An Autumn War(133)

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.





Chapter 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 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.