"I have just watched the Khai Machi gravely accept the apology and sworn aid of his servant Radaani. A day ago you were an annoyance to that man. "Today, you're a hero from an Old Empire epic. I've never seen things change around a man so quickly as they change around vou."
"It's only because he's frightened. He'll recover," Otah said. "I'll he an incompetent again when he's safe and the world's hack where it was."
"It won't be, love," Kiyan said. "The world's changed, and it's not changing hack, whatever we do."
"I know it. But it's easier if I don't think too much about it just yet. When the Dai-kvo's safe, when the Galts are defeated, I'll think about it all then. Before that, it doesn't help," Otah said as he turned hack toward the bed they had shared for years now, and would for one more night at least. Her hand brushed his cheek as he stepped past, and he turned to kiss her fingers. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor in his.
Chapter 12
"I gave him too much and not enough men to do it," Ralasar said as they walked through the rows of men and horses and steam wagons. Eustin shrugged his disagreement.
Around them, the camps were being broken down. Men loaded rolled canvas tents onto mules and steam wagons. ''he washerwomen loaded the pans and stones of their trade into packs that they carried on bent shoulders. The last of the captured slaves helped to load the last of the ships for the voyage back to Galt. The gulls whirled and called one to another; the waves rumbled and slapped the high walls of the seafront; the world smelled of sea salt and fire. And Balasar's mind was on the other side of the map, uneased and restless.
"Coal's a good man," Eustin said. "If anyone can do the thing, it's him."
"Six cities," he said. "I set him six cities. It's too much. And he's got far fewer men than we do."
"We'll get finished here in time to help him with the last few," Eustin said. "Besides, one of them's just a glorified village, and Chaburi-Tan was likely burning before we were out of Aren. So that's only four and a half cities left."
There was something in that. Coal's men had been on the island and in the city and in ships off the coast, waiting for the signal that would follow the andat's vanishing. Even now, Coal and his men-between five thousand and six-were sailing fast to Yalakeht. A handful more waited there in the warehouses of Galtic traders, preparing for the trip upstream to the village of the Dai-kvo and the libraries at the heart of the Khaiem. The other cities would have their scrolls and codices, but only there, in the palaces carved from the living rock, were the great secrets of the fallen Empire kept. His war turned on that fire and on the deaths of the men who knew what those soon-burned books said.
And he wouldn't he there for it.
"'l'he southern legions are ready, sir," Eustin said. "Fight thousand for Shosheyn-"Ian, Lachi, and Saraykeht. My legion's two thousand strong. Should he enough for Pathai and that school out on the plains. "That'll leave you a full half of the forces for the river cities. Udun and Iltani and "Ian-Sadar."
Balasar struggled with the impulse to send more of the men with Eustin. It was the illusion he always suffered when tactics required that he split his forces. Ile would make do with less in order to keep his best men safe. Pathai was only half the size of Nantani, but Eustin was taking only a tenth of the men. It was unlikely that word had traveled fast enough for the Khai Pathai to hire some fleet-footed mercenary company out of the Westlands, but unlikely wasn't impossible. Two thousand more men might make the difference if something went wrong.
But he had the longest journey ahead of him-Nantani to Udun, and some of it over plains where there were no good roads and the steam wagons would have to he pulled. On rough ground, the boilers were too likely to explode. The journey would take time, and so Udun and Utani and "Ian-Sadar would have the longest time to prepare. They would be the hardest to capture or destroy. It was why he had chosen them for himself. Except, of course, for what he had tasked to Coal. Five thousand men to take six cities. Five cities, now. Four and a half.
"We'll get there in time to help him if he needs us, sir," Eustin said, reading his face. "And keep in mind, there's not a fighting force anywhere in the Khaiem. Coal's in more danger of tripping on his spear than of facing an enemy worth sneezing at."
Balasar laughed. Two armsmen busy folding a tent looked up, saw him and Eustin, and grinned.
"It's like me, isn't it?" Balasar said. "Here we have just made the greatest sack of a city in living history, captured enough gold to keep us both fed the best food and housed in the best brothels for the rest of our lives, and I can't bring myself to enjoy a minute of it."