"Don't worry about him. I'll find the boy."
"I promised. Keep safe."
"And you've done it," Sinja said. "You did a fine job. Now let's see how
much it's cost you, shall we? I've seen a lot of belly wounds. Some are
worse than others, but they're all tender to prod at, so expect this to
hurt."
Nayiit nodded and screwed up his face, readying himself for the pain.
Sinja opened his robes and looked at the cut. Even as such things go,
this one was bad. Eustin's blade had gone into the boy just below his
navel, and cut to the left as it came out. Blood soaked the boy's robes,
freezing them to the stones lie lay on. Skin on white fat. "There were
soft, worm-shaped loops of gut exposed to the air. Sinja laid a hand on
the boy's chest and knelt over the wound, sniffing at it. If it only
smelled of blood, there might he a chance. But amid the iron and meat,
there was the scent of fresh shit. Eustin had cut the boy's bowels. That
was it, then. The boy was dead.
"How bad?"
"Not good," Sinja said.
"Hurts."
"I'd imagine."
"Is it ..."
"It's deep. And it's thorough," Sinja said. "If you wanted something
passed on to someone, this would he a good time to say it."
The boy wasn't thinking well. Like a drunkard, it took time for him to
understand what Sinja had said, and another breath to think what it had
meant. He swallowed. Fear widened his eyes, but that was all.
"Tell them. 'Fell them I died well. That I fought well."
They were small enough lies, and Sinja could tell the boy knew it.
"I'll tell them you died protecting the Khai's son," Sinja said. "I'll
tell them you faced down a dozen men, knowing you'd he killed, but
choosing that over surrendering him to the Galts."
"You make me sound like a good man." Nayiit smiled, then groaned,
twisting to the side. His hand hovered above his wound, the impulse to
cradle the hurt balanced by the pain his touch would cause. Sinja took
the man's hand.
"Nayiit-cha," Sinja said. "I know something that can stop the pain."
"Yes," Nayiit hissed.
"It'll he worse for a moment."
"Yes," he repeated.
"All right then," Sinja said, as much to himself as the man lying hefore
him. "You did a man's job of it. Rest well."
He snapped the boy's neck and sat with him, cradling his head as he
finished dying. It was quick this way. There wouldn't be the pain or the
fever. There wouldn't be the torture of trekking back to the city just
to have the physicians fill him with poppy and leave him to dream
himself away. It was a better death than those. Sinja told himself it
was a better death than those.
The blood stopped flowing from the wound, and still Sinja sat. A
terrible weariness crept into him, and he told himself it was only the
cold. It wasn't that he'd traveled a season with men he'd come to
respect and still been willing to kill. It wasn't watching some young
idiot die badly in the snow with only a habitual traitor to care for
him. It wasn't the sickness that came over him sometimes after battles.
It was only the cold. He gently put Nayiit's head on the ground, and
pushed himself up. Between the chill and his wounds, his body was
starting to stiffen. The chill and his wounds and age. War and death and
glory were younger men's games. But he still had work to do.
He heard the cry before he saw the child. It was a small sound, like the
squeak of a hinge. Sinja turned. Either Danat had snuck back, preferring
a known danger to an uncertain world, or else he'd never gone out of
sight of the cart. His hair was wet from melted snow, plastered back
against his head. His lips were pulled back, baring teeth in horror as
he stared at Nayiit's motionless body. Sinja tried to think how old he'd
been when he saw his first man die by violence. Older than this.
I)anat's shocked, empty eyes turned to him, and the child took a step
hack, as if to flee. Sinja only looked at him, waiting, until the boy's
weight shifted forward again. Then Sinja raised his sword, pommel to the
sky, blade toward the ground in a mercenary's salute.
"Welcome to the world, Danat-cha," Sinja said. "I wish it were a better
place."
The boy didn't speak, but slowly his hands rose to take a pose that
accepted the greeting. It was the training of some court nurse. Nothing
more than that. And still, Sinja thought he saw a sorrow in the child's
eyes and a depth of understanding greater than anyone so small should
have to bear. Sinja sheathed his sword.
"Come on, now," he said. "Let's get you someplace warm and dry. If I
save you from the Galts and then let a fever kill you, Kiyan will have
me flayed alive. I know a tunnel not far from here that should suffice."
THE RUNNERS (:A11E AT LAST, STAGGERING ('I' TTIE.. STAIRS FRONI T HE.
STREETS below, and every report echoed the trumpet calls. The Galts had
aimed for the tunnels that Sinja had directed them toward, but come in
wider than Otah had planned. "There would be no grand ambush from the
windows and alleyways, only a long, bloody struggle. One small slaughter
after another as the Galts pushed their way through the city, looking
for a way down.
Otah stared out at the city, watching the tiny dots of stones drift down
from the towers, hearing the clatter of men and horses echoing against
the high stone walls. I le wondered how long it would take ten thousand
men to kill two full cities. I IC should have met them on the plain. He
could have armed everyone; man, woman, and child. Able or infirm. They
could have swarmed over them, ten and fifteen for every Galt. He sighed.
He could as well have tossed babies on their sword in hopes of slowing
their advance. "I'he Galts would have slaughtered them on the plain or
in the city. I Ie'd tried his trick, and he'd failed. "There was nothing
to gain from regretting the strategies he hadn't chosen.
What he wanted now was a sword and someone to swing it at. He wanted to
be part of the fight if only to keep from feeling so powerless.
"Another runner," the Khai Cetani said, taking a pose that commanded
Otah's attention. "From the palaces."
Otah nodded and stepped back from the roof edge. The runner was a
pale-skinned boy with a constellation of moles across his nose and
cheeks. (bah could see him try not to pant as the two Khaicm drew near.
Ile took a pose of obeisance.
"What's happening?" Otah demanded.
"The Galts, Most High. "They're sending messengers. "They're abandoning
the palace. It looks as if they're forming a single group."
"Where?"
""l'he old market square," he said.
"Three streets south of the main entrance to the tunnels. So they knew.
Utah felt his belly sink. He waved the trumpeter over. The man was