Seasons of War

Tan-Sadar, can we avoid the fighting?’
    ‘After he beat your men? It’s not a wager I’d take.’
    Balasar’s eyes narrowed, and Sinja felt his throat go a bit tighter, half-convinced he’d said something wrong. But Balasar only yawned, and the moment passed.
    ‘How would you expect him to defend his city?’ Eustin asked, breaking a stick of bread. ‘Will he come out to meet us, or hide and make us dig him out?’
    ‘Dig, I’d expect. He knows the streets and the tunnels. He knows his men will break if he puts them in the field. And he’ll likely put men in the towers to drop rocks on us as we pass. Taking Machi is going to be unpleasant. Assuming we get there.’
    ‘You still have doubts?’ Balasar asked.
    ‘I’ve never had doubts. One bad storm, and we’re all dead men. I’m as certain of that as I ever was.’
    ‘And you still chose to come with us.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Why?’
    Sinja looked at the burning coals. The deep orange glow and the white dust of ash. Why exactly he had come was a question he’d asked himself more than once since they’d left Tan-Sadar. He could say it was the contract, but that wasn’t the truth and all three of them knew it. He flexed his fingers, feeling the ache in his knuckles.
    ‘There’s something I want there,’ he said.
    ‘You’d like to be the new Khai Machi?’
    ‘In a way,’ Sinja said. ‘Something I’d ask from you instead of my share of the spoils, at least.’
    Balasar nodded, already knowing what Sinja was driving toward. ‘The Lady Kiyan,’ he said.
    ‘I don’t want her raped or killed,’ Sinja said. ‘When the city falls, I’d like her handed over to me. I’ll see she doesn’t do anything stupid or destructive.’
    ‘Her husband and children,’ Eustin said. ‘We will have to kill them.’
    ‘I know it,’ Sinja said, ‘but she’s not from a high family. She’s got no standing aside from her marriage. She won’t pose a threat.’
    ‘And for her sake, you’d betray the Khai?’ Balasar asked.
    Sinja smiled. This question, at least, he could answer honestly and without fear.
    ‘For her sake, sir, I’d betray the gods.’
    Balasar looked at Eustin, his eyebrows rising as if asking an unvoiced question. Eustin considered Sinja for a long moment, then shrugged. Grunting, Balasar shifted and pulled a wooden box from under his cot. He took a stoppered flask from it - good Nantani porcelain - and three small drinking bowls. With growing unease, Sinja waited as Balasar poured out water-clear rice wine in silence, then handed one bowl to Eustin, the next to him.
    ‘I have a favor to ask of you as well,’ Balasar said.
    Sinja drank. The wine was rich and clean and made his chest bloom with warmth, but not so much he lost the tightness in his throat and between his shoulders.
    ‘We can go in,’ Eustin said. ‘Waves of us. Small numbers, one after the other, until we’ve dug out every nook and cranny in the city. But we’ll lose men. A lot of them.’
    ‘Most,’ Balasar said. ‘We’d win. I’m sure of that. But it would take half of my men.’
    ‘That’s bad,’ Sinja said. ‘But there is another plan here, isn’t there?’
    Balasar nodded.
    ‘We can send a man in who can tell us what the defenses are. Who can send word or sign. If we’re lucky, perhaps even a man who can help with planning the defense. And, in return, take the woman he wants.’
    Sinja felt his mind start to spin. The rice wine made it a bit harder to think, but a bit easier to grin. It was ridiculous, except that it made sense. He should have anticipated this. He should have known.
    ‘You want to send me in? As a spy?’
    ‘Take a couple good horses in the morning, and ride hard for the city,’ Eustin said. ‘You’ll arrive a few days ahead of us. You were the Khai’s advisor before. He’ll listen to you, or at least let you listen to him. When the time comes for the attack, you guide us.’
    The captain made a small gesture with one hand, as if what he’d said was simple. Go into Machi, betray Otah and everyone else he’d known this last decade. If I turn against the general, Sinja thought, it’ll be a bad death when these men find me.
    ‘It will be faster this way,’ Balasar said. ‘Fewer people will die on both sides. And, because you ask, the woman is yours. Safe and unharmed if I can do it.’
    ‘I have your word on that?’ Sinja asked.
    Balasar took a pose that accepted an oath. It wasn’t quite the right vocabulary, but