An Autumn War

what I've done, :Most Iligh. If I chose wrong, I'll apologize, except I

don't think I have."

"Let it go," Utah said. "W'e'll deal with it later."

"I'd rather do it now," Sinja said, shifting his weight. "If I'm going

to be drowned as a traitor, I'd like to know it."

Utah felt the rage rise up in his breast like a flame uncurling. IIe

heard it in his ears.

"You want pardon?"

"For the boys too," Sinja said. "I swear I'll do everything I can to

earn it."

You'll swear anything you like and break the oath when it suits you,

Otah thought. He bit his lip until he thought it might bleed, but he

didn't shout. He didn't call for the armsmen who waited outside the

great blue doors. It would have been simple to have the man killed. It

would have even felt like justice, he thought. I Its own man. His friend

and advisor. Walking beside the Galttc general. Giving him advice. But

the rage wasn't only rage. It was also fear. And despair. And so no

matter how right it felt, it couldn't be trusted.

"Don't ask me for anything again."

"I won't, Otah-cha." And then a moment later, "You're a harder man than

when I left."

"I've earned it."

"It suits von.

A rattle came from the door, and then a polite scratching, and Cehmai,

Nlaati, and Liat came in the room. "Their faces were flushed, and

Nlaati's breath was heavy as if he'd been ru

wouldn't have chosen to have Ifiat here, but she'd helped Kiyan with the

preparations of the city and the quartering of the refugees of Cetani,

so perhaps it was for the best after all. I Ic took a general pose of

greeting.

"What's ... happened," Iaati wheezed.

"Wc have a problem," Otah said.

"The Galts?" Liat asked.

"'l'en thousand of them," Kiyan said, speaking for the first time since

Stnja had begun his report. I ler voice was solid as stone. "Foot

soldiers and archers and horsemen. They won't reach its today. But

tomorrow, perhaps. 'T'hree days at the most."

Nlaati's face went white and he sat down hard, like a puppet whose

strings had been cut. I,iat and Cchmai didn't move to help him. The room

was silent except for the murmur of the fire. Otah let the moment pass.

"There was nothing he could say just now that they wouldn't think for

themselves in the next few heartbeats. Cehmai recovered the fastest, his

brows rising, his mouth going tight and hard.

"What do we do?" the younger poet asked.

"We have some advantages," Otah said. "We outnumber them. We know the

city. We're in a position to defend, and holding a city's easier than

forcing your way in."

"On the other hand," Sinja said, "they're soldiers. You aren't. They

know that they need shelter from the cold and need it quickly. Taking

Machi's their only option. And they know a fair amount about the city as

well."

"You told them that too?" Otah asked.

""They've had their agents and traders in all the cities for

generations," Kiyan said softly. "They've put their hands in our

affairs. They've walked the streets and sat in the bathhouses. They have

trading houses that wintered here when your father was Khai."

"Not to mention the several hundred native guides working for them who

aren't me," Sinja said. "I was leading a militia, you'll recall. I've

left as many as I could behind, but they've had a season to get any

information they wanted."

Otah raised his hands in a pose that abandoned his point. He had the

feeling of trembling that he remembered from the aftermath of his

battles. From hearing Danat's struggles to breathe when his cough had

been at its worst. It wasn't time to feel; he couldn't afford to feel.

He tried to push the fear and despair away; he couldn't. It was in his

blood now.

"I can try," Nlaati said. "I'll have to try."

"You have a binding ready?" Sinja asked.

"Not ready," Cehmai said. "We have it in outline. It would need weeks to

refine it."

"I'll try," Maati said. His voice was stronger now. His lips were pulled

thin. "But I don't know that it will help if it comes to a battle. If it

works, I can see they never hear children, but that won't stop them in

the near term."

"You could make it hurt," Sinja suggested. "Men don't fight as well

newly gelded."

Nlaati frowned deeply, his fingers moving on their own, as if tracing

numbers in the air.

"Do what you can," Otah said. "If you think a change will make the

binding less likely to work, don't do it. We need an andat-any andat.

The details aren't important."

"Could we pretend?" Liat asked. "Dress someone as an andat, and send

them out with Maati. How would the Galts know it wasn't true?"

"The costume would have to involve not breathing," Cehmai said. Liat

looked crestfallen.

"Kiyan," Otah said. "Can we arm the people we have?"

"We can improvise something," his wife said. "If we put men in the

towers, we can rain stones and arrows on them. It would make it hard for

them to keep to the streets. And if we block the stairways and keep the

platforms locked at the top, it would be hard work to get them out."

"Until the cold kills them," Sinja said. ""There's not enough coal in

the ground to keep those towers warm enough to live in."

"They can survive a few days," Otah said. "We'll see to it."

"We can also block off the entrances to the tu

the ventilation shafts and fill as many of the minor ways down as we can

find with stones. It would be easier, wouldn't it, if there were only

one or two places that we needed to defend?"

"There's another option," Sinja said. "I don't like to mention it, but

... If you surrender, Balasar-cha will kill Otah and Eiah and Danat.

Cehmai and Maati. The Khai Cetani and his family too, if they're here.

He'll burn the hooks. But he'd accept surrender from the utkhaiem after

that. It's a dozen or so people. There's no way to do this that kills

fewer."

Otah felt himself rock hack. A terrible weight seemed to fall on his

shoulders. He wouldn't. Of course he would not. He would let every man

and woman in the city die before he offered up his children to be

slaughtered, but it meant that every one that died in the next few days

would be doubly upon his conscience. Every life that ended here, ended