waiting for the signal that would follow the andat's vanishing. Even now, Coal and his men-between five thousand and six-were sailing fast to Yalakeht. A handful more waited there in the warehouses of Galtic traders, preparing for the trip upstream to the village of the Dai-kvo and the libraries at the heart of the Khaiem. The other cities would have their scrolls and codices, but only there, in the palaces carved from the living rock, were the great secrets of the fallen Empire kept. His war turned on that fire and on the deaths of the men who knew what those soon-burned books said.
And he wouldn't he there for it.
''l'he southern legions are ready, sir,' Eustin said. 'Fight thousand for Shosheyn-'Ian, Lachi, and Saraykeht. My legion's two thousand strong. Should he enough for Pathai and that school out on the plains. 'That'll leave you a full half of the forces for the river cities. Udun and Iltani and 'Ian-Sadar.'
Balasar struggled with the impulse to send more of the men with Eustin. It was the illusion he always suffered when tactics required that he split his forces. Ile would make do with less in order to keep his best men safe. Pathai was only half the size of Nantani, but Eustin was taking only a tenth of the men. It was unlikely that word had traveled fast enough for the Khai Pathai to hire some fleet-footed mercenary company out of the Westlands, but unlikely wasn't impossible. Two thousand more men might make the difference if something went wrong.
But he had the longest journey ahead of him-Nantani to Udun, and some of it over plains where there were no good roads and the steam wagons would have to he pulled. On rough ground, the boilers were too likely to explode. The journey would take time, and so Udun and Utani and 'Ian-Sadar would have the longest time to prepare. They would be the hardest to capture or destroy. It was why he had chosen them for himself. Except, of course, for what he had tasked to Coal. Five thousand men to take six cities. Five cities, now. Four and a half.
'We'll get there in time to help him if he needs us, sir,' Eustin said, reading his face. 'And keep in mind, there's not a fighting force anywhere in the Khaiem. Coal's in more danger of tripping on his spear than of facing an enemy worth sneezing at.'
Balasar laughed. Two armsmen busy folding a tent looked up, saw him and Eustin, and grinned.
'It's like me, isn't it?' Balasar said. 'Here we have just made the greatest sack of a city in living history, captured enough gold to keep us both fed the best food and housed in the best brothels for the rest of our lives, and I can't bring myself to enjoy a minute of it.'
'You do tend to worry most when things are going well, sir.'
They reached a place where the mud path split, one way to the west, the other to the North. Balasar put out his hand, and Eustin took it. For a moment, they weren't general and captain. They were friends and conspirators in the plot to save the world. Balasar found his anxiety ebbing, felt the grin on his face and saw it mirrored in his man's.
'Meet me in Tan-Sadar before the leaves turn,' Balasar said. 'We'll see then whether Coal has use for us or if it's time to go home.'
'I'll he there, sir,' Eustin said. 'Rely on it. And as a favor to nee? Keep an eye on Ajutani.'
'Both, when I can spare them,' Balasar promised. And then they parted. Balasar walked through the thin mud and low grass to the camp at the head of the first legion. His groom stood waiting, a fresh horse munching contentedly at the roadside weeds. A second horse stood beside it, a rider in the saddle looking out bemused at the men and the rolling hills and the horizon beyond.
'Captain Ajutani,' Balasar said, and the rider turned and saluted. 'You're ready for the march?'
'At your command, General.'
Balasar swung himself up onto the horse and accepted the reins from his groom.
''T'hen let's begin,' he said. 'We've got a war to finish.'
It had taken a few Lengi'iis of copper to convince the keepers of the wide platforms to unhook their chains and haul her skyward, but Liat didn't care. The dread in her belly made small considerations like money seem trivial. Money or food or sleep. She stood now at the open sky doors and looked out to the south and east, where the men of Machi made their way through the high green grasses of summer. From this distance, they looked like a single long black mark on the landscape. She could no more make out an individual wagon or rider than she could take to the air and fly. And still she strained her eyes, because one part of that distant mark was her only son.
Ile had only told her when it was already done. She had been in her apartments-the apartments given her by the man who had once been her lover. She had been thinking of how a merchant or tradesman who took in an old lover so casually would have been the subject of gossipeven a member of the utkhaiem would have had answers to make-hut the Khai was above that. She had gone as far as wondering, not for the first time, what Kiyan-cha thought and felt on the matter, when Nayiit had scratched at her door and let himself in.
She knew when she saw his face that something had happened. 'There was a light in his eyes brighter than candles, but his smile was the too-charming one he always employed when he'd done something he feared she'd fault him for. Her first thought was that he'd offered to marry some local girl. She took a pose that asked the question even before he could speak.
'Sit with me,' he said and took her by the hand.
They sat on a low stone bench near the window. The shutters were opened, and the evening breeze had smelled of forge smoke. He kept her hand in his as he spoke.
'I've been to see the Khai,' Nayiit said. 'You know he believes what Maati-cha… what Father said. About the Gaits.'
'Yes,' Liat said. She still hadn't understood what she was seeing. His next words came like a blow.
'He's taking men, all the men he can find. They're going overland to the I)ai-kvo. I've asked to go with them, and he's accepted me. He's finding me a sword and something like armor. He says we'll leave before the week's out,' he said, then paused. 'I'm sorry.'
She knew that her grip on his hand had gone hard because he winced, but not because she felt it. This hadn't been their plan. This had never been their plan.
'Why?' she managed, but she already knew.
He was young and he was trapped in a life he more than half regretted. He was finding what it meant to him to be a man. Riding out to war was an adventure, and a statement-oh, by all the gods-it was a statement that he had faith in Maati's guess. It was a way to show that he believed in his father. Nayiit only kissed her hand.
'I know the Dai-kvo's village,' he said. 'I can ride. I'm at least good enough with a how to catch rabbits along the way. And someone has to go, Mother. There's no reason that I shouldn't.'
You have a wife, she didn't say. You have a child. You have a city to defend, and it's Saraykeht. You'll be killed, and I cannot lose you. The Gaits have terrorized every nation in the world that didn't have the andat for protection, and Otah has a few armsmen barely competent to chase down thieves and brawl in the alleys outside comfort houses.
'Are you sure?' she said.
She sat now, looking out over the wide, empty air as the mark grew slowly smaller. As her son left her. Otah had managed more men than she'd imagined he would. At the last moment, the utkhaiem had rallied to him. Three thousand men, the first army fielded in the cities of the Khaiem in generations. Untried, untested. Armed with whatever had come to hand, armored with leather smith's aprons. And her little boy was among them.
She wiped her eyes with the cloth of her sleeve.
'Hurry,' she said, pressing the word out to the distant men. Get the Dal-kvo, retrieve the poets and their books, and come back to me. Before they find you, come back to me.
The sun had traveled the width of two hands together before she stepped out onto the platform and signaled the men far below her to bring her down. The chains clattered and the platform lurched, but Liat only held the rail and waited for it to steady in its descent. She knew she would not fall. That would have been too easy.
She had done a poor job of telling Maati. Perhaps she'd assumed Nayiit would already have told him. Perhaps she'd been trying to punish Maati for beginning it all. It had been the next night, and she had accepted Maati's invitation to dinner in the high pavilion. Goose in honey lacquer, almonds with cinnamon and raisin sauce, rice wine. Not far away, a dance had begun-silk streamers and the glow of torches, the trilling of pipes and the laughter of girls drunk with flirtation. She remembered it all from the days after Saraykeht had fallen. There was only so long that the shock of losing the andat could restrain the festivals of youth.
The young are blind and stupid, she'd said, and their breasts don't sag. It's the nearest thing they've got to a blessing.
