An Autumn War Read online

  Night fell cold.'l'he wide cloudless sky seemed to pull the warmth of the day and land up into it, and Otah, most honored and powerful man in his city, wrapped an extra cloak around himself and settled down against it tree, Ashua Radaani snoring gently at his side. I Ic had expected his dreams to be troubled, but instead he found himself ice fishing, and the fish he saw moving below the ice were also Kiyan and his children, playing with him, tugging at the line and then darting away. A trout that was also Kiyan in a silver-blue robe leapt from the waterwith the logic of dreams frozen and vet unfrozen-and splashed back down to Otah's delight when a rough hand shook him awake. Dawn was threatening, gray and rose in the east, and Saya the blacksmith towered over him, checks so red they seemed dark in the dim light, nose running, and a grin showing his teeth.

  ""They've come, Most High."

  Utah leapt up, his back and hip aching from the cold night and the unforgiving ground. To the east, smoke rose in a wall. Coal smoke from the Galtic wagons strung along the road from Cetani like beads on a string. It was earlier in the day than he'd expected them, and as he pulled on his makeshift armor of boiled leather and metal scale, his mind leapt ahead, guessing at what tactical advantages the Galtic captain intended by arriving with the dawn. .

  None, of course. They had no way to know Otah's men were there. And still, Otah considered how the light would strike the road, the trees, what it would make visible and what it would hide. He could no more stop his mind than call down the stars.

  The sun found the highest reaches of the smoke first, where it had diffused almost to nothing. Closer to the ground, the smoke was already visibly nearer. The Gaits had passed the third log barrier while the runners had come to him. The fourth lay in wait where Utah could see it. The innocent forest was alive with his men, or so he hoped. From his place at the ridge of the low hill, he saw only the dozen nearest, crouched behind trees and stones. Utah heard somethingthe clank of metal or the sound of a raised voice. He willed them to be silent, fear and anger at the sound almost enough to make his teeth ache until he heard it again and realized it was the first of the Gaits.

  The bear hunter appeared at his side. He held three of the spearlike bolts and the great bow. Saya the blacksmith scampered up with another, its steel heads only just fastened to it. Men appeared on the road below them.

  "The horn. Where's the horn?" Utah said, a sudden fear arcing through him. If he had learned the lesson of drums and horns from the Galts only to misplace the signal at the critical moment ... But the brass horn was at his hip, where it had been since they'd set their trap. He took the cold metal in his hands, brushing dirt from the mouthpiece.

  ""They look a bit rough around the edges, eh?" Saya whispered, pointing at the road with his chin. "Amnat-Tan must have done them some hurt."

  Utah looked at the Galtic soldiers. "There were perhaps a hundred that he could see on this small curve of road. Ile tried to recall what the men he had faced outside the 1)ai-kvo's village had looked like; how they had walked, how they had held themselves. He couldn't. The memory was only of the battle, and of his men, dying. Saya took a pose of farewell and slunk away, down toward the trees where the battle would soon begin.

  The first of the steam wagons came into sight. He could hear it clacking like a loom. The wide belly at its back glowed gold in the rising sun. It was piled with sacks and boxes. Tents, perhaps, or food. Coal for the furnaces. The packs that soldiers would have worn on their shoulders. The wreckage he had seen at the 1)ai-kvo's village had let him understand what these things were, but seeing one move-wheels turning at the speed of a team at fast trot, and vet without a horse near-was no less strange than his dreams. For a moment, he felt something like awe at the mind who had conceived it. The first of the soldiers below him saw the fallen log and called out-a long musical note that might have been a word or only a signal. The sound of the steam wagon changed, and it slowed, jittered once, and came to a halt. The long call came again and again as it receded down the road like whisperers at court passing the words of the Khai to distant galleries. The Galts came together, conferring. At Otah's side, the bear hunter sat back, bracing the curve of the bow against the soles of his feet. I Ic took one of the bolts, steadying it between his fists as, two-handed, he drew back the wire. The how creaked.

  "Wait," Utah said.

  A man came forward, past the steam wagon. He wore a gray tunic marked with the Galtic "free. I Iis hair was dark as Utah's own, his skin dark and leathern. The crowd of men at the fallen trees turned to face him, their bodies taking attitudes of respect. Utah felt something shift in his bell-.

  "I lim," Utah said.

  "Most High?" the huntsman said, strain in his voice.

  "Can you hit the man in gray from here?"

  '['Ile huntsman strained his neck, turned his body and his bow.

  "I lard. Shot," he grunted.

  "Can you do it?"

  The huntsman was silent for half a breath.

  "Yes," he said.

  "'T'hen do. I)o it now."

  The wire made a low thrum and the huntsman did something fast with his ankles that caught the bow before it could fall. He was already bending back again when the huge arrow struck. It took the gray man in the side, just below his ribs, and he collapsed without crying out. Otah fumbled with his horn, raising it to his lips. The note he blew filled his ears, so that he only knew the Galts below him were calling out to each other by the movement of their jaws and their drawn swords and axes.

  The second bolt flew at the steam wagon as the soldiers fell back. It struck the belly of the steam wagon with a low clank and fell useless to the ground. A horn answering Otah's own called, and something terrible and sudden and louder than anything Otah had ever heard before drowned it out. A great cloud gouted up into the sky from perhaps three hundred yards back in the Galtic column, and then the huntsman at his side loosed the third bolt, and Otah was deafened.

  The cloud of steam and smoke boiled up toward him, and Otah found himself coughing in the thick, hot air. The huntsman loosed one last bolt into the murk, stood, drew two daggers, and bounded down toward the road. Otah stepped forward. He was aware of sounds, though they were muffled by the ringing in his ears-screams, a trumpet blast, a distant report as another steam wagon met its end. The road came clear to him slowly as the mist thinned. The cart had tipped on its side, spilling its cargo and its men. Perhaps a dozen men lay on the sodden ground, their flesh seared red as a boiled lobster. Many still stood to fight, but they seemed half-stunned, and his own men were cutting them down with a savage glee. The furnace had cracked open, strewing burning coal across the paving stones. The leaves on the nearest trees, damp from the steam, seemed brighter and more vibrant than before. Two more steam wagons burst, the sound like doubled thunder. Otah cried out, rallying his men to his side, as he moved down to the road and the battle.

  The first skirmish, here at the head of the column, was the critical one. The way forward had to be blocked. If they could push the Galts back here, they could drive them into their own men, confuse their formations, keep their balance off. Or so they'd planned, so he hoped. And as he came down the hill, it seemed possible. The Galts were wideeyed with surprise, confused, afraid. Otah shouted and waved an axe, but there was no one there to threaten with it. It had already happened. The Galts were pulling back.

  A bodyguard formed around him as he walked down the road, sol diers falling in around him and marching hack toward Cetani, cutting down Gaits as they went. In the distance, a horn sounded the call for horsemen to attack. Small formations of Gaits-two or three score at most-held the road's center, confused, surrounded, and unable to retreat. A few ran to the trees for cover, only to find the forest alive with enemy blades. The rest fell to arrows and stones. Some engineer had made sense of Otah's trick, and great white plumes of steam rose into the sky as the wagons spent their pressure. The air reeked of blood and hot metal and smoke; it tasted rank. "Twice, a wave of Gaits swung toward Otah and his steadily
increasing guard, only to he thrown hack. The (;alt army was in disarray, surrounded, confused. Horsemen in the colors of the high families of Machi and Cetani raised their swords in salute when they saw Otah.

  He walked over the dead and the dying, past steam wagons that had burst open or been spared, horses that lay dead or flailed and screamed as they died. The sun was almost at the top of its arc, the whole morning gone, when Otah reached the last of the wagons, his bodyguard now nearly the size of his entire force. They had followed him, pinching down on the Gaits as he'd moved forward. The plains before them stretched out to Machi, stands of Galtic archers holding positions to cover the retreat. Otah raised his horn to his lips and called the halt. Others horns called the acknowledgment. The battle was ended. The Gaits had come this far and would come no farther. Otah felt himself sag.

  From the south, he saw a movement among the men like wind stirring tall grass. The Khai Cetani came barreling forward, a wide grin on his face, blood soaking the ornate silk sleeves of his robes. Utah found himself grinning hack. Ile took a pose of congratulations, but the Khai Cetani whooped and wrapped his arms around Utah's waist, lifting him like Utah was a child in his father's arms.

  "You've done it!" the Khai Cetani shouted. "You've beaten the bastards!"

  We have, Otah tried to say, but he was being lifted upon the shoulders of his men. A roar passed through the assembled men-a thousand throats opening as one. Otah let himself smile, let the relief wash over him. The Galtic army was broken. They would not reach Machi before winter came. Ile had done it.

  They carried him back and forth before the men, the shouts and salutes following him like a windstorm. As he came hack to the main road, he was amazed to see the Khai Cetani-all decorum and rank forgotten-dancing arm in arm with common laborers and huntsmen. The Khai Cetani caught sight of him, raised a blade in salute, and called out words that Otah couldn't hear. The men around him abandoned their dance, and drew their own blades, taking up the call, and Otah felt his throat close as he understood the words, as he heard them repeated, moving out through the men like a ripple in a pond.

  7b the Emperor.

  BALASAR STOOD IN THE GREAT SQUARE OF 'IAN-SADAR. 'I'IlE SKY WAS WHITE and chill, and the trees that stood in the eastern corners were nearly bare of leaves. A good day, Balasar thought, for endings. The representatives of the utkhaiem stood beneath square-framed colonnades, staring out at him and his company two hundred strong and in their most imposing array of arms and armor and at the Khai "Ian-Sadar, bound and kneeling on the brickwork at Balasar's feet. The poet of the city had burned to death among his books on the day Balasar had entered the city, but the disposition of the Khai was less important. A few days waiting in the public jail where men and women passing by could see him languishing posed no particular threat to the world, and the campaign that was now behind him had left Balasar tired.

  "Do you have anything you want to say?" Balasar asked in the Khai's own language.

  He was a younger man than Balasar had expected. Perhaps no more than thirty summers. It seemed young to have the responsibility of a city upon him or to be slaughtered in front of the nobles who had betrayed him to a conqueror. The Khai shook his head once, a curt and elegant motion.

  "If you swear to serve the High Council of Galt, I'll cut your bonds and we can both walk out of here," Balasar said. "I'll have to keep you prisoner, of course. I can't leave you free to gather up an army. But there are worse things than living under guard."

  The Khai almost smiled.

  "'There are also worse things than dying," he said.

  Balasar sighed. It was a shame. But the man had made his decision. Balasar raised his hand, and the drums and trumpets called out. The execution proceeded. When the soldier held up the Khai's head for the crowd to see, a shudder seemed to run through them, but the faces that Balasar saw looking out at him seemed bright and excited.

  'T'hey know they won't die, he thought. If I'm not killing them, it all becomes another court spectacle. They'll be talking about it in their bathhouses and winter gardens, vying for money and power now that the city's fallen. Half of them will be wearing tunics with the Galtic Tree on it come spring.

  He looked down at the body of the man he'd had killed and briefly felt the impulse to put "Ian-Sadar to the torch. Instead, he turned and walked away, going back to the palaces he had taken for himself and for his men.

  Eight thousand remained to him. Several hundred had been lost in battle or to the raids that had slowed his travel since Nantani. The rest he had left in conquered I'tani. 'T'here was little enough left of I'dun that he hadn't bothered leaving men to occupy the city. 't'here was no call to leave people there to guard ashes.

  tltani had offered only token resistance and been for the most part spared. "Ian-Sadar had very nearly set the musicians to playing and lined the roads with dancing girls. That wasn't true, but as Balasar stalked hack through the great vaulted hall of the Khai's palace, his steps echoing off the blue and gold tilework high above him, his disgust with the place made it seem that way. They hadn't fought, and while that might have been wise, it wasn't something to celebrate. The only ones who had spines had been the poet and the Khai. Well, and the Khai's wives and children, whom he'd had killed. So perhaps he wasn't really in the best position to speak about what was honorable and noble after all.

  "Darkness has come on as usual, sir;

  Balasar looked tip. Eustin stood in salute at the foot of a wide flight of stairs. His tunic was stained, his chin unshaven, and even from five paces away, he stank of horses. Balasar restrained himself from rushing over and embracing the man.

  "The darkness," Balasar asked through his grin.

  "Always happens at the end of a campaign, sir. You fall into a black mood for a few weeks. Happened in Eddensca and after the siege at NIalsam. All respect, sir, it's like watching my sister after she's birthed a babe."

  Balasar laughed. It felt good to laugh, and to smile, and to be reminded that the foul mood that had come on him was something he often suffered. In truth, he had forgotten. He took Eustin's hand in his own.

  "Good to have you back," Balasar said. "I didn't know you'd returned."

  "I would have sent a runner to pass the news, but it seemed faster if I came myself."

  "Come LIP," Balasar said. "Tell me what's happened."

  "It might be best if I saw a bathhouse, sir...."

  "Later," Balasar said. "If you can stand the reek, I can. And besides, you deserve some discomfort after that birthing comment. Come up, and I'll have them send us wine and food."

  "Yes, sir," Eustin said.

  They sat on couches while pine logs burned in the grate, sap hissing and popping and sending up sparks. True to his word, Balasar sent for rice wine infused with cherries and the stiff salty brown cheese that was a local delicacy of 'Ian-Sadar. Eustin recounted his season-the attack on Pathai, his decision to split the force before moving on to the poet's school. Pathai hadn't been as large or as wealthy as a port city like Nantani, but it was near the Westlands. Moving what wealth it had back to Galt would be simpler than the other inland cities.

  "And the school?" Balasar said, and a cloud passed over Eustin's face.

  ""They were younger than I'd thought. It wasn't the sort of thing they sing about. Unless they're singing laments. Then, maybe."

  "It was necessary."

  "I know, sir. "That's why we did it."

  Balasar poured him another cup of the wine, and then one for himself, and they drank in silence together before Eustin went on with his report. The men they'd sent to take the Southern cities had managed quite well, apart from an incident with poisoned grain in Lachi and a fire at the warehouses of Saraykeht. That matched with what Balasar himself had heard. All the poets had been found, all the books had been burned. No Khai had lived or left heir.

  In return, Balasar shared what news he had from the North. TanSadar, the nearest city to the I)ai-kvo, had known about the destruction of the village for weeks
before Balasar's prisoner-envoys had arrived. The story was also widely known of the battle; one of the Khaiem in the winter cities had fielded an army of sorts. The estimates of the dead went from several hundred to thousands. Few, if any, had been Coal's. The retelling of that tale as much as the sacking of Udun had broken the back of Utani and Tan-Sadar.

  A letter in Coal's short, understated style had conic south after Amnat-"Ian had fallen. Another courier was due any day bringing the news of Cetani and Machi. But if Coal had kept to the pace he'd intended, those cities were also fallen.

  "It'll he good to know for certain, though," Eustin said.

  "I trust him," Balasar said.

  "Didn't mean anything else, sir."

  "No. Of course not. You're right. It will he good to know it's done." Balasar took a bite of the brown cheese and stared at the dancing flames where the wood glowed and blackened and fell to ash. "You'll put your men in I'tani?"

  "Or send some downriver. Depends how much food there is. There's more than a few who'd he willing to make a winter crossing if it meant getting home to start spending their shares."

  "We have made a large number of very rich soldiers," Balasar said.

  ""They'll he poor again in a season or two, but the dice stands in Kirinton will still he singing our praises when our grandsons are old," Eustin said, then paused. "What about our local man?"

  "Captain Ajutani? lie's here, in the city. Wintering here with the rest of us. He's done quite well for himself. And for us. I le's given me some very good advice."

  Eustin grunted and shook his head.

  "Still don't trust him, sir."