the Galtic wagons strung along the road from Cetani like beads on a
string. It was earlier in the day than he'd expected them, and as he
pulled on his makeshift armor of boiled leather and metal scale, his
mind leapt ahead, guessing at what tactical advantages the Galtic
captain intended by arriving with the dawn. .
None, of course. They had no way to know Otah's men were there. And
still, Otah considered how the light would strike the road, the trees,
what it would make visible and what it would hide. He could no more stop
his mind than call down the stars.
The sun found the highest reaches of the smoke first, where it had
diffused almost to nothing. Closer to the ground, the smoke was already
visibly nearer. The Gaits had passed the third log barrier while the
runners had come to him. The fourth lay in wait where Utah could see it.
The innocent forest was alive with his men, or so he hoped. From his
place at the ridge of the low hill, he saw only the dozen nearest,
crouched behind trees and stones. Utah heard somethingthe clank of metal
or the sound of a raised voice. He willed them to be silent, fear and
anger at the sound almost enough to make his teeth ache until he heard
it again and realized it was the first of the Gaits.
The bear hunter appeared at his side. He held three of the spearlike
bolts and the great bow. Saya the blacksmith scampered up with another,
its steel heads only just fastened to it. Men appeared on the road below
them.
"The horn. Where's the horn?" Utah said, a sudden fear arcing through
him. If he had learned the lesson of drums and horns from the Galts only
to misplace the signal at the critical moment ... But the brass horn was
at his hip, where it had been since they'd set their trap. He took the
cold metal in his hands, brushing dirt from the mouthpiece.
""They look a bit rough around the edges, eh?" Saya whispered, pointing
at the road with his chin. "Amnat-Tan must have done them some hurt."
Utah looked at the Galtic soldiers. "There were perhaps a hundred that
he could see on this small curve of road. Ile tried to recall what the
men he had faced outside the 1)ai-kvo's village had looked like; how
they had walked, how they had held themselves. He couldn't. The memory
was only of the battle, and of his men, dying. Saya took a pose of
farewell and slunk away, down toward the trees where the battle would
soon begin.
The first of the steam wagons came into sight. He could hear it clacking
like a loom. The wide belly at its back glowed gold in the rising sun.
It was piled with sacks and boxes. Tents, perhaps, or food. Coal for the
furnaces. The packs that soldiers would have worn on their shoulders.
The wreckage he had seen at the 1)ai-kvo's village had let him
understand what these things were, but seeing one move-wheels turning at
the speed of a team at fast trot, and vet without a horse near-was no
less strange than his dreams. For a moment, he felt something like awe
at the mind who had conceived it. The first of the soldiers below him
saw the fallen log and called out-a long musical note that might have
been a word or only a signal. The sound of the steam wagon changed, and
it slowed, jittered once, and came to a halt. The long call came again
and again as it receded down the road like whisperers at court passing
the words of the Khai to distant galleries. The Galts came together,
conferring. At Otah's side, the bear hunter sat back, bracing the curve
of the bow against the soles of his feet. I Ic took one of the bolts,
steadying it between his fists as, two-handed, he drew back the wire.
The how creaked.
"Wait," Utah said.
A man came forward, past the steam wagon. He wore a gray tunic marked
with the Galtic "free. I Iis hair was dark as Utah's own, his skin dark
and leathern. The crowd of men at the fallen trees turned to face him,
their bodies taking attitudes of respect. Utah felt something shift in
his bell-.
"I lim," Utah said.
"Most High?" the huntsman said, strain in his voice.
"Can you hit the man in gray from here?"
'['Ile huntsman strained his neck, turned his body and his bow.
"I lard. Shot," he grunted.
"Can you do it?"
The huntsman was silent for half a breath.
"Yes," he said.
"'T'hen do. I)o it now."
The wire made a low thrum and the huntsman did something fast with his
ankles that caught the bow before it could fall. He was already bending
back again when the huge arrow struck. It took the gray man in the side,
just below his ribs, and he collapsed without crying out. Otah fumbled
with his horn, raising it to his lips. The note he blew filled his ears,
so that he only knew the Galts below him were calling out to each other
by the movement of their jaws and their drawn swords and axes.
The second bolt flew at the steam wagon as the soldiers fell back. It
struck the belly of the steam wagon with a low clank and fell useless to
the ground. A horn answering Otah's own called, and something terrible
and sudden and louder than anything Otah had ever heard before drowned
it out. A great cloud gouted up into the sky from perhaps three hundred
yards back in the Galtic column, and then the huntsman at his side
loosed the third bolt, and Otah was deafened.
The cloud of steam and smoke boiled up toward him, and Otah found
himself coughing in the thick, hot air. The huntsman loosed one last
bolt into the murk, stood, drew two daggers, and bounded down toward the
road. Otah stepped forward. He was aware of sounds, though they were
muffled by the ringing in his ears-screams, a trumpet blast, a distant
report as another steam wagon met its end. The road came clear to him
slowly as the mist thinned. The cart had tipped on its side, spilling
its cargo and its men. Perhaps a dozen men lay on the sodden ground,
their flesh seared red as a boiled lobster. Many still stood to fight,
but they seemed half-stunned, and his own men were cutting them down
with a savage glee. The furnace had cracked open, strewing burning coal
across the paving stones. The leaves on the nearest trees, damp from the
steam, seemed brighter and more vibrant than before. Two more steam
wagons burst, the sound like doubled thunder. Otah cried out, rallying
his men to his side, as he moved down to the road and the battle.
The first skirmish, here at the head of the column, was the critical
one. The way forward had to be blocked. If they could push the Galts
back here, they could drive them into their own men, confuse their
formations, keep their balance off. Or so they'd planned, so he hoped.
And as he came down the hill, it seemed possible. The Galts were
wideeyed with surprise, confused, afraid. Otah shouted and waved an axe,
but there was no one there to threaten with it. It had already happened.
The Galts were pulling back.
A bodyguard formed around him as he walked down the road, sol diers