Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

general again. The warehouses. There, in the North. The galleries below

would be good for mustering a large force or creating an infirmary.

"There would be water, and the light from it wouldn't shine out. If it

were his city, that would be the other plausible center from which to

make his campaign.

"I need runners. A dozen of them. We need to reach the men at the

palaces and tell them that the plan's changed."

SINJA HAD RIDDEN HART) FUR THE. NORTH. EVEN AS HE HEARD THE DIS"I'ANI'

horns that meant the battle within Machi had begun, he leaned down over

his mount and pushed for the paths and rough mining roads that laced the

foothills behind the city. And there, low in the mountains where

generations ago it had been easy and convenient to haul ore, one of the

first, oldest, tapped-out mines. Otah's bolt-hole for the children and

the poets, and the only thing between it and the city-Eustin and a

hundred armed Galts. Visions of cart tracks crushed in the snow and

disappearing into the mine's mouth pricked at his mind. Let Eustin not

find them.

He reached the first ridge behind Machi just as a distant crashing sound

came from the city, the violence muffled by distance and snowfall. The

horse steamed beneath him. Riding this hard in this weather was begging

for colic; the horse was nearly certain to die if he kept pressing it.

And he was going to keep pressing it. If a horse was the only thing he

killed before sunset, it would be a better day than he'd hoped.

Sinja reached the tunnel sometime after midday. Time was hard to judge.

Silently, he walked down into the half-lit mouth of the tunnel and

squatted, considering the dust-covered ground until his eyes had adapted

to the darkness. It was dry. No one had passed through here since the

snow had begun to fall. He stalked hack out, mounted, and turned his

poor, suffering animal to the south again, trotting down the

snow-obscured tracks, cutting hack and forth-west and east and west

again-his eyes peering through the gray for Eustin and his men. It

wasn't long before he found them-a dozen men set on patrol. There were

eight patrols, they told him, and Eustin in the one that ranged nearest

to the city. Sinja gave his sometime compatriots his thanks and went on

to the south.

His gloves were soaked, the cold creeping into his knuckles, when he

found Eustin. I3alasar's captain and ten of his men had stopped a beaten

old cart pulled by a mule and driven by a young man with a long Northern

face and a nervous expression. Eustin and four of the men had dismounted

and were talking to the panicked-looking man. Sinja called out and

Eustin hailed him and motioned him down with what appeared to be good

enough will.

We're allies, Sinja told himself. We're Balasar Gice's men on the day of

the general's greatest triumph.

He forced his numbed lips into a smile and let his horse pick its way

gently downslope to where the soldiers and the unfortunate refugee waited.

"Not going with the general?" Eustin asked as Sinja came within

comfortable speaking distance.

"'Thought I'd let him kill all the people I knew without my being there.

I'd only have been a distraction."

Eustin shrugged.

"I'm surprised you're staying around at all," he said. "You aren't about

to he the most popular man in Machi. Wintering here might not he good

for you."

"Ah," Sinja said, swinging down from his horse. "I'll have all my dear

friends from Galt to keep my hack from sprouting arrows."

Eustin's noncommittal grunt seemed to finish the topic. Sinja considered

the man on the cart. He looked familiar, but in a vague way, as if Sinja

had known the man's brothers but not him.

"What have you got here?" Sinja asked, and Eustin turned his attention

back to the refugee.

"Coward making a run for the hills," Eustin said. "I was talking with

him about what he's carrying."

"Just my son," the man said. "I don't have any silver or gems. I don't

have anything."

"Seems unlikely that you'd live well out there," Eustin said, nodding

toward the North and the snow-veiled mountains. "So maybe it's best if

you come hack to the camp with us, eh?"

"Please. My sister and her husband. They live in one of the low towns.

Up by the Radaani mines. We're going to stay with her," the man said. He

was a good liar, Sinja thought. "I'm not a fighter, and my boy's no

threat. We don't want any trouble."

"Bad day for you, then," Eustin said and gestured with his fingers.

"'The cloak. Open it."

Reluctantly, the man did. A sword hung at his hip. Eustin smiled.

"Not a fighter, eh? "That's for scaring squirrels, then?"

"You can have it-"

"Got one, thanks," Eustin said. "Let's see this boy of yours."

The man hesitated, his eyes darting to the riders, to Eustin. Ile was

thinking of running for it-his little mule against six men on horseback.

Sinja took a simple pose that advised against it, and the man looked

down, then turned to the back of the little cart.

"Choti-kya," he said. "Come say hello to these good men."

A bundle of brown waxed silk stirred in the back of the cart, rose up,

and turned to face them. The boy's round face was shy and frightened,

but also curious. His cheeks were red from the cold, as if someone had

slapped him. As the small hands pushed out from his blankets and took a

pose of greeting, Sinja sighed.

Danat. It was Kiyan's boy. So this man was Nayiit, and all Sinja's worst

fears were unfolding right here before him.

One of Eustin's men stepped forward, looking through the cart. Danat

shied hack from him, but the soldier paid the boy no particular attention.

"What do you think we should do with them, Captain Ajutani," he asked.

"Kill 'em or send them on?"

Sinja kept his face blank as his mind worked at an answer. Eustin didn't

trust him and never had. Sinja tried to judge what the man would

do-follow his advice, or take the opposite. He suspected Eustin would

oppose him simply because he could. So the right choice would be to

recommend death for Danat and Nayiit. The gamble was higher stakes than

he liked. Eustin looked over at him, his eyebrows raised. Sinja was

taking too long in answering.

"I don't like killing children," he said in Galtic.

"Wouldn't be the first time I've done it since we left Nantani. 'T'here

was a whole school of them near Pathai. Kill the man, then? And leave

the boy in a snowstorm? That seems cruel."

Sinja shrugged and took a simple pose of apology.

"I hadn't known you were a great killer of children," he said. "We all

make our reputations somehow. Do whatever you think best."

Eustin scowled and the driver's face went pale. The man spoke Galtic,

then. Sinja wasn't certain that was a good thing.

"Maybe I should kill the boy and let the man go," Eustin said, and

Danat's keeper swung out of the cart, drawing his sword with a shout.

Eustin jumped back, pulling his own blade free. It was fast, over almost

before it began. The young man swung wild; Eustin parried the blow and

sunk his own blade into Nayiit's belly. Nayiit fell back, clutching at

his gut, while Eustin looked down at him in rage and disgust.

"What is the matter with you?" he said to the wounded man. "Look around

you. There's a dozen of us. Did you think you were going to cut us all

down?"

"Can't hurt Danat," the driver said.

"Who's Danat?"

When the driver didn't answer, Eustin shook his head and spat. Sinja