'It was competent,' Balasar agreed. 'But it can't have been easy. For you and your men.'
'I didn't lose one of them,' Sinja said. 'I don't know that I've ever seen a campaign start where we took a city and didn't lose anyone.'
'This is a different sort of war than the usual,' Balasar said. And there, in the pale eyes, Sinja saw the ghosts. The general wasn't at ease, however casual he chose to he with his wine. It was an interesting fact, and Sinja put it at the back of his mind. 'I wanted to ask after your men.'
'Have there been complaints?'
'Not at all. Every report suggests that they did their work admirably. But this wasn't the adventure they expected.'
'They expected the women they raped to look less like their sisters, that's truth,' Sinja said. 'And honestly, I expect we'll lose some. I don't know how it is in Galt, sir, but when I've taken a green company into battle the first time, we always lose some.'
'Inexperience,' Balasar said, agreeing.
'No, sir. I don't mean the enemy spits a few, though that's usually true as well. I mean there are always a few who came into the work with epics in their heads. Great battles, honor, glory. All that pig shit. Once they see what a battlefield or a sacked town really looks like, they wake up. Half these boys are still licking off the caul. Some of them will think better and sneak off.'
'And how do you plan to address the problem?'
'Let them go,' Sinja said and shrugged. 'We haven't seen a fight yet, but before this is finished, we will. When it happens I'd rather have twenty soldiers than thirty men looking for a reason to retreat.'
The general frowned, but he also nodded. At the edge of the pier, half a hundred seagulls took to the air at once, their cries louder than the waves. They wheeled once over the ships and then settled again, just where they had been.
'Unless you have a different opinion, sir,' Sinja said.
'Do this,' Balasar said, looking up from under his brow. 'Go to them. Explain to them that I will never turn against my men. But if they leave me… if they leave my service, they aren't my men any longer. And if I find them again, I won't he lenient.'
Sinja scratched his chin, the stubble just growing in, and felt a smile growing in his mind.
'I can see that they understand, sir,' he said. 'And it might stop some of the ones who'd choose to hang up their swords. But if there's someone you feel isn't loyal, one of my men that you think isn't yours, I'd recommend you kill him now. 'There's no room on a campaign like this for someone who'll take up arms against the man that pays his wage.
Balasar nodded, leaning back in his chair.
'I think we understand each other,' he said.
'Let's he certain,' Sinja said, and put his hands open and palms-down on the table between them. 'I'm a mercenary, and to judge by that pile of silk and cedar chests you're about to ship hack to Galt, you're the man who's got the money to pay my contract. If I've given you reason to think there's more happening than that, I'd rather we cleared it up now.
Balasar chuckled. It was a warm sound. That was good.
'Are you ever subtle?' Balasar asked.
'If I'm paid to be,' Sinja said. 'I've had a had experience working for someone who thought I might look better with a knife-shaped hole in my belly, sir, and I'd rather not repeat it. Have I done something to make you question my intentions?'
Balasar considered him. Sinja met his gaze.
'Yes,' Balasar said. 'You have. But it's nothing I would be comfortable hanging you for. Not yet at least. The poet, when you killed him. He addressed you in the familiar. Sinja-kya.'
'Men begging for their lives sometimes develop an inaccurate opinion of how close they are to the men holding the blades,' Sinja said, and the general had the good manners to blush. 'I understand your position, sir. I've been living under the Khaiem for a long time now. You don't know my history, and if you did, it wouldn't help you. I've broken contracts before, and I won't lie about it. But I would appreciate it if we could treat each other professionally on this.'
Balasar sighed.
'You've managed to shame me, Captain Ajutani.'
'I won't brag about that if you'll agree to he certain you've a decent cause to kill me before taking action,' Sinja said.
'Agreed,' Balasar said. 'But your men? I meant what I said about them.'
'I'll be sure they understand,' Sinja said, then swigged down the last of his wine, took a pose appropriate to taking leave of a superior, and walked hack into the streets of the fallen city, hoping that it wouldn't be clear from his stride that his knees felt loose. Not that a sane measure of fear could be held against him, but there was pride to consider. And someone was watching him. He could be damned sure of that. So he walked straight and calm through the streets and the smoke and the wailing of the survivors until he reached the camp outside the last trailing building of Nantani. The tents were far from empty-the thugs and free armsmen of Nlachi didn't all have a stomach for looting Nantani- but he didn't speak to his men until just after nightfall.
They had a fire burning, though the summer night wasn't cold. The light of it made the tents glow gold and red. The men were quiet. The boasting and swaggering that the Galts were doing didn't have a place here. It would have if the burning city had been made from gray Westlands stone. Sinja stood at the front on a plank set up on chairs in a makeshift dais. He wanted them to see him. The scouts he'd sent out to assure that the conversation was private returned and took a confirming pose. If General (; ice had set a watch over him, they'd gone to their own camps or else come from within his own company. He'd done what he could about the first, and the second there was no protection for. He raised his hands.
'So most of what we've done since the spring opened has been walk,' he said. 'Well, we're in summer now, and you've seen what war looks like. It's not the war I expected, that's truth. But it's the one we've got, and you can all thank the gods that we're on the side most likely to win. But don't think that because this went well, this is over with. It's a long walk still ahead of us.'
He sighed and shifted his weight, the plank wobbling a little under his feet. A log in the fire popped, firing sparks up into the darkness like an omen.
'There arc a few of you right now who are thinking of leaving. Don't… Quiet now! All of you! Don't lie to yourselves about it and don't lie to me. This is the first taste of war most of you've seen. And some of you might have had family or friends in Nantani. I did. But here's what I have to say to you: Don't do it. Right now it looks like our friends the Galts can't be stopped. All the gods know there's not a fighting force anywhere in the cities that could face them, that's truth. But there's worse things for an army to face than another army. Look at the size of this force, the simple number of men. It can't carry the food it needs with it. It can't haul that much water. We have to rely on the land we're covering. The low towns, the cities. The game we can hunt, the trees and coal we can feed into those traveling kilns of theirs. The water we can get from the rivers.
'If the cities North of here can organize-if they can burn the food and the trees so we have to spend more of our time finding supplies, if they foul the wells so that we can't move far from the rivers, if they get small, fast bands together to harass our hunting parties and scouts-we could still be in for hell's own fight. We took Nantani by surprise. 'I'hat won't happen twice. And that's why I need every man among you here, keeping that from happening. And besides that, any of you that leave, the general's going to hunt down like low-town dogs and slit your bellies for you.'
Sinja paused, looking out at the earnest, despairing faces of the boys he'd led from Machi. He felt old. He rarely felt old, but now he did.
'Don't be stupid,' he said, and got down from the plank.
The men raised a late and halfhearted cheer. Sinja waved it away and headed back to his tent. Overhead, the stars shone where the smoke didn't obscure them. The cooks had made chicken and pepper rice. Stinging flies were out, and, to Sinja's mild disgust, Nantani seemed to be a haven for grass ticks. He spent a quiet, reflective time plucking the insects out of his skin and cracking them with his thumbnails. It was near midnight when he heard the roaring crash, thunder rolling suddenly from the ruined city, and then silence. The dome had fallen, then.
How many of his men would know what the sound had meant, he wondered. And how many would
