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 looking 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-mad
e 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.
‘You aren’t coming, Nayiit-cha. I need you to see those books back to Maati.’
‘Anyone can do that,’ Nayiit said. ‘I’ll be of use to you. I’ve been through Cetani. I was there just weeks ago, when we were coming to Machi. I can—’
‘You can’t,’ Otah said, and took the boy’s hand. His son’s hand. ‘You called a retreat when no one had given the order. In the Old Empire, I’d have had to see you killed for that. I can’t have you come now.’
The surprise on Nayiit’s face was heartbreaking.
‘You said it wasn’t my fault,’ he said.
‘And it isn’t. I would have called the retreat myself if you hadn’t. What happened to our men, what happened here, to the Dai-kvo . . . none of that’s yours to carry. If you’d done differently, it would have changed nothing. But there will be a next time, and I can’t have someone calling commands who might do what you’ve done.’
Nayiit stepped back, just out of his reach. Ah, Maati, Otah thought, what kind of son have we made, you and I?
‘It won’t,’ Nayiit said. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘I know. I know it won’t,’ Otah said, making his tone gentle to soften hard words. ‘Because you’re going back to Machi.’
Udun was a river city. It was a city of bridges, and a city of birds. Sinja had lived there briefly while recovering from a dagger wound in his thigh. He remembered the songs of the jays and the finches, the sound of the river. He remembered Kiyan’s stories of growing up a wayhouse keeper’s daughter - the beggars on the riverside quays who drew pictures with chalks to cover the gray stone or played the small reed flutes that never seemed to be popular anywhere else; the canals that carried as much traffic as the streets. The palaces of the Khai Udun spanned the river itself, sinking great stone stanchions down into the river like the widest bridge in the world. As a girl, Kiyan had heard stories about the ghouls that lived in the darkness under those great palaces. She had gone there in boats with her cohort in the dark of night, the way that Sinja himself had dared burial mounds at midnight with his brothers. She had kissed her first lover in the twilight beneath a bridge just north of here. He had spent so little time in Udun, and yet he felt he knew it so well.
The wayhouse where Sinja housed his men was south of the palaces. Its walls were stone and mud and thick as the length of his arm. The shutters were a green so dark they seemed almost black. It hadn’t been built to fit as many men as Sinja commanded, but the standards of a soldier were lower than those of a normal traveler. And the standards of a soldier as likely to be mistaken for the enemy by his alleged fellows as killed by the defending armsmen were lower still. The great common room was covered from one wall to the other with thin cotton bedrolls. The upper rooms, intended for four men or fewer, housed eight or ten. There had been a few men who had ventured as far as the stables, but Sinja had called them back inside. There was a madness on Balasar Gice’s men, and he didn’t intend to have his own fall to it.
In the small walled garden at the back, Sinja sat on a camp stool and drank a bowl of mint tea brewed with fresh-plucked leaves. Thyme and basil grew around him, and a small black-leaf maple gave shade. Smoke rose into the sky, dark and solid as the towers of Machi. The birds were silent or fled. The scouts he’d sent out, their uniforms clearly the colors of Galt, reported that the rivers and canals had all turned red from the blood and the fish were dying of it. Sinja wasn’t sure he believed that, but it seemed to catch the flavor of the day. Certainly he wasn’t going to go out and look for himself.
An ancient man, spine bent and mouth innocent of
anything resembling teeth, poked his head out the wide oaken doors at the end of the garden. The red-rimmed eyes seemed uncertain. The old hands shook so badly Sinja could see the trembling from where he sat. War is no place for the old, Sinja thought. It’s meant for young men who can’t yet distinguish between excitement and fear. Men who haven’t yet grown a conscience.
‘Mani-cha,’ Sinja called to the wayhouse keeper. ‘Is there something I can do for you?’
‘There’s a man come for you, Sinja-cha. Say’s he’s the . . . ah . . . the general.’
‘Bring him here,’ Sinja said.
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