiit. If the binding failed, they could send Nlaati and Cehmai there as well, sneaking them out the hack of the palace in a fast cart while the battle was still alive. Otah didn't imagine that he would be there with them, and Sinja didn't question him.

Afterward, Otah looked in on his children, both asleep in their chamhers. 1-IC found the library where Cehmai and Nlaati were still arguing over points of grammar so obscure he could hardly make sense of them. The night candle was guttering and spitting when Otah came at last to his bed. Kiyan sat with him in silence for a time. IIe touched her, tracing the curve of her cheek with the knuckles of one hand.

"I)o you believe Sinja?" he asked.

"What part of it?"

"I)o you think that this General Gicc really believes the andat arc too dangerous to exist? That he wants them destroyed? What he said about killing the poet… I don't know what to think of that."

"If burning the library is really one of his demands, then maybe," Kiyan said. "I can't think he'd want the hooks and scrolls burned if he hoped to hind more andat of his own."

Otah nodded, and lay hack, his gaze turned toward the ceiling above him, dark as a moonless sky.

"I'm not sure he's wrong," Otah said.

Wordless, she drew his mouth to hers, guided his hands. Ile would have thought himself too tired for the physical act of love, but she proved him wrong. Afterward, she lay at his side, her fingertips tracing the ink that had been worked into his skin when he had been an eastern islander leading one of his previous lives. He slept deeply and with a feeling of peace utterly unjustified by the situation.

He woke alone, called in the servants who bathed and dressed a Khai. Or, however briefly, an Emperor. Black robes, shot with red. "Thick-woven wool layered with waxed silk. Robes of colors chosen for war and designed for cold. He took himself up through the great galleries, rising toward the surface and the light, being seen by the utkhaiem of both NIachi and Cetani, by the common laborers hurrying to throw vast cartfuls of rubble into the minor entrances to the underground, by the merchants and couriers. The food sellers and beggars. The city.

The sky was white and gray, vast and empty as a blank page. Crows commented to one another, their voices dispassionate and considering as low-town judges. High above, the towers of Machi loomed, and smoke rose from the sky doors-the sign that men were up there in the thin, distant air burning coal and wood to warm their hands, preparing for the battle. Otah stood on the steps of his palace, the hitter cold numbing his cheeks and biting at his nose and ears, the world smelling of smoke and the threat of snow. Distant and yet clear, like the voice of a ghost, hells began to ring in the towers and great yellow banners unfurled like the last, desperate unfallen leaves of the vast stone trees.

The Galts had come.

Snow fell gently that morning, drifting down from the sheet of clouds above them in small, hard flakes. Balasar stood on the ridgeline of the hills south of the city. Frost had formed on the fold of his leather cloak, and the snow that landed on his shoulders didn't melt. Before him, the stone towers rose, seeming closer than they were, more real than the snow-grayed mountains behind them. No enemy army had marched out to meet him, no party of utkhaiem marred the thin white blanket, still little more than ankle-deep, that separated Balasar from Machi. Behind him, his men were gathered around the steam wagons, pressed around the furnace grates that Balasar had ordered opened. The medics were already busy with men suffering from the cold. The captains and masters of arms were seeing that every clump of men was armed and armored. Balasar had been sure to mention the warm baths beneath Machi, the food supplies laid in those tunnels-enough, he assumed, to keep two cities alive for the winter.

Smoke rose from the tops of the towers and from the city itself. Banners flew. He heard a horseman approaching him from behind, and he glanced back to see Eustin on a great bay mare. The beast's breath was heavy and white as feathers. Balasar raised a hand, as Eustin cantered forward, pulled his mount to a halt, and saluted.

"I'm ready, sir. I've a hundred men volunteered to come with me. With your permission."

"Of course," Balasar said, then looked back at the towers. "Do you really think they'd do it? Sneak out. Run north and try to hide in the low towns out there?"

"Best to have us there in the event," Eustin said. "I could be wrong, sir. But I'd rather be careful now than have to spend the cold part of the season making raids. Especially if this is the warm hit."

Balasar shook his head. He didn't believe that the Khai Machi Sinja had described to him would run. He would fight unfairly, he would launch attacks from ambush, he would have his archers aim for the horses. But Balasar didn't think he would run. Still, the poets might. Or the Khai might send his children away for safety, if he hadn't already. And there would he refugees. Eustin's plan to block their flight was a wise one. He couldn't help wishing that Eustin might have been with him here, at the end. They were the last of the men who had braved the desert, and Balasar felt a superstitious dread at sending him away.

"Sir?"

"Be careful," Balasar said. "'That's all."

A trumpet called, and Balasar turned back to the city. Sure enough, there was something-a speck of black on the white. A single rider, fleeing Machi.

"Well," Eustin said. "Looks like Captain Ajutani's come back after all. Give him my compliments."

Balasar smiled at the disdain in Eustin's voice.

"I'll be careful too," he said.

It took something like half a hand for Sinja to reach the camp. Balasar noticed particularly that he didn't turn to the bridge, riding instead directly over the frozen river. Eustin and his force were gone, looping around to the North, well before the mercenary captain arrived. Balasar had cups of strong kafe waiting when Sinja, his face pink and rawlooking from his ride, was shown into his tent.

Balasar retuned his salute and gestured to a chair. Sinja took a pose of thanks-so little time back among the Khaiem and the use of formal pose seemed to have returned to the man like an accent-and sat, drawing a sheaf of papers from his sleeve. When they spoke, it was in the tongue of the Khaiem.

"It went well?"

"Well enough," Sinja said. "I made a small mistake and had to do some very pretty dancing to cover it. But the Khai's got few enough hopes, he wants to trust me. flakes things easier. Now, here. These are rough copies of the maps he's used. They're filling in the main entrances to the underground tunnels to keep us from bringing any single large force down at once. The largest paths they've left open are here," Sinja touched the map, "and here."

"And the poets?"

"They have the outline of a binding. I think they're going to try it. And soon."

Balasar felt the sinking of dread in his belly, and strangely also a kind of peace. Ile wouldn't have thought there was any part of him that was still held hack, and yet that one small fact-the poets lived and planned and Would recapture one of the andat now if they could-took away any choice he might still have had. He looked at the map, his mind sifting through strategies like a tiles player shuffling chits of bone.

"'T'here are men in the towers," Balasar said.

"Yes, sir," Sinja said. "They'll have stones and arrows to drop. You won't be able to use the streets near them, but the range isn't good, and they won't be able to aim from so far up. Go a street or two over and keep by the w+alls, and we'll he safe. There won't he much resistance above ground. 'T'heir hope is to keep you at hay long enough for the cold to do their work for them."

't'hree forces, Balasar thought. One to clear out the houses and trading shops on the south, another to push in toward the forges and the metalworkers, a third to take the palaces. He wouldn't take the steam wagons-he'd learned that much from Coal-so horsemen would be important for the approach, though they might he less useful if the fighting moved inside structures as it likely would. And they'd be near useless once they were underground. Archers wouldn't have much effect. "There were few long, clear open spaces in the city. But despite what Sinja said, Balasar expected there would he some fighting on the surface, so enough archers were mixed with the foot troops to fire back at anyone harassing them from the windows and snow doors of the passing buildings.

"Thank you, Sinja-cha," Balasar said. "I know how much doing this must have cost you."

"It needed doing," Sinja said, and Balasar smiled.

"I won't insist that you watch this happen. You can stay at the camp or ride North and Join Eustin."

"North?"

"I Ie's taken it to guard. In case someone tries to slip away during the battle."

"That's a good thought," Sinja said, his tone somewhat rueful. "If it's all the same, I'd like to ride with Eustin-cha. I know he hasn't always thought well of me, and if anything does go wrong, I'd like to he where he can see I wasn't the one doing it."

"A pretty thought," Balasar said, chuckling.

"You're going to win," Sinja said. It was a simple statement, but there was a weight behind it. A regret that soldiers often had in the face of loss, and only rarely in victory.

"You thought of changing sides," Balasar said. "While you were there, with all the people you know. In your old home. It was hard not to stand by them."

"That's true," Sinja said.

"It wouldn't have changed things. One more sword-even yours wouldn't have changed the way this battle falls."

"'That's why I came back," Sinja said.

"I'm glad you did," Balasar said. "I've been proud to ride with you."

Sinja gave his thanks and took his leave. Balasar wrote out orders for the guard to accompany Sinja and other ones to deliver to F. ustin. Then he turned to the maps of Machi. Truly there was little choice. The poets lived. Another night in the cold would mean losing more men. Balasar sat for a long moment, quietly asking God to let this day end well; then he walked out into the late-morning sun and gave the call to formation.

It was time.