Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

so of the enemy. It was a slow process, spreading out and then moving

down not only the streets that were the fastest path to the tunnels, but

also two or three to each side. The Khai Machi had learned a trick, and

he'd used it against Coal. But he didn't have a second strategy, and so

Balasar knew where to find the waiting forcesjust back from where they'd

he seen, waiting to attack on all sides at once. Instead, Balasar was

killing them by handfuls. It was a had way to fight-bloody, slow,

painful, and unnecessary.

But it was better than losing.

"General Gice, sir," the captain said as all the men saluted him.

Balasar raised his hand. his arm ached from holding the raised shield.

"We're, making progress, sir."

"Good," Balasar said. "What have we found?"

"All the smaller passages are blocked off, sir. Collapsed or filled with

rubble so deep we can't tell how long it would take to dig them out. And

they're narrow, sir. Two men together at most."

"We wouldn't want those anyway," Balasar said. "Better we keep for the

objectives. And casualties?"

" NN'e're estimating five hundred of the enemy dead, sir. But that's rough."

"And our men?"

"perhaps half that," the captain said.

"So many?"

"They aren't good fighters, sir, but they're committed.'

Balasar sighed, his mind shifting. If he assumed the force pushing

toward the palaces was having similar luck, that meant something like

fifteen hundred dead since he'd walked into the city. More, if there was

resistance in the south. This wasn't a battle, only slow, ugly

slaughter. He went to the doorway, peering out down the street. Etc

could hear the sounds of fighting-men's voices, the clash of metal on

metal. A hundred small outbursts that became a constant roar, like

raindrops falling on a pond.

"Get the drummer," he said. "We'll make a push for it. Scatter the

enemy, take the entrance to the tunnels and then get runners to the others."

"The men we're seeing, sir. They're able-bodied. And decent fighters,

some of them."

"They wanted to do this on the surface," l3alasar said. ""The tunnels

will he their second string. It won't be as bad once we're in there. If

they're smart, they'll see there's no point going on."

The captain saluted without answering. Balasar was willing to take that

as agreement.

It took perhaps half a hand to gather a force of men together. Two

hundred soldiers would press forward and take the forges, where Sinja

had said the paths down would be open. They were only another street

down. "There wasn't a line of defenders to crush, so the horsemen were

less useful. They could still move fast, and men on foot who entered the

streets wouldn't be able to attack them easily. Footmen with archers

interspersed between them ducking fast from doorway to doorway was the

best plan.

Etc explained it all to the group leaders, watching the men's faces as

he asked them to run through the rain of stones and arrows. Two hundred

men to move forward, to take control of the forges and then hold the

position against anything that came up out of it until the rest of their

force could join them. Balasar would lead them. Not one of them

hesitated or voiced objection.

"If we live until sunset," he said, "we'll see the end of this. Now take

formation."

The drum throbbed, the captains and group leaders scrambled to the

places where their men stood waiting. A few bricks detonated on the

street in their wake, but no one had stayed out long enough to be in

danger from them. Balasar squatted in his chosen doorway, rubbing his

shoulder. The air was numbing cold, and the great dark towers rose

around them, higher than the crows that wheeled and called, excited, he

guessed, by the smells of blood and carrion.

It struck him how beautiful the city was. Austere and close-packed, with

thick-walled buildings and heavy shutters. The brightness of snow and

the glittering icicles that hung from the eaves set off the darkness of

stone and echoed the vast blank sky. It was a city without colordark and

light with hardly even gray in between-and Balasar found himself moved

by it. He took a deep breath, watching the cloud of it that formed when

he exhaled. The drummer at his side licked his lips.

"Go," Balasar said.

The deep rattle sounded, echoing between the high walls of the houses,

and then the press was on, and Balasar launched himself into it, shield

high, shoulder cramping. He made it almost halfway to the shelter of the

forges and their great copper roofs before the arrows could drop the

distance of the towers. Five men fell around him as he ran that last

stretch and found himself in a tangle of heat and shouting and swinging

blades. One last group of the enemy had stayed hidden here to defy him,

to stand guard against them. Balasar shouted and moved forward with the

surge of his men. In the field, there would have been formation, rules,

order. This was only melee, and Balasar found himself hewing and hacking

with his blood singing and alive. It was an idiotic place for a general

to be, throwing himself in the face of a desperate enemy, but Balasar

felt the joy of it washing away his better sense. A man with a spear

fashioned from an old rake poked at him, and he batted the attack away

and swung hard, cutting the man down. Three of the locals had formed a

knot, fighting with their backs together. Balasar's men overwhelmed them.

And then it was finished. As suddenly as it had begun, the fight ended.

The bodies of the enemy lay at their feet, along with a few of their

own. Not many. Steam rose from the corpses of friend and foe alike. But

they'd reached the tunnels. One last push, down deep into the belly of

the city, and it would be over. The war. The andat. Everything. He felt

himself smiling like a wolf. His shoulder and arm no longer hurt.

"General! Sir! It's blocked!"

"What?"

One of his captains came forward, gore soaking his tunic from elbow to

knee, his expression dismayed.

"It can't he," Balasar said, striding forward. But the captain turned

and led him. And there it was. A great gateway of stone, a sloping ramp

leading down wide enough for four carts abreast to travel into it. And

as he came forward, his hoots slipping where the fight had churned the

snow to slush, he saw it was true. The shadows beneath the gateway were

filled with stones, cut and rough, large as boulders and small as fists.

Something glittered among them. Shattered glass and sharp, awkward

scraps of metal. Clearing this would take days.

I Ie'd been betrayed. Sinja Ajutani had led him astray. The taste of it

was like ashes. And worse than the deception itself was that it would

change nothing. The defending forces were scattered, the towers would

run out of bricks and arrows, given time. All that Sinja had

accomplished was to prolong the agony and cost Balasar a few hundred

more men and the Khai Machi a few thousand.

Ah, Sinja, he thought. You were one of my men. One of mine.

"Get me the maps" was what he said.

Knowing now that it had been a trap, knowing that the forces of Nlachi

would have some way to retreat, some pathway to muster their attack,

Balasar scanned the thin lines that marked out the streets and tunnels.

His fingers left trails of other men's blood.

Not the palaces. Sinja had sent him there. Not the forges. His mind went

cool, calm, detached. The blood rage of the melee was gone, and he was a