"We have two and a half thousand men," Otah said. "And you're telling me only eight can work these things?"
"They're not good for much apart from hunting big animals that need killing fast. And there aren't many who care to do that, if they can help it," the huntsman said. "Why learn something with no use?"
Otah squatted and took one of the bows in his hand. It was heavier than it looked. It would be able to throw the bolts hard. Otah wondered how close they could afford to get to the road. Too far back, and the trees would offer as much protection to the Galts as cover for Otah's men. Too close, and they'd be seen before the time came. It wouldn't take much skill to hit the belly of a steam wagon if you were near enough. He tossed the how from hand to hand as he weighed the risks.
"Go ask for volunteers," Otah said. "Ask on both sides of the road. Anyone who says they're willing, test them. Take the twenty best."
"A man who doesn't know what he's doing with this can scrape the meat off his legs," the huntsman said.
Otah stopped tossing the bow and turned to consider the man. The huntsman blushed, realizing what he had just said and to whom. He took a pose of obeisance and backed away from the two Khaiem, folding himself in among the trees and vanishing. The Khai Cetani sighed and took a pose of apology.
"He's a good enough man," he said, "but he forgets his place."
"He isn't wrong," Otah said. "If this were a better time to have our orders questioned, I'd have listened to him. But then, if it were a better time, we wouldn't be out here."
The last of the men and women fleeing Cetani had passed them five days before, carts and wagons and sacks slung over hunched backs. For five days, the combined forces of Cetani and Machi had haunted these woods, sharpening their weapons and planning the attack. And growing bored and hungry and cold. Two nights ago, Otah had ordered an end to all fires. The smoke would give them away, and the prospect of a halfsleeping man dropping a stray ember on the forest floor was too likely. The men grumbled, but enough of them saw the sense of it that the edict hadn't been ignored. Not yet.
It wouldn't be many more days, though. If the Galts didn't come, the men would grow restive and careless, and when the time came, it would be the battle before the Dai-kvo again, only this time, the Galts would march into Machi. The bodies left in the streets wouldn't be of poets. They would be the families of every man in the hidden clumps that dotted the hills. "Their mothers, fathers, lovers, children. Everyone they knew. Everyone that remained. That Was good for another day. Perhaps two.
"You're thinking of the frost," the Khai Cetani said. "You're worried that it's going to conic and drop our screen of leaves before the Galts do."
Otah smiled.
"No, actually, I'd been worrying about other things entirely. "Thank you for distracting Inc."
The Khai Cetani actually chuckled.
"I'll go and speak With my leaders," he said, clapping Otah on the shoulder. "Keep their spirits up.-
"I'll do the same," Otah said. "It's coming. They'll he here soon."
The camps had been divided. Groups of men no larger than twenty. Only one stayed close the road on either side. The others fanned out to the west. When the Galts appeared at the edge of the last cleared forest, runners would come from the watch camps, and the men would make their way to the road. Trees already had been felled at four places along the path-two before they reached the forest, another halfway to the hill on which Otah now stood, and the last where the road turned a little to the south and then west again toward Nlachi. The first time they were forced to stop, they would expect the attack. By the fourth, Otah hoped they would only think it another delay. The mixed coal would have their steam wagons running hotter than thev intended. The hearhunting bows would prick the steel chambers. In the chaos, the armies would appear, falling on the Galts' long vulnerable flanks. If it all went well. If the plan worked. If not, then the gods alone knew how the fight would end.
Night fell cold.'l'he wide cloudless sky seemed to pull the warmth of the day and land up into it, and Otah, most honored and powerful man in his city, wrapped an extra cloak around himself and settled down against it tree, Ashua Radaani snoring gently at his side. I Ic had expected his dreams to be troubled, but instead he found himself ice fishing, and the fish he saw moving below the ice were also Kiyan and his children, playing with him, tugging at the line and then darting away. A trout that was also Kiyan in a silver-blue robe leapt from the waterwith the logic of dreams frozen and vet unfrozen-and splashed back down to Otah's delight when a rough hand shook him awake. Dawn was threatening, gray and rose in the east, and Saya the blacksmith towered over him, checks so red they seemed dark in the dim light, nose running, and a grin showing his teeth.