Daniel Abraham - Autumn War

The bear hunter appeared at his side. He held three of the spearlike bolts and the great bow. Saya the blacksmith scampered up with another, its steel heads only just fastened to it. Men appeared on the road below them.

"The horn. Where's the horn?" Utah said, a sudden fear arcing through him. If he had learned the lesson of drums and horns from the Galts only to misplace the signal at the critical moment… But the brass horn was at his hip, where it had been since they'd set their trap. He took the cold metal in his hands, brushing dirt from the mouthpiece.

"They look a bit rough around the edges, eh?" Saya whispered, pointing at the road with his chin. "Amnat-Tan must have done them some hurt."

Utah looked at the Galtic soldiers. "There were perhaps a hundred that he could see on this small curve of road. Ile tried to recall what the men he had faced outside the 1)ai-kvo's village had looked like; how they had walked, how they had held themselves. He couldn't. The memory was only of the battle, and of his men, dying. Saya took a pose of farewell and slunk away, down toward the trees where the battle would soon begin.

The first of the steam wagons came into sight. He could hear it clacking like a loom. The wide belly at its back glowed gold in the rising sun. It was piled with sacks and boxes. Tents, perhaps, or food. Coal for the furnaces. The packs that soldiers would have worn on their shoulders. The wreckage he had seen at the 1)ai-kvo's village had let him understand what these things were, but seeing one move-wheels turning at the speed of a team at fast trot, and vet without a horse near-was no less strange than his dreams. For a moment, he felt something like awe at the mind who had conceived it. The first of the soldiers below him saw the fallen log and called out-a long musical note that might have been a word or only a signal. The sound of the steam wagon changed, and it slowed, jittered once, and came to a halt. The long call came again and again as it receded down the road like whisperers at court passing the words of the Khai to distant galleries. The Galts came together, conferring. At Otah's side, the bear hunter sat back, bracing the curve of the bow against the soles of his feet. I Ic took one of the bolts, steadying it between his fists as, two-handed, he drew back the wire. The how creaked.

"Wait," Utah said.

A man came forward, past the steam wagon. He wore a gray tunic marked with the Galtic "free. I Iis hair was dark as Utah's own, his skin dark and leathern. The crowd of men at the fallen trees turned to face him, their bodies taking attitudes of respect. Utah felt something shift in his bell-.

"I lim," Utah said.

"Most High?" the huntsman said, strain in his voice.

"Can you hit the man in gray from here?"

'['Ile huntsman strained his neck, turned his body and his bow.

"I lard. Shot," he grunted.

"Can you do it?"

The huntsman was silent for half a breath.

"Yes," he said.

"'T'hen do. I)o it now."

The wire made a low thrum and the huntsman did something fast with his ankles that caught the bow before it could fall. He was already bending back again when the huge arrow struck. It took the gray man in the side, just below his ribs, and he collapsed without crying out. Otah fumbled with his horn, raising it to his lips. The note he blew filled his ears, so that he only knew the Galts below him were calling out to each other by the movement of their jaws and their drawn swords and axes.

The second bolt flew at the steam wagon as the soldiers fell back. It struck the belly of the steam wagon with a low clank and fell useless to the ground. A horn answering Otah's own called, and something terrible and sudden and louder than anything Otah had ever heard before drowned it out. A great cloud gouted up into the sky from perhaps three hundred yards back in the Galtic column, and then the huntsman at his side loosed the third bolt, and Otah was deafened.

The cloud of steam and smoke boiled up toward him, and Otah found himself coughing in the thick, hot air. The huntsman loosed one last bolt into the murk, stood, drew two daggers, and bounded down toward the road. Otah stepped forward. He was aware of sounds, though they were muffled by the ringing in his ears-screams, a trumpet blast, a distant report as another steam wagon met its end. The road came clear to him slowly as the mist thinned. The cart had tipped on its side, spilling its cargo and its men. Perhaps a dozen men lay on the sodden ground, their flesh seared red as a boiled lobster. Many still stood to fight, but they seemed half-stunned, and his own men were cutting them down with a savage glee. The furnace had cracked open, strewing burning coal across the paving stones. The leaves on the nearest trees, damp from the steam, seemed brighter and more vibrant than before. Two more steam wagons burst, the sound like doubled thunder. Otah cried out, rallying his men to his side, as he moved down to the road and the battle.

The first skirmish, here at the head of the column, was the critical one. The way forward had to be blocked. If they could push the Galts back here, they could drive them into their own men, confuse their formations, keep their balance off. Or so they'd planned, so he hoped. And as he came down the hill, it seemed possible. The Galts were wideeyed with surprise, confused, afraid. Otah shouted and waved an axe, but there was no one there to threaten with it. It had already happened. The Galts were pulling back.

A bodyguard formed around him as he walked down the road, sol diers falling in around him and marching hack toward Cetani, cutting down Gaits as they went. In the distance, a horn sounded the call for horsemen to attack. Small formations of Gaits-two or three score at most-held the road's center, confused, surrounded, and unable to retreat. A few ran to the trees for cover, only to find the forest alive with enemy blades. The rest fell to arrows and stones. Some engineer had made sense of Otah's trick, and great white plumes of steam rose into the sky as the wagons spent their pressure. The air reeked of blood and hot metal and smoke; it tasted rank. "Twice, a wave of Gaits swung toward Otah and his steadily increasing guard, only to he thrown hack. The (; alt army was in disarray, surrounded, confused. Horsemen in the colors of the high families of Machi and Cetani raised their swords in salute when they saw Otah.

He walked over the dead and the dying, past steam wagons that had burst open or been spared, horses that lay dead or flailed and screamed as they died. The sun was almost at the top of its arc, the whole morning gone, when Otah reached the last of the wagons, his bodyguard now nearly the size of his entire force. They had followed him, pinching down on the Gaits as he'd moved forward. The plains before them stretched out to Machi, stands of Galtic archers holding positions to cover the retreat. Otah raised his horn to his lips and called the halt. Others horns called the acknowledgment. The battle was ended. The Gaits had come this far and would come no farther. Otah felt himself sag.

From the south, he saw a movement among the men like wind stirring tall grass. The Khai Cetani came barreling forward, a wide grin on his face, blood soaking the ornate silk sleeves of his robes. Utah found himself grinning hack. Ile took a pose of congratulations, but the Khai Cetani whooped and wrapped his arms around Utah's waist, lifting him like Utah was a child in his father's arms.

"You've done it!" the Khai Cetani shouted. "You've beaten the bastards!"

We have, Otah tried to say, but he was being lifted upon the shoulders of his men. A roar passed through the assembled men-a thousand throats opening as one. Otah let himself smile, let the relief wash over him. The Galtic army was broken. They would not reach Machi before winter came. Ile had done it.