An Autumn War Read online

  With Eiah's cries reduced to only ragged, painful breath, Maati did hear something else. Something distant and terrible, rising like a wave. He heard the voices of thousands of people, all of them screaming. The andat grinned, delight dancing in its black eyes.

  "Cehmai," Maati said, his eyes locked on the andat and the girl. "Go get Otah-kvo. Do it now."

  25

  Sinja jumped back again, blocking Eustin's swing. The Galt was practiced and his arm was solid; their blades rang against each other. Sinja could feel the sting of it in his fingers. The world had fallen away from him now, and there was just this. Watching Eustin's eyes, he let the tip of his blade make its slow dance. No matter how well a man trained, he always led with his eyes. And so he saw it when the thrust was about to come; he saw the blade rise, saw Eustin's shoulder tense, and still he barely had time to slip under it. The man was fast.

  "You could surrender," Sinja said. "I wouldn't tell anyone."

  Eustin's lips curled in disgust. Another high thrust, but this time, the blade fell low, its edge grazing against Sinja's thigh as he danced back. There wasn't any pain to it. Not yet. Just a moment's heat as the blood came out, and then the cold as it soaked his leggings. It was the first wound of the fight, and Sinja knew what it meant even before he heard the voices of the ten soldiers surrounding them shouting encouragement to their man. Fights were like drinking games; once someone started losing, they usually kept losing.

  "You could surrender," Eustin said. "But I'd kill you anyway."

  "Thought you might," Sinja grunted. He feinted left with his shoulders, but brought his body right, swinging hard. The blades chimed when Eustin blocked him, but the force of the blow drove the Galt a half-step back. Eustin chuckled. Now Sinja felt the pain in his leg. Late, but here now. He put the sensation away and concentrated on Eustin's eyes.

  He wondered how far I)anat had gone. If he was running back to the city or forward to the tunnel. Or off into the snow that would be as likely to kill him as the Galts. He wasn't buying the boy safety. Only a chance at survival. That was as much as he had to offer.

  He didn't see the swing until it was tinder way. Thinking too much, not paying enough attention. He managed to turn it aside, but Eustin's blade still raked his chest, scoring the leather of his vest and tearing off one of the rings. Dustin's men called out again.

  \'hen it happened, Sinja thought it was a trick. The snow was fresh enough to hold a boot if it hadn't been packed down, but they had ranged over the same terrain. Some places would he slick by now; it was plausible that Eustin might lose his footing, but the off-kilter lurch that Eustin made didn't look right. Sinja held his guard, expecting a furious attack that didn't cone. Eustin's face was a grimace of pain, his eyes still fixed on Sinja. Eustin didn't raise his guard again, his blade still held, but its point wavering and uncertain. Sinja made a desperate thrust, and Eustin did try to block it, but his arm had gone weak. Sinja stepped hack, gathered himself, and lunged.

  Ills sword's tip was sharp, but broad. It had been made for swinging from horseback, and so it didn't pierce Fustin's neck quite through. When Sinja drew back, a fountain of red poured from the man's flesh, soaking his tunic. "I'he steam from it rose amid falling snowflakes. Sinja didn't feel a sense of victory so much as surprise. Ile hadn't expected to win. And now he had, the arrows he'd assumed would be feathering him were also strangely absent. He stood up, his breathing heavy. I Ic noticed that his chest hurt badly, and that there was blood on his robes. Eustin's last cut had gone deeper than he'd thought. But he forgot it again when he saw the soldiers.

  Eight men were kneeling or fallen in the snow, alive but moaning in what seemed to be agony. Two were still in their saddles, but the bows and quivers lay abandoned. It was a moment from a dream-strange and unsettling and oddly beautiful. Sinja took a better grip on his blade and started killing them before they could recover from whatever had afflicted them. By the time he reached the fifth of the fallen men-the first four already sent to confer with their god as to the indignity of dying curled up like a weeping babe on the stone and snow of a foreign land-the Galts had started to regain themselves. The fifth one took a moment's work to kill. The sixth and seventh actually stood together, hoping to hold Sinja at bay with the threat of the doubled swords despite the difficulty they had in standing. Sinja danced hack, plucked a throwing knife from the body of their fallen comrades, and demonstrated the flaw in their theory.

  The horse archers fled as Sinja finished the two remaining men. He brushed the snow from a stone and sat, his breath ragged and hard, pluming white. When he had his wind back, he laughed until he wept.

  Nayiit, still lying by his cart, called out weakly. lie wasn't dead. Sinja limped over quickly. The man's face was white and waxy. His lips pale.

  "What happened?"

  "I'm not sure yet. Something. We're safe for the moment."

  "[anat..."

  "Don't worry about him. I'll find the boy."

  "I promised. Keep safe."

  "And you've done it," Sinja said. "You did a fine job. Now let's see how much it's cost you, shall we? I've seen a lot of belly wounds. Some are worse than others, but they're all tender to prod at, so expect this to hurt."

  Nayiit nodded and screwed up his face, readying himself for the pain. Sinja opened his robes and looked at the cut. Even as such things go, this one was bad. Eustin's blade had gone into the boy just below his navel, and cut to the left as it came out. Blood soaked the boy's robes, freezing them to the stones lie lay on. Skin on white fat. "There were soft, worm-shaped loops of gut exposed to the air. Sinja laid a hand on the boy's chest and knelt over the wound, sniffing at it. If it only smelled of blood, there might he a chance. But amid the iron and meat, there was the scent of fresh shit. Eustin had cut the boy's bowels. That was it, then. The boy was dead.

  "How bad?"

  "Not good," Sinja said.

  "Hurts."

  "I'd imagine."

  "Is it ..."

  "It's deep. And it's thorough," Sinja said. "If you wanted something passed on to someone, this would he a good time to say it."

  The boy wasn't thinking well. Like a drunkard, it took time for him to understand what Sinja had said, and another breath to think what it had meant. He swallowed. Fear widened his eyes, but that was all.

  "Tell them. 'Fell them I died well. That I fought well."

  They were small enough lies, and Sinja could tell the boy knew it.

  "I'll tell them you died protecting the Khai's son," Sinja said. "I'll tell them you faced down a dozen men, knowing you'd he killed, but choosing that over surrendering him to the Galts."

  "You make me sound like a good man." Nayiit smiled, then groaned, twisting to the side. His hand hovered above his wound, the impulse to cradle the hurt balanced by the pain his touch would cause. Sinja took the man's hand.

  "Nayiit-cha," Sinja said. "I know something that can stop the pain."

  "Yes," Nayiit hissed.

  "It'll he worse for a moment."

  "Yes," he repeated.

  "All right then," Sinja said, as much to himself as the man lying hefore him. "You did a man's job of it. Rest well."

  He snapped the boy's neck and sat with him, cradling his head as he finished dying. It was quick this way. There wouldn't be the pain or the fever. There wouldn't be the torture of trekking back to the city just to have the physicians fill him with poppy and leave him to dream himself away. It was a better death than those. Sinja told himself it was a better death than those.

  The blood stopped flowing from the wound, and still Sinja sat. A terrible weariness crept into him, and he told himself it was only the cold. It wasn't that he'd traveled a season with men he'd come to respect and still been willing to kill. It wasn't watching some young idiot die badly in the snow with only a habitual traitor to care for him. It wasn't the sickness that came over him sometimes after battles. It was only the cold. He gently put Nayiit's head on the ground, and pushed himself up. Between the c
hill and his wounds, his body was starting to stiffen. The chill and his wounds and age. War and death and glory were younger men's games. But he still had work to do.

  He heard the cry before he saw the child. It was a small sound, like the squeak of a hinge. Sinja turned. Either Danat had snuck back, preferring a known danger to an uncertain world, or else he'd never gone out of sight of the cart. His hair was wet from melted snow, plastered back against his head. His lips were pulled back, baring teeth in horror as he stared at Nayiit's motionless body. Sinja tried to think how old he'd been when he saw his first man die by violence. Older than this.

  I)anat's shocked, empty eyes turned to him, and the child took a step hack, as if to flee. Sinja only looked at him, waiting, until the boy's weight shifted forward again. Then Sinja raised his sword, pommel to the sky, blade toward the ground in a mercenary's salute.

  "Welcome to the world, Danat-cha," Sinja said. "I wish it were a better place."

  The boy didn't speak, but slowly his hands rose to take a pose that accepted the greeting. It was the training of some court nurse. Nothing more than that. And still, Sinja thought he saw a sorrow in the child's eyes and a depth of understanding greater than anyone so small should have to bear. Sinja sheathed his sword.

  "Come on, now," he said. "Let's get you someplace warm and dry. If I save you from the Galts and then let a fever kill you, Kiyan will have me flayed alive. I know a tunnel not far from here that should suffice."

  THE RUNNERS (:A11E AT LAST, STAGGERING ('I' TTIE.. STAIRS FRONI T HE. STREETS below, and every report echoed the trumpet calls. The Galts had aimed for the tunnels that Sinja had directed them toward, but come in wider than Otah had planned. "There would be no grand ambush from the windows and alleyways, only a long, bloody struggle. One small slaughter after another as the Galts pushed their way through the city, looking for a way down.

  Otah stared out at the city, watching the tiny dots of stones drift down from the towers, hearing the clatter of men and horses echoing against the high stone walls. I le wondered how long it would take ten thousand men to kill two full cities. I IC should have met them on the plain. He could have armed everyone; man, woman, and child. Able or infirm. They could have swarmed over them, ten and fifteen for every Galt. He sighed. He could as well have tossed babies on their sword in hopes of slowing their advance. "I'he Galts would have slaughtered them on the plain or in the city. I Ie'd tried his trick, and he'd failed. "There was nothing to gain from regretting the strategies he hadn't chosen.

  What he wanted now was a sword and someone to swing it at. He wanted to be part of the fight if only to keep from feeling so powerless.

  "Another runner," the Khai Cetani said, taking a pose that commanded Otah's attention. "From the palaces."

  Otah nodded and stepped back from the roof edge. The runner was a pale-skinned boy with a constellation of moles across his nose and cheeks. (bah could see him try not to pant as the two Khaicm drew near. Ile took a pose of obeisance.

  "What's happening?" Otah demanded.

  "The Galts, Most High. "They're sending messengers. "They're abandoning the palace. It looks as if they're forming a single group."

  "Where?"

  ""l'he old market square," he said.

  "Three streets south of the main entrance to the tunnels. So they knew. Utah felt his belly sink. He waved the trumpeter over. The man was exhausted; Utah could see it in the flesh below his eves and in the angle of his shoulders. His lips were cracked and blood}, from the cold and his work. Utah put a hand on the man's shoulder.

  "One last time," he said. "Call them all to fall back to the tunnel's entrance. "There's nothing more we can do on the surface."

  The trumpeter took an acknowledging pose and walked away, warming the instrument's mouthpiece with his hand before lifting it to his bruised mouth. Utah waited as the melody sang out in the snowy air, listened to the echoes of it fade and he replaced by acknowledging calls.

  "We should surrender," Otah said. The Khai Cetani blinked at him. Beneath the red ice-pinched cheeks, the man grew pale. (bah pressed on. "We're going to lose, Most Iligh. We don't have soldiers to stop them. All we'll gain is a few more hours. And we'll pay for it with lives that don't need to end today."

  "We were planning to spend those lives before," the Khai Cetani said, though Utah could see in the man's eves that he knew the argument was sound. They were two dead men, fathers of dead families, the last of their kind in the world. " V'e always knew there would be deaths."

  "'T'hat was when we had hope," Utah said.

  One of the servants cried out and fell to her knees. Otah turned to her, thinking first that she had overheard him and been overcome by grief, and then-seeing her face-that some miraculous arrow had found its way through the air to their roof. The men around her looked at the Khaiem, embarrassed at the interruption, or else knelt by the girl to comfort her. She shrieked, and the stones themselves seemed to take up her voice. A sound rose from the city in a long, rolling unending moan. 'T'housands of voices, calling out in pain. Otah's skin seemed to retreat from it, and a chill that had nothing to do with the still-falling snow ran down his sides. For a moment, the towers themselves seemed about to twist with agony. This, he thought, was what gods sounded like when they died.

  Around him, men looked nervously at the air, gazes darting into the gray and white sky. Utah caught the runner by his sleeve.

  "Go," he said. "Go, and tell me what's happened."

  Dread widened the boy's eyes, but he took an acknowledging pose before retreating. The Khai Cetani seemed poised to ask something, but only turned away, walking to the roof's edge himself. Utah went to the servant girl. I Ier face was white with pain.

  "What's the matter?" Otah asked her, gently. "Where does it hurt?"

  She couldn't take a formal pose, but her gesture and the shame in her eyes told Otah everything he needed to know. He'd spent several seasons as a midwife's assistant in the eastern islands. If the girl was lucky, she had been pregnant and was miscarrying. If she hadn't been carrying a child, then something worse was happening. He had already ordered the other servants to carry her down to the physicians when Cehmai appeared, red-faced and wide-eyed. Before he could speak, it fell into place. The girl, the unearthly shriek, the poet.

  "Something's gone wrong with the binding," Otah said. Cehmai took a pose of confirmation.

  "Please," the poet said. "Come now. I furry."

  Otah didn't pause to think; he went to the stairs, lifting the hem of his robes, and dropping down three steps at a time. It was four stories from the top of the warehouse to its bottom floor. Otah felt that he could hardly have gone there faster if he'd jumped over the building's side.

  The space was eerie; shadows seemed to hang in the corners of the huge, empty room and the distant sound of voices in pain murmured and shrieked. Great symbols were chalked on the walls, and an ugly, disjointed script in Nlaati's handwriting spelled out the binding. Otah knew little enough of the old grammars, but he picked out the words for womb, seed, and corruption. Three people stood in tableau at the top of the stair that led down to the tunnels. NIaati stood, his hands at his sides, his expression blank. Otah's belly went tight as sickness as he saw that the girl at Nlaati's feet was Eiah. And the thing that cradled his daughter's head turned to look at him. After a long moment, it drew breath and spoke.

  "Otah-kya," it said. Its voice was low and beautiful, heavy with amusement and contempt. The familiarity of it was dizzying.

  "Seedless?"

  "It isn't," Nlaati said. "It's not him."

  "What's happened?" Otah asked. When Maati didn't answer, Otah shook the man's sleeve. " Nlaati. What's going on?"

  "He's failed," the andat said. "And when a poet fails, he pays a price for it. Only Nlaati-kvo is clever. He's found a way to make it so that failure can't touch him. He's found a trick."

  "I don't understand," Otah said.

  "My protection," Maati said, his voice rich with despair. "It doesn't stop
the price being paid. It only can't kill me."

  The andat took a pose that agreed, as a teacher might approve of a clever student. From the stairwell, Utah heard footsteps and the voice of the Khai Cetani. The first of the servant men hurried into the room, robes flapping like a flag in high wind, before he saw them and stopped dead and silent.

  "What is it doing?" Utah asked. "What's it done?"

  "You can ask me, Most High," Sterile said. "I have a voice."

  Utah looked into the black, inhuman eyes. Eiah whimpered, and the thing stroked her brow gently, comforting and threatening both. Utah felt the urge to pull Eiah away from the thing, as if it were a spider or a snake.

  "What have you done to my daughter?" he asked.

  "What would you guess, Most High?" Sterile asked. "I am the reflection of a man whose son is not his son. All his life, Maati-kya has been bent double by the questions of fathers and sons. What do you imagine I would do?"

  ""fell me."

  "I've soured her womb," the andat said. "Scarred it. And I've done the same to every woman in the cities of the Khaiem. Lachi, Chaburi- Ian, Saraykeht. All of them. Young and old, highborn and low. And I've gelded every Galtic man. From Kirinton to Far Galt to right here at your doorstep."

  "Papa-kya," Eiah said. "It hurts."

  Utah knelt, drawing his daughter to him. Her mouth was thin with pain. The andat opened its hand, the long fingers gesturing him to take her. The Khai Cetani was at Utah's side now, his breath heavy and his hands trembling. Utah took Eiah in his arms.

  "Your children will be theirs," it said. ""I'he next generation will have the Khaiem for fathers and feed from Galtic breasts, or else it will not be. Your history will be written by half-breeds, or it won't be written."

  "Maati," Otah said, but his old friend only shook his head.

  "I can't stop it," Maati said. "It's already happened."