The scouting party left two days later. It was made of twenty horsemen and as many on foot, Otah himself at the lead. Nayiit asked permission to come, and Otah had granted it. It might not have been keeping the boy safe the way he’d promised Maati, but as long as Nayiit blamed himself for the carnage and defeat, it was better that he be away from the wounded and the dying. The rest of the army would stay behind in the camp, tend to the men who could be helped, ease the passing of those past hope, and, Otah guessed, slip away one by one or else in groups. He couldn’t think they would follow him into battle again.
The smaller group moved faster, and the path the Galts had left was clear as a new-built road. Churned grass, broken saplings, the damage done by thousands of disciplined feet. The wounded earth was as wide as ten men across—never more, never less. The precision was eerie. It was two days’ travel before Otah saw the smoke.
They reached the village near evening. They found a ruin. Where glittering windows had been, ragged holes remained. The towers and garrets cut from the stone of the mountain were soot-stained and broken. The air smelled of burned flesh and smoke and the copper scent of spilled blood. Otah rode slowly, the clack of his mount’s hooves on pavement giving order to the idiot, tuneless wind chimes. The air felt thick against his face, and the place where his heart had once been seemed to gape empty. His hands didn’t tremble, he did not weep. His mind simply took in the details—a corpse in the street wearing brown robes made black with blood, a Galtic steam wagon with the wide metalwork on the back twisted open by some terrible force, a firekeeper’s kiln overturned and ashen, an arrow splintered against stone—and then forgot them. It was unreal.
Behind him, the others followed in silence. They made their way to the grand office at the height of the village. The great hall, open to the west, caught the light of the setting sun. The white stone of the walls glowed, light where it had escaped the worst damage and a deeper, darker gold where smoke had marked it.
And in the entrance of the hall, the Dai-kvo was tied to a stake. The hopes of the Khaiem lying dead at his feet.
I could have stopped this, Otah thought. The Galts live because I spared them at Saraykeht. This is my fault.
He turned to Nayiit.
“Have him cut down,” he said. “We can have them buried or burned. Anything but this.”
Behind the gruesome sight squatted the remains of a great pyre. Logs as tall as a standing man had been hauled here and set to hold the flames, and had burned nearly through. The spines of ancient books lay stripped in the ashes of their pages and curled from the heat. Shredded ribbons that had held the codices closed shifted in the breeze. Otah touched his palm to the neck of his horse as if to steady it more than himself, then dismounted.
Smoke still rose from the fire, thin gray reeking clouds. He paced the length and breadth of the pyre. Here and there, embers still glowed. He saw more than one bone laid bare and black. Men had died here. Poets and books. Knowledge that could never be replaced. He leaned against the rough bark of a half-burned tree. There had been no battle here. This had been slaughter.
“Most High?”
Ashua Radaani was at his side. Might have been at his side for some time, for all Otah could say. The man’s face was drawn, his eyes flat.
“We’ve taken down the Dai-kvo,” he said.
“Five groups of four men,” Otah said. “If you can find any lanterns still intact, use them. If not, we’ll make torches from something. I can’t say how deep into the mountain these hallways go, but we’ll walk through the whole thing if we have to.”
Radaani glanced over his shoulder at the red and swollen sun that was just now touching the horizon. The others were silhouetted against it, standing in a clot at the mouth of the hall. Radaani turned back and took a pose that suggested an alternative.
“Perhaps we might wait until morning—”
“What if there’s a man still alive in there,” Otah said. “Will he be alive when the sun’s back? If darkness is what we have to work in, we’ll work in darkness. Anyone who survived this, I want him. And books. Anything. If it’s written, bring it to me. Bring it here.”
Radaani hesitated, then fell into a pose of acceptance. Otah put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
We’ve failed, he thought. Of course we failed. We never had a chance.
They didn’t make camp, didn’t cook food. The horses, nervous from the scent of death all around them, were taken back from the village. Nayiit and his blacksmith friend Saya gleaned lanterns and torches from the wreckage. The long, terrible night began. In the flickering light, the back halls and grand, destroyed chambers danced like things from children’s stories of the deepest hells. Otah and the three men with him—Nayiit, Radaani, and a thin-faced boy whose name escaped him—called out into the darkness that they were friends. That help had arrived. Their voices grew hoarse, and only echoes answered them.
They found the dead. In the beds, in the stripped libraries, in the kitchens and alleyways, and floating facedown in the wide wooden tubs of the bathhouse. No man had been spared. There had been no survivors. Twice Otah thought he saw a flicker of recognition in Nayiit’s eyes when they found a man lying pale and bloodless, eyes closed as if in sleep. In a meeting chamber near what Otah guessed had been the Dai-kvo’s private apartments, Otah found the corpse of Athai-kvo, the messenger who had come in the long-forgotten spring to warn him against training men to fight. His eyes had been gouged away. Otah found himself too numb to react. Another detail to come into his mind and leave it again. As the night’s chill stole into him, Otah’s fingers began to ache, his shoulders and neck growing tight as if the pain could take the place of warmth.
They fell into their rhythm of walking and shouting and not being answered until time lost its meaning. They might have been working for half a hand, they might have been working for a sunless week, and so the dawn surprised him.
One of the other searching parties had quit earlier. Someone had found a firekeeper’s kiln and stoked it, and the rich smell of cracked wheat and flaxseed and fresh honey cut through the smoke and death like a sung melody above a street fight. Otah sat on an abandoned cart and cradled a bowl of the sweet gruel in his hands, the heat from the bowl soothing his palms and fingers. He didn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and though he was bone-weary, he could not bring himself to think of sleep. He feared his dreams.
Nayiit walked to him carrying a similar bowl and sat at his side. He looked older. The horrors of the past days had etched lines at the corners of his mouth. Exhaustion had blackened his eyes. Exhaustion and guilt.
“There’s no one, is there?” Nayiit said.
“No. They’re gone.”
Nayiit nodded and looked down to the neat, carefully fitted bricks that made the road. No blade of grass pressed its way through those stony joints. It struck Otah as strangely obscene that a place of such carnage and destruction should have such well-maintained paving stones. It would be better when tree roots had lifted a few of them. Something so ruined should be a ruin. A few years, perhaps. A few years, and this would all be a wild garden dedicated to the dead. The place would be haunted, but at least it would be green.
“There weren’t any children. Or women,” Nayiit said. “That’s something.”
“There were in Yalakeht,” Otah said.
“I suppose there were. And Saraykeht too.”
It took a moment to realize what Nayiit meant. It was so simple to forget that the boy had a wife. Had a child. Or once had, depending on how badly things had gone in the summer cities. Otah felt himself blush.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t…Forgive my saying that.”
“It’s true, though. It won’t change if we’re more polite talking about it.”
“No. No, it won’t.”
They were silent for a long moment. Off to their left, three of the others were laying out blankets, unwilling, it seemed, to seek shelter in the halls of the dead. Farther on, Saya the blacksmith was lo
oking over the Galtic steam wagon with what appeared to be a professional interest. High in the robin’s-egg sky, a double vee of cranes flew southward, calling to one another in high, nasal voices. Otah took two cupped fingers and lifted a mouthful of the wheat gruel to his lips. It tasted wonderful—sweet and rich and warm—and yet he didn’t enjoy it so much as recognize that he should. His limbs felt heavy and awkward as wood. When Nayiit spoke, his voice was low and shaky.
“I know that I won’t ever be able to make good for this. If I hadn’t called the retreat—”
“This isn’t your fault,” Otah said. “It’s the Dai-kvo’s.”
Nayiit reared back, his mouth making a small “o.” His hands fumbled toward a pose of query, but the porcelain bowl defeated him. Otah took his meaning anyway.
“Not just this one. The last Dai-kvo. Tahi, his name was. And the one before that. All of them. This is their fault. We trusted everything in the andat. Our power, our wealth, the safety of our children. Everything. We built on sand. We were stupid.”
“But it worked for so long.”
“It worked until it didn’t,” Otah said. The response came from the back of his mind, as if it had always been there, only waiting for the time to speak. “It was always certain to fail sometime. Now, or ten generations from now. What difference does it make? If we’d been able to postpone the crisis until my children had to face it, or my grandchildren, or your grandchildren—how would that have been better than us facing it now? The andat have always been an unreliable tool, and poets have always been men with all the vanity and frailty and weakness that men are born with. The Empire fell, and we built ourselves in its image and so now we’ve fallen too. There’s no honor in a lesson half-learned.”
“Too bad you hadn’t said that to the Dai-kvo.”
“I did. To all three of them, one way and another. They didn’t take it to heart. And I…I didn’t stay to press the point.”
“Then we’ll have to learn the lesson now,” Nayiit said. It sounded like an attempt at resolution, perhaps even bravery. It sounded hollow as a drum.
“Someone will,” Otah said. “Someone will learn by our example. And maybe the Galts burned all the books that would have let them teach more poets of their own. Perhaps they’re already safe from our mistakes.”
“That would be ironic. To come all this way and destroy the thing that you’d come for.”
“Or wise. It might be wise.” Otah sighed and took another mouthful of the wheat. “The Galts are likely almost to Tan-Sadar by now. As long as they’re heading south, we may be able to reach Machi again before they do. There’s no fighting them, I think we’ve discovered that, but we might be able to flee. Get people to Eddensea and the Westlands before the passes all close. It’s probably too late to take a fast cart for Bakta.”
Nayiit shook his head.
“They aren’t going south.”
Otah took another mouthful. The food seemed to be seeping into his blood; he felt only half-dead with exhaustion. Then, a breath or two later, Nayiit’s words found their meaning, and he frowned, put down his bowl, and took a questioning pose. Nayiit nodded down toward the low towns at the base of the mountain village.
“I was talking with one of the footmen. The Galts came up the river from Yalakeht, and they left heading north on the road to Amnat-Tan. They’re likely only a day or so ahead of us. It doesn’t seem like they’re interested in Tan-Sadar.”
“Why not?” Otah said, more than half to himself. “It’s the nearest city.”
“Marshes,” a low voice said from behind them. The blacksmith, Saya, had come up behind them. “There’s decent roads between here and Amnat-Tan. And then the North Road between all the winter cities. Tan-Sadar’s close, Most High. But there’s two different rivers find their start in the marshes between here and there, and if their wagons are like the one they’ve left down there, they’ll need roads.” The thick arms folded into a pose appropriate for an apprentice to his master. “Come and see yourself, if you’d care to.”
The steam wagon was wider than a cart, its bed made of hard, oiled wood at the front, and sheeted with copper at the back. A coal furnace twice the size of a firekeeper’s kiln stood around a steel boiling tank. Saya pointed out how the force of the steam drove the wheels, and how it might be controlled to turn slowly and with great force or else more swiftly. Otah remembered a model he’d seen as a boy in Saraykeht. An army of teapots, the Khai Saraykeht had called them. The world had always told them how it would be, how things would fall apart. They had all been deaf.
“It’s heavy, though,” Saya said. “And there’s housings there at the front where you could yoke a team of oxen, but I wouldn’t want to pull it through soft land.”
“Why would they ever pull it?” Nayiit asked. “Why put all this into making it go on fire and then use oxen?”
“They might run out of coal,” Otah said.
“They might,” Saya agreed. “But more likely, they don’t want to rattle it badly. All this was a rounded chamber like an egg. Built to hold the pressure in. You can see how they leaved the seams. Something cracked that egg, and that’s why this is all scrap now. Anyone who was nearby when it happened…well. Anything strong enough to make a wagon this heavy move in the first place, and then load it with men or supplies, and then keep it going fast enough to be worth doing…it’d be a lot to let loose at once.”
“How?” Otah said. “How did they break it?”
Saya shrugged.
“Lucky shot with a hard crossbow, maybe. Or the heat came too high. I don’t know how gentle these things are. Looking at this one, though, I’d like a nice smooth meadow or a well-made road. Nothing too rutted.”
“I can’t believe they’d put men on this,” Nayiit said. “A wagon that could kill everyone on it if it hits a bad bump? Why would anyone ever do that?”
“Because the gain is worth the price,” Otah said. “They think the men they lose from it are a good sacrifice for the power they get.”
Otah touched the twisted metal. The egg chamber had burst open like a flower bud blooming. The petals were bright and sharp and too thick for Otah to bend bare-handed. His mind felt perfectly awake, and his head felt full. It was as if he were thinking without yet knowing what he was thinking of. He squatted and looked at the wide, blackened door of the coal furnace.
“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 back 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.
“This is everything,” Radaani said. “Fourteen books 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 be 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 Galts will be 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 Tan-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.
“That 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 back 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.
An Autumn War (The Long Price Quartet) Page 27
