birthed a babe."
Balasar laughed. It felt good to laugh, and to smile, and to be reminded
that the foul mood that had come on him was something he often suffered.
In truth, he had forgotten. He took Eustin's hand in his own.
"Good to have you back," Balasar said. "I didn't know you'd returned."
"I would have sent a runner to pass the news, but it seemed faster if I
came myself."
"Come LIP," Balasar said. "Tell me what's happened."
"It might be best if I saw a bathhouse, sir...."
"Later," Balasar said. "If you can stand the reek, I can. And besides,
you deserve some discomfort after that birthing comment. Come up, and
I'll have them send us wine and food."
"Yes, sir," Eustin said.
They sat on couches while pine logs burned in the grate, sap hissing and
popping and sending up sparks. True to his word, Balasar sent for rice
wine infused with cherries and the stiff salty brown cheese that was a
local delicacy of 'Ian-Sadar. Eustin recounted his season-the attack on
Pathai, his decision to split the force before moving on to the poet's
school. Pathai hadn't been as large or as wealthy as a port city like
Nantani, but it was near the Westlands. Moving what wealth it had back
to Galt would be simpler than the other inland cities.
"And the school?" Balasar said, and a cloud passed over Eustin's face.
""They were younger than I'd thought. It wasn't the sort of thing they
sing about. Unless they're singing laments. Then, maybe."
"It was necessary."
"I know, sir. "That's why we did it."
Balasar poured him another cup of the wine, and then one for himself,
and they drank in silence together before Eustin went on with his
report. The men they'd sent to take the Southern cities had managed
quite well, apart from an incident with poisoned grain in Lachi and a
fire at the warehouses of Saraykeht. That matched with what Balasar
himself had heard. All the poets had been found, all the books had been
burned. No Khai had lived or left heir.
In return, Balasar shared what news he had from the North. TanSadar, the
nearest city to the I)ai-kvo, had known about the destruction of the
village for weeks before Balasar's prisoner-envoys had arrived. The
story was also widely known of the battle; one of the Khaiem in the
winter cities had fielded an army of sorts. The estimates of the dead
went from several hundred to thousands. Few, if any, had been Coal's.
The retelling of that tale as much as the sacking of Udun had broken the
back of Utani and Tan-Sadar.
A letter in Coal's short, understated style had conic south after
Amnat-"Ian had fallen. Another courier was due any day bringing the news
of Cetani and Machi. But if Coal had kept to the pace he'd intended,
those cities were also fallen.
"It'll he good to know for certain, though," Eustin said.
"I trust him," Balasar said.
"Didn't mean anything else, sir."
"No. Of course not. You're right. It will he good to know it's done."
Balasar took a bite of the brown cheese and stared at the dancing flames
where the wood glowed and blackened and fell to ash. "You'll put your
men in I'tani?"
"Or send some downriver. Depends how much food there is. There's more
than a few who'd he willing to make a winter crossing if it meant
getting home to start spending their shares."
"We have made a large number of very rich soldiers," Balasar said.
""They'll he poor again in a season or two, but the dice stands in
Kirinton will still he singing our praises when our grandsons are old,"
Eustin said, then paused. "What about our local man?"
"Captain Ajutani? lie's here, in the city. Wintering here with the rest
of us. He's done quite well for himself. And for us. I le's given me
some very good advice."
Eustin grunted and shook his head.
"Still don't trust him, sir."
"He's more or less out of opportunities to betray us," Balasar said, and
Eustin spat into the fire by way of reply.
Over the next days, the arms' shifted slowly from the rigorous
discipline of the road to the bawdy, long, low riot that comes with
wintering in a captured city. The locals-tradesmen and laborers and
utkhaiem alikeseemed stunned by the change. They were polite and
accommodating because Balasar's men were armed and practiced and
thousands strong, but as Balasar walked down the long, winding red brick
streets, he had the feeling that "Ian-Sadar was hoping to wake from this
nightmare and find the world once again as it had been. A hard, bitter
wind came from the North, and behind it, the season's first thin,
tentative snow.
lie found his mind turning hack to the west and home. The darkness
Eustin had seen in him grew with the prospect of returning. The years he
had spent gathering the threads of his campaign had come to their end;
that it was ending in triumph only partly forgave that it was ending. He
found himself wondering who he would be now that he was no longer the
man driven to destroy the andat. In the mornings, he imagined himself
living on his hereditary estate near Kirinton, perhaps taking a wife.
Perhaps teaching in one of the military academics. All his old dreams
revisited. As the sun peaked low in the sky and scuttled toward the
horizon, the fantasy darkened too. He would be a racing dog with nothing
left to chase. And worst, in the dark of the nights, he tried to sleep,
his mind pricked by another day gone by without word from the North and
the sick fear that despite all their successes, something had gone wrong.
And then, on a cold, clear morning, the courier from Coal arrived. Only
it wasn't from Coal. Not really. Because Coal was dead, and Balasar had
another ghost at his heels.
""I'hey came without warning," Balasar said. ""They were hiding in the
trees, like street bandits. He was the first to fall."
"I'm sorry to hear it," Sinja said. "It was a dishonorable attack. Not
that the honorable one did them much good from what I've heard."
Eustin's face might have been carved from stone.
"You have a point to make, Captain?" Balasar asked.
"Only that he did make an honest man's try on the field outside the
Dal-kvo's village, and he failed. "There's only so much you can count
against him that he tried a different tack."
He killed my men, Balasar wanted to say. Wanted to shout. He killed Coal.
Instead, he paced the length of the wide parlor, staring at the maps
he'd unrolled after he'd unsewn the letter from the remnants of the
northern force. The oil lamps hung from their chains, adding a thick
buttery light to the thin gray sunlight that filtered in from the
windows. Cetani was occupied, but the library was emptied, Khai and poet