An Autumn War(80)

"Yes. Before. I said that before."

""They're going to be your cities," Sinja said doggedly as a man swimming against the tide. ""There's more to think about than how to capture them. It's my guess Gait's going to be ruling these places for a long time. The less the people have to forget, the easier that rule's going to he."

"I don't care about holding them," Balasar said. "There are too many to guard, and once the rest of the world scents blood, it's going to he chaos anyway. This war isn't about finding ways for the High Council to appoint more mayors."

"Sir?"

"We are carrying the dead because they are my dead." Balasar kept his voice calm, his manner matter-of-fact. The trembling in his hands was too slight to be seen. And I haven't come to conquer the Khaiem, Captain Ajutani. I've come to destroy them."

THE. FIRST REFUGEES APPEARED WHEN OTAII'S LFI"I'LE ARMY WAS STILL three days' march from the village of the I)ai-kvo. 't'hey were few and scattered in the morning, and then more and larger groups toward the day's end. The stories they told Otah were the same. Ships had come to Yalakeht-warships loaded heavy with Galtic soldiers. Some of the ships were merchant vessels that had been on trade runs to Chahuri- "lan. Others were unfamiliar. The harbor master had tried to refuse them berths, but a force of men had come from the warehouse district and taken control of the seafront. By the time the Khai had gathered a force to drive them hack, it was too late. Yalakeht had fallen. Any hope that Otah's army might he on a fool's errand ended with that news.

In the night, more men came, drawn by the light and scent of the army's cook fires. Otah saw that they were welcomed, and the tale grew. Boats had been waiting, half assembled, in the warehouses of Galtic merchants in \'alakcht. Great metal boilers ran paddle wheels, and pushed their wide, shallow boats upriver faster than oxen could pull. Boats loaded with men and steam wagons. The low towns nearest Yalakeht had been overrun. Another force had been following along the shore, hauling food and supplies. The soldiers themselves had sped for the Dal-kvo. Just as Otah had feared they would.

Utah sat in his tent and listened to the cicadas. They sang as if nothing was changing. As if the world was as it had always been. A breeze blew from the south, heavy with the smell of rain though the clouds were still few and distant. Trees nodded their branches to one another. Utah kept his hack to the fire and stared out at darkness.

"There was no way to know whether the Galtic army had reached the village yet. Perhaps the Dai-kvo was preparing some defense, perhaps the village had been encircled and overrun. From the tales he'd heard, once the Galts and their steam wagons reached the good roads leading from the river to the village itself, they would be able to travel faster than news of them.

It had been almost thirty years ago when Otah had traveled tip that river carrying a message from Saraykeht. The memory of it was like something from a dream. "There had been an older man-younger, likely, than Otah was now-who had run the boat with his daughter. They had never spoken of the girl's mother, and Otah had never asked. That child daughter would he a woman now, likely with children of her own. Otah wondered what had become of her, wondered whether that half-recalled river girl was among those flying out of the storm into which he was heading, or if she had been in one of the towns that the army had destroyed.

A polite scratch came at the door, his servant announcing himself. Utah called out his permission, and the door opened. He could see the silhouettes of Ashua Radaani and his other captains looming behind the servant boy's formal pose.

"Bring them in," Otah said. "And bring us wine. Wait. Watered wine."

The six men lumbered in. Utah welcomed them all with formal gravity. The fine hunting robes in which they had come out from Machi had been scraped clean of mud. The stubble had been shaved from their chins. From these small signs and from the tightness in their bodies, Utah knew they had all drawn the same conclusions he had. He stood while they folded themselves down to the cushion-strewn floor. "Then, silently, Utah sat on his chair, looking down at these grown men, heads of their houses who through the years he had known them had been flushed with pride and self-assurance. The servant boy poured them each a bowl of equal parts wine and fresh water before ghosting silently out the door. Otah took a pose that opened the audience.

"We will he meeting the Galts sometime in the next several days," Otah said. "I can't say where or when, but it will be soon. And when the time comes, we won't have time to plan our strategy. We have to do that now. Tonight. You have all brought your census?"