Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

been if he hadn't followed Balasar out to die in the desert? Who might

Coal have married? What would Mavarsin have named his daughters and sons?

tie heard the attack before he saw it. "There was no form to it-men

waving knives and axes pouring toward them like a handful of dried peas

thrown against a wall; first one, then a few, and then all the rest in a

clump. Balasar called to his men, and a rough shout rose from them. It

was ridiculous. He should have won. This band of desperate fools didn't

know how to fight, didn't know how to coordinate. Half of them didn't

know how to hold their weapons without putting their own fingers at

risk. Balasar should have won.

The armies came together with a crash. The smell of blood filled the

air, the sound of brawling. And more of them came, boiling up out of the

ground and charging down the streets. The humiliating pain made

Balasar's every step uncertain. Every time he tried to stand at his full

height, his knees threatened to give way beneath him.

All the ghosts that had followed him, all the men he had sacrificed. All

the lives he had spent because the world was his to save. They had led

to this comic-opera melee. The streets were white with snow, black where

the dark cobbles showed through, red with fresh-spilled blood. The men

of Machi and Cetani ran through the square barking like dogs. The army

of Galt, the finest fighting force the world had ever seen, tried to

hold them off while half-bent in pain.

It should have been a comedy. Nothing so ridiculous should have the

right to inspire only horror.

They will kill tis all, Balasar thought. Every man among us will be dead

by morning if this doesn't stop.

He called the retreat, and his men stumbled and shuffled to comply.

Street by street, the archers held hack the advancing forces with

IIIaimed arrows and bolts. Footmen stumbled, weeping, and were dragged

by men who would themselves stumble shortly and he dragged along in

turn. "l he sky grew dark, the snow fell thicker. By the time Balasar

reached the buildings in the south of the city that he'd ordered taken

that morning, it was almost impossible to see across the width of a

street. The snow had drawn a curtain across the city to hide his shame.

The army of \lachi also fell back, retreating, Balasar supposed, into

their warm holes and warrens and leaving him and his men to the mercy of

the night. There was little food, few fires, and a chorus throughout the

black night of men weeping in pain and despair. When Balasar dragged

himself away from the little fire in the cooking grate of the house in

which he'd taken shelter and relieved himself out the hack door, his

piss was black with blood and stank of bad meat.

He wondered what would have happened if he had stayed in Galt, if he had

contented himself with raiding the Wcstlands and Eymond, Eddensea and

Bakta. Ile wondered what would have happened if he hadn't tried.

Ile forced himself through the captured buildings until it became too

painful to walk. 'i'he men looked away from him. Not in anger, but in

shame. Balasar could not keep from weeping though the tears frozen on

his checks. At last, lie collapsed in the corner of a teahouse, his eyes

closing even as he wondered whether he would die of the cold if he

stopped moving. But distantly, lie felt someone pulling a blanket over

him. Some sorry, misled soldier who still thought his general worth saving.

Balasar dreamed like a man in fever and woke near dawn unrested and ill.

The pain had lessened, and from the stances of the men around him he

guessed he was not the only one for whom this was true. Still, too hasty

a step lit his nerves with a cold fire. He was in no condition to fight.

And the rough count his surviving captains brought him showed he'd lost

three thousand men in a day. They had been cut down in the battle or

fallen by the way during the retreat and frozen. Almost a third of his

men. One in three, a ghost to follow him; sacrifices to what he had

thought he alone could do. No word had conic from 1 ustin in the North.

Balasar wished he hadn't let the man go.

The clouds had scattered in the night. 'l'he great vault above them was

the hazy blue of a robin's egg, the black towers rising halfway to the

heavens had ceased dropping their stones and arrows. Perhaps they'd run

out, or there might only tie no point in it. Balasar and his men were in

trouble enough.

The air that followed the snows was painfully frigid. "The men scavenged

what they could to build up fires in the grates-broken chairs and

tables, coal brought up from the steam wagons. "l'he fires danced and

crackled, but the heat seemed to vanish a hand's span from the flame. No

little fire could overcome the cold. Balasar hunched down before the

teahouse fire grate all the same, and tried to think what to do now that

everything had fallen apart.

They had a little food. "I'he snow could be melted for water. 'I'hey

could live in these captured houses as long as they could before the

natives snuck in at night to slit their throats or a true storm came and

turned all their faces black with frostbite.

The only hope was to try again. They would wait for a day, perhaps two.

They would hope that the andat had done its damage to them. They might

all die in the attempt, but they were dead men out here anyway. Better

that they die trying.

"General (;ice, sir!"

Balasar looked up from the fire, suddenly aware he'd been staring into

it for what might have been half the morning. The boy framed in the

doorway flapped a hand out toward the streets. When he spoke, his words

were solid and white.

"I'hey've come, sir. "They're calling for you."

"Who's come?"

"The enemy, sir."

Balasar took a moment to gather himself, then rose and walked carefully

to the doorway, and then out into the city. To the North, smoke rose

gray and black. A thousand men, perhaps, had lined the northern side of

one of the great squares. Or women. Or unclean spirits. They were all so

swathed in leather and fur Balasar could hardly think of them as human.

Great stone kilns burned among them, flames rising twice as tall as a

man and licking at the sky. In the center of the great square, they'd

brought a meeting table of black lacquer, with two chairs. Standing

there in the snow and ice, it looked like a thing from a dream, as out

of place as a fish swimming in air.

When he stepped into the southern edge of the square, a murmur of voices

he had not noticed before stopped. He could hear the hungry crackle and

roar of the kilns. He lifted his chin, scanning the enemy forces. If

they had come to fight, they would not have announced themselves. And

they'd have had no need of a table. The intent was clear enough.

"Go," Balasar said to the boy at his side. "Get the men. And find me a

banner, if we still have one."

It took a hand and a half for the banner to be found, for someone to

bring him a fresh sword and a gray cloak. Two of the drummers had

survived, and heat a deep, thudding march as Balasar advanced into the

square. It might he a ruse, he knew. The fur-covered men might have bows

and be waiting to fill him full of arrows. Balasar held himself proudly

and walked with all the certainty he could muster. He could hear his own

men behind him, their voices low.

Across the square, the crowd parted, and a single man strode forward.