Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

melodies that signaled some part of the plans he had worked with Sinja

and Ashua Radaani and the others. But in addition there was a code that

let him phrase questions as if they were spoken words, and hear answers

in the replies from the towers far above.

The trumpeter was a young man with a vast barrel chest and lips blue

with cold. Whenever Otah had the man blow, the wide brass hell of the

trumpet seemed as if it would deafen them all. And yet the responses

were sometimes nearly too faint to hear. 'l'imes like now.

"What's he saying?" the Khai Cetani asked, and (bah held tip a hand to

stop him, straining to hear the last trailing notes.

"The Galts are taking the bridge," Otah said. "I don't think they trust

the ice."

"That'll mean they're longer reaching us," the Khai Cetani said.

""That's good. If we can keep them out of the warmth until sundown ..."

Otah took a pose of agreement, but didn't truly believe it. If they were

able to trap the Galts above ground when night came, the invaders would

take over the houses and burn whatever they could break small enough to

fit in the fire grates. If the cold air moved in-a storm or the frigid

winds that ended the gentle snows of autumn-then the Galts would be in

trouble, but the snow graying the distance now wasn't prelude to a

storm. Otah didn't say it, but he couldn't imagine keeping an army so

close and still at bay long enough for the weather to change. The Galts

would he defeated here in the streets, or they wouldn't he defeated.

Ile paced the length of the rooftop, his eyes tracing the routes that he

had hoped to guide them toward-the palaces and the forges. Behind him,

his servants shivered from the cold and the need to remain respectfully

still. The great iron fire grate that they'd hauled up and loaded with

logs was burning merrily, but somehow the heat from it seemed to go out

no more than a foot or two from the flames. The Khai Cetani stood near

it, and the trumpeter. Otah couldn't imagine standing still. Not now.

The southern reaches of the city were essentially Galtic already; there

was no way to make them safe against the coming army. The battle would

he nearer the center, in the shadows of the towers, in the narrower ways

where Otah's men could appear all along the Galtic line at once as they

had in the forest. Another trumpet call came. The Galts had finished

crossing the river. The march had begun on Nlachi itself.

I should he down there, Otah thought. I should get a sword or an axe and

go down there.

It was an idiotic idea, and he knew it. One more blade or how in the

streets wouldn't matter now, and getting himself killed would achieve

nothing.

Trumpets sounded-half a dozen of them at once. And Galtic drums.

Everyone sending signals, none of them listening. Otah squatted at the

roof's edge with his eyes closed, trying to make out one message from

another. Frustration built in his spine and neck. Something was

happening-several things, and all at the same moment, and he couldn't

hear what they were.

"Most high!" one the servants called. ""There!"

Otah and the Khai Cctani both looked to where the servant boy was

pointing. A runner dashed along a rooflinc, down near the great, wide

streets that led toward the forges. A great pillar of smoke was rising

from the south. Something there, then. Otah felt the first small surge

of hope; it was near where he had hoped the (;alts would go. The

trumpets were calling again, fewer of them. Otah found himself better

able to make sense of them. 'l'he Galts seemed to be moving in three

directions at once-sweeping and holding the southern buildings, and then

two large forces moving as Otah had hoped they would.

"Call to the towers," Otah said. ""lull them to begin."

The trumpeter took a great breath and blared out the melody they had set

for the towers, and then the rising trill that was their signal to begin

raining stones and arrows into the streets. It was less than a breath

before Otah thought he saw something fly from the open sky doors far

above them, plummeting toward the ground. The snow was tricky, though.

It might only have been his imagination.

Otah felt himself trying to stretch out his will across the city, to

inhabit it like a ghost, to become it. Time slowed to a terrible

crawlyears seeming to pass between the short announcing blasts of the

trumpets as they reported the Galts' progress. Muffled by the snow,

there also came the sound of distant voices raised in anger. Otah's

belly knotted. That wasn't right. "There shouldn't be any fighting yet.

Unless the Galts had found his men while they were sill in hiding. He

almost signaled his trumpeter to sound the order to report, but the more

the signals were used, the better the Galts would be able to find the

trumpeters.

"You," Otah said, pointing at one of the half-frozen servants. "Send a

runner to the east. I need to know what's happening there."

The man took a pose of acknowledgment and walked quickly and awkwardly

hack toward the stairs. Otah tapped his hand against the stone lip of

the roof, already impatient for the word to come hack to him. His feet

and face were numb. The snowfall seemed to be thickening, the world a

darker gray though the unseen sun was still likely six or seven hands

above the southern horizon.

From the west, the drums of Galt thundered, then were silent. Then

thundered again. Otah heard the sudden sharp call-thousands of voices at

once in a wild call that ended sharply. A boast. We are vast as the

ocean and disciplined. We are soldiers. We have come to kill you. Fear us.

And he did.

"Signal the palace forces to take their places," Otah said.

The trumpeter sang out the call, the wide bell of the trumpet playing

over the western rooftops like a priest offering blessing to a crowd.

The man was weeping, Otah saw. Tears streaking down his cheeks and into

his heard. A terrible, rending crash came from the forges. Otah turned

to peer through the rising smoke and the falling snow. He expected to

see one of the great copper roofs sitting at an angle, but nothing

seemed to have changed. The sound was a mystery.

"I can't stand this," Otah said, stalking back to the Khai Cetani and

the servants. There was snow gathering on the servants' shoulders. "I

don't know what's happening. I can't command a battle blind and

guessing. Where are the runners?"

The eldest of the servants took a pose of apology.

"Then go find out," Otah said.

But Otah felt in his bones what the runners would tell him. Before the

signals came-trumpets struggling through the muffling snow. Before the

Galtic drums broke out in their manic pounding. Nine thousand veterans

led by the greatest general in Galt were pouring into his city and

facing blacksmiths and vegetable carters, laborers and warehouse guards.

He was losing.

24

Balasar trotted through the streets, his shield held above his head.

Despite what Sinja had said, the great towers of Machi commanded the

streets around them fairly well. 'T'hroughout the day, stones and bricks

peppered his men, sailing down from the sky with the force of boulders

hurled by siege engines. Arrows sometimes came down as well, their

points shattering against the ground where they struck despite the

slowly growing cushion of snow. Ile ducked into another doorway when he

came to it. Five of his own men were waiting, and the bodies of ten or