Seasons of War

Otah said, stalking back to the Khai Cetani and the servants. There was snow gathering on the servants’ shoulders. ‘I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t command a battle blind and guessing. Where are the runners?’
    The eldest of the servants took a pose of apology.
    ‘Then go find out,’ Otah said.
    But Otah felt in his bones what the runners would tell him. Before the signals came - trumpets struggling through the muffling snow. Before the Galtic drums broke out in their manic pounding. Nine thousand veterans led by the greatest general in Galt were pouring into his city and facing blacksmiths and vegetable carters, laborers and warehouse guards.
    He was losing.

24
    B alasar trotted through the streets, his shield held above his head. Despite what Sinja had said, the great towers of Machi commanded the streets around them fairly well. Throughout the day, stones and bricks peppered his men, sailing down from the sky with the force of boulders hurled by siege engines. Arrows sometimes came down as well, their points shattering against the ground where they struck despite the slowly growing cushion of snow. He ducked into another doorway when he came to it. Five of his own men were waiting, and the bodies of ten or so of the enemy. It was a slow process, spreading out and then moving down not only the streets that were the fastest path to the tunnels, but also two or three to each side. The Khai Machi had learned a trick, and he’d used it against Coal. But he didn’t have a second strategy, and so Balasar knew where to find the waiting forces - just back from where they’d be seen, waiting to attack on all sides at once. Instead, Balasar was killing them by handfuls. It was a bad way to fight - bloody, slow, painful, and unnecessary.
    But it was better than losing.
    ‘General Gice, sir,’ the captain said as all the men saluted him. Balasar raised his hand. His arm ached from holding the raised shield. ‘We’re making progress, sir.’
    ‘Good,’ Balasar said. ‘What have we found?’
    ‘All the smaller passages are blocked off, sir. Collapsed or filled with rubble so deep we can’t tell how long it would take to dig them out. And they’re narrow, sir. Two men together at most.’
    ‘We wouldn’t want those anyway,’ Balasar said. ‘Better we keep for the objectives. And casualties?’
    ‘We’re estimating five hundred of the enemy dead, sir. But that’s rough.’
    ‘And our men?’
    ‘Perhaps half that,’ the captain said.
    ‘So many?’
    ‘They aren’t good fighters, sir, but they’re committed.’
    Balasar sighed, his mind shifting. If he assumed the force pushing toward the palaces was having similar luck, that meant something like fifteen hundred dead since he’d walked into the city. More, if there was resistance in the south. This wasn’t a battle, only slow, ugly slaughter. He went to the doorway, peering out down the street. He could hear the sounds of fighting - men’s voices, the clash of metal on metal. A hundred small outbursts that became a constant roar, like raindrops falling on a pond.
    ‘Get the drummer,’ he said. ‘We’ll make a push for it. Scatter the enemy, take the entrance to the tunnels and then get runners to the others.’
    ‘The men we’re seeing, sir. They’re able-bodied. And decent fighters, some of them.’
    ‘They wanted to do this on the surface,’ Balasar said. ‘The tunnels will be their second string. It won’t be as bad once we’re in there. If they’re smart, they’ll see there’s no point going on.’
    The captain saluted without answering. Balasar was willing to take that as agreement.
    It took perhaps half a hand to gather a force of men together. Two hundred soldiers would press forward and take the forges, where Sinja had said the paths down would be open. They were only another street down. There wasn’t a line of defenders to crush, so the horsemen were less useful. They could still move fast, and men on foot who entered the streets wouldn’t be able to attack them easily. Footmen with archers interspersed between them ducking fast from doorway to doorway was the best plan.
    He explained it all to the group leaders, watching the men’s faces as he asked them to run through the rain of stones and arrows. Two hundred men to move forward, to take control of the forges and then hold the position against anything that came up out of it until the rest of their force could join them. Balasar would lead them. Not