Seasons of War

his lips and called the halt. Others horns called the acknowledgment. The battle was ended. The Galts had come this far and would come no farther. Otah felt himself sag.
    From the south, he saw a movement among the men like wind stirring tall grass. The Khai Cetani came barreling forward, a wide grin on his face, blood soaking the ornate silk sleeves of his robes. Otah found himself grinning back. He took a pose of congratulations, but the Khai Cetani whooped and wrapped his arms around Otah’s waist, lifting him like Otah was a child in his father’s arms.
    ‘You’ve done it!’ the Khai Cetani shouted. ‘You’ve beaten the bastards!’
    We have, Otah tried to say, but he was being lifted upon the shoulders of his men. A roar passed through the assembled men - a thousand throats opening as one. Otah let himself smile, let the relief wash over him. The Galtic army was broken. They would not reach Machi before winter came. He had done it.
    They carried him back and forth before the men, the shouts and salutes following him like a windstorm. As he came back to the main road, he was amazed to see the Khai Cetani - all decorum and rank forgotten - dancing arm in arm with common laborers and huntsmen. The Khai Cetani caught sight of him, raised a blade in salute, and called out words that Otah couldn’t hear. The men around him abandoned their dance, and drew their own blades, taking up the call, and Otah felt his throat close as he understood the words, as he heard them repeated, moving out through the men like a ripple in a pond.
    To the Emperor.
     
    Balasar stood in the great square of Tan-Sadar. The sky was white and chill, and the trees that stood in the eastern corners were nearly bare of leaves. A good day, Balasar thought, for endings. The representatives of the utkhaiem stood beneath square-framed colonnades, staring out at him and his company two hundred strong and in their most imposing array of arms and armor and at the Khai Tan-Sadar, bound and kneeling on the brickwork at Balasar’s feet. The poet of the city had burned to death among his books on the day Balasar had entered the city, but the disposition of the Khai was less important. A few days waiting in the public jail where men and women passing by could see him languishing posed no particular threat to the world, and the campaign that was now behind him had left Balasar tired.
    ‘Do you have anything you want to say?’ Balasar asked in the Khai’s own language.
    He was a younger man than Balasar had expected. Perhaps no more than thirty summers. It seemed young to have the responsibility of a city upon him or to be slaughtered in front of the nobles who had betrayed him to a conqueror. The Khai shook his head once, a curt and elegant motion.
    ‘If you swear to serve the High Council of Galt, I’ll cut your bonds and we can both walk out of here,’ Balasar said. ‘I’ll have to keep you prisoner, of course. I can’t leave you free to gather up an army. But there are worse things than living under guard.’
    The Khai almost smiled.
    ‘There are also worse things than dying,’ he said.
    Balasar sighed. It was a shame. But the man had made his decision. Balasar raised his hand, and the drums and trumpets called out. The execution proceeded. When the soldier held up the Khai’s head for the crowd to see, a shudder seemed to run through them, but the faces that Balasar saw looking out at him seemed bright and excited.
    They know they won’t die, he thought. If I’m not killing them, it all becomes another court spectacle. They’ll be talking about it in their bathhouses and winter gardens, vying for money and power now that the city’s fallen. Half of them will be wearing tunics with the Galtic Tree on it come spring.
    He looked down at the body of the man he’d had killed and briefly felt the impulse to put Tan-Sadar to the torch. Instead, he turned and walked away, going back to the palaces he had taken for himself and for his men.
    Eight thousand remained to him. Several hundred had been lost in battle or to the raids that had slowed his travel since Nantani. The rest he had left in conquered Utani. There was little enough left of Udun that he hadn’t bothered leaving men to occupy the city. There was no call to leave people there to guard ashes.
    Utani had offered only token resistance and been for the most part spared. Tan-Sadar had very nearly set the musicians to playing and lined the roads with dancing girls. That wasn’t