Seasons of War

number of very rich soldiers,’ Balasar said.
    ‘They’ll be poor again in a season or two, but the dice stands in Kirinton will still be singing our praises when our grandsons are old,’ Eustin said, then paused. ‘What about our local man?’
    ‘Captain Ajutani? He’s here, in the city. Wintering here with the rest of us. He’s done quite well for himself. And for us. He’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 army 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 alike - seemed 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 Tan-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.
    He found his mind turning back 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 academies. 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.
    ‘They 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 Dai-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 missing along with the full population of the city. Machi remained. The last of the poets, the last of the books, the last of the Khaiem. His fingertips traced the route that would take him there.
    ‘It’s no use, General,’ Sinja said. ‘You can’t put an army in the field this late in the season. It’s too cold. One half-decent storm will freeze them to death.’
    ‘It’s still autumn,’ Eustin said. ‘Winter’s not come quite yet.’
    ‘It’s a northern autumn,’ Sinja said. ‘You’re thinking it’s like Eddensea, but I’ll tell you it’s not. There’s no ocean nearby to hold the heat in. General, Machi isn’t going anywhere between now and the first thaw. The Dai-kvo’s meat on a stick. Your man burned his books. They have the same chance of binding a fresh andat before spring that I have of growing wings and flying. And you have every chance of killing more of your men than have died since we left the Westlands if you go out there now.’
    ‘You’ve always given me good advice, Captain Ajutani,’ Balasar said. ‘I appreciate your wisdom on this.’
    ‘I wouldn’t call it wisdom