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 TanSadar, 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."