Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

his way back to the main body of the column. Sinja had just washed down

the last of the bread with the dregs of his tea when a servant arrived

with a saddled brown mare and orders to hand it over to him. Sinja rode

slowly past the soldiers, grim-faced and uncomfortable, preparing for

their trek or else already marching. Balasar rode just after the

vanguard with Dustin and whichever of his captains he chose to speak

with. Sinja fell in beside the general and made his salute. Balasar

returned it seriously. h,ustin only nodded.

"You served the Khai NIachi," Balasar said.

"Since before he was the Khai, in fact," Sinja said.

"What can you tell me about him?"

"I-fie has a good wife," Sinja said. Eustin actually smiled at the joke,

but Balasar's head tilted a degree.

"Only one wife?" he asked. "'That's odd for the Khaiem, isn't it?"

"And only one son. It is odd," Sinja said. "But he's an odd man for a

Khai. He spent his boyhood working as a laborer and traveling through

the eastern islands and the cities. lie didn't kill his family to take

the chair. He's been considered something of an embarrassment by the

utkhaiem, he's upset the I)ai-kvo, and I think he's looked on his

position as a burden."

"He's a poor leader then?"

"He's better than they deserve. Most of the Khaiem actually like the job."

Balasar smiled and Eustin frowned. "I'hey understood.

"He hasn't posted scouts," Eustin pointed out. "He can't he much of a

war leader."

"No one would post scouts this late in the season," Sinja said. "You

might as well fault him for not keeping a watch on the moon in case we

launched an attack from there."

"And how was it that a son of the Khaiem found himself working as a

laborer?" Balasar asked, eager, it seemed, to change the subject.

As he swayed gently on the horse, Sinja told the story of Otah Nlachi.

How he had walked away from the I)ai-kvo to take a false name as a petty

laborer. The years in Saraykeht, and then in the eastern islands. How he

had taken part in the gentleman's trade, met the woman who would be his

wife, and then been caught up in a plot for his father's chair. The

uncertain first year of his rule. The plague that had struck the winter

cities, and how he had struggled with it. The tensions when he had

refused marriage to the daughter of the Khai I Otani. Reluctantly, Sinja

even told of his own small drama, and its resolution. He ended with the

formation of the small militia, and its being sent away to the west, and

to Balasar's service.

Balasar listened through it all, probing now and again with questions or

comments or requests for Sinja to amplify on sonic point or aspect of

the Khai Machi. Behind them, the sun slid down toward the horizon. The

air began to cool, and Sinja pulled his leather cloak hack over his

shoulders. Dark would he upon them soon, and the moon had still not

risen. Sinja expected the meeting to come to its close when they stopped

to make camp, but Balasar kept him near, pressing for more detail and

explanation.

Sinja knew better than to dissemble. He was here because he had played

well up to this point, but if his loyalty to the Galts was ever going to

break, it would be soon and all three men knew it. If he held hack,

hesitated, or gave information that seemed intended to mislead, he would

fall from Balasar's grace. So he told his story as clearly and

truthfully as he could. There wasn't a great deal that was likely to he

of use to the general anyway. Sinja had, after all, never seen Otah lead

an army. If he'd been asked to guess how such an effort would end, he'd

have been proved wrong already.

They ate their evening meal in Balasar's tent of thick hide beside a

brazier of glowing coals that made the potato-and-salt-pork soup taste

smoky. When at last Sinja found himself without more to say, the

questions ended. Balasar sighed deeply.

"He sounds like a good man," he said. "I'm sorry I won't get to meet him."

"I'm sure he'd say the same," Sinja said.

"Will the utkhaiem turn against him? If we make the same offers we made

in Utani and Tan-Sadar, can we avoid the fighting?"

"After he heat your men? It's not a wager I'd take."

Balasar's eyes narrowed, and Sinja felt his throat go a bit tighter,

halfconvinced he'd said something wrong. But Balasar only yawned, and

the moment passed.

"How would you expect him to defend his city?" Eustin asked, breaking a

stick of bread. "Will he come out to meet us, or hide and make us dig

him out?"

"Dig, I'd expect. He knows the streets and the tunnels. He knows his men

will break if he puts them in the field. And he'll likely put men in the

towers to drop rocks on us as we pass. 'hiking hlachi is going to be

unpleasant. Assuming we get there."

"You still have doubts?" Balasar asked.

"I've never had doubts. One bad storm, and we're all dead men. I'm as

certain of that as I ever was."

"And you still chose to come with us."

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

Sinja looked at the burning coals. The deep orange glow and the white

dust of ash. Why exactly he had come was a question he'd asked himself

more than once since they'd left'I n-Sadar. He could say it was the

contract, but that wasn't the truth and all three of them knew it. He

flexed his fingers, feeling the ache in his knuckles.

""There's something I want there," he said.

"You'd like to he the new Khai Machi?"

"In a way," Sinja said. "Something I'd ask from you instead of my share

of the spoils, at least."

Balasar nodded, already knowing what Sinja was driving toward. ""I'he

Lady Kiyan," he said.

"I don't want her raped or killed," Sinja said. "When the city falls,

I'd like her handed over to me. I'll see she doesn't do anything stupid

or destructive."

"Her husband and children," F,ustin said. "We will have to kill them."

"I know it," Sinja said, "hut she's not from a high family. She's got no

standing aside from her marriage. She won't pose a threat."

"And for her sake, you'd betray the Khai?" Balasar asked.

Sinja smiled. 't'his question, at least, he could answer honestly and

without fear.

"For her sake, sir, I'd betray the gods."

Balasar looked at Eustin, his eyebrows rising as if asking an unvoiced

question. Eustin considered Sinja for a long moment, then shrugged.

Grunting, Balasar shifted and pulled a wooden box from under his cot. He

took a stoppered flask from it-good Nantani porcelain-and three small

drinking howls. With growing unease, Sinja waited as Balasar poured out

water-clear rice wine in silence, then handed one howl to Eustin, the

next to him.

"I have a favor to ask of you as well," Balasar said.

Sinja drank. The wine was rich and clean and made his chest bloom with

warmth, but not so much he lost the tightness in his throat and between

his shoulders.

"We can go in," Eustin said. "Waves of us. Small numbers, one after the

other, until we've dug out every nook and cranny in the city. But we'll

lose men. A lot of them."

"Most," Balasar said. "We'd win. I'm sure of that. But it would take

half of my men."

""That's had," Sinja said. "But there is another plan here, isn't there?"

Balasar nodded.

"We can send a man in who can tell us what the defenses are. Who can

send word or sign. If we're lucky, perhaps even a man who can help with

planning the defense. And, in return, take the woman he wants."

Sinja felt his mind start to spin. The rice wine made it a bit harder to