Seasons of War

alphabet of the Old Empire. Maati’s fingertips traced the words, looking for something, some passage or phrase. Liat found herself holding her breath. And then his hand stopped moving.
    The grammar was antiquated and formal, the language almost too old to make sense of. Liat silently struggled to translate the words that had caught Maati short.
The second type is made up of those thoughts impossible to bind by their nature, and no greater knowledge shall ever permit them. Examples of this are Imprecision and Freedom-From-Bondage.
    ‘I know what they’ve done,’ he said.

11
    N antani had been one of the first cities built when the Second Empire reached out past its borders to put its mark on the distant lands they now inhabited. The palace of the Khai was topped by a dome the color of jade - a single stone shaped by the will of some long-dead poet. When the sunlight warmed it in just the right way, it would chime, a low voice rolling out wordlessly over the whitewashed walls and blue tile roofs of the city.
    Sinja had wintered in Nantani for a few seasons, retreating from the snowbound fields of the Westlands to wait in comfort for the thaw and spend the money he’d earned. He knew the scent of the sea here, the feel of the soft, chalky soil beneath his feet. He knew of an old man who sold garlic sausages from a stall near the temple that were the best he’d had in the world. He knew the sound of the great sun chime. He had not known that the deep, throbbing tone would also come when the palace below it burned.
    There were other fires as well: pillars of black, rolling smoke that rose into the air like filthy clouds. The doors he passed as he walked down to the seafront were broken and splintered. The shutters at the windows clacked open and closed in the breeze. Often they passed wide swaths of half-dry blood on the ground or smeared on the rough white walls.
    The city had been home to over a hundred thousand people. It had fallen in a morning.
    Balasar had sent three forces in through the wide streets to the Khai’s palace, the poet’s house, the libraries. When those three things were destroyed, the signal went out - brass horns blaring the sack. When the signal reached the remaining forces, it was a storm of chaos. Some men ran for the inner parts of the city, hoping to find richer pickings. Others grabbed the first mercantile house they saw and took whatever was there to find - goods, gold, women. For the time it took the sun to travel the width of a man’s hand, Nantani was a scene from the old stories of hell as the soldiery took what they could for themselves.
    And then the second call came, and the looting stopped. Those few who were so maddened by greed or lust that they ignored the call were taken to their captains, relieved of what wealth they had grabbed, and then a fifth of them killed as an example to others. This was an army of discipline, and the free-for-all was over. Now the studied, considered dismantling of the city began.
    Quarter by quarter, street by street, the armies of Galt stripped the houses and basements, outbuildings and kitchens and coal stores. Sinja’s own men led each force, calling out in breaking voices that Nantani had fallen, that her people were permanently indentured to Galt, their belongings forfeit. And all the wealth of the city was stripped down, put on carts and wagons, and pulled to a great pile at the seafront. Some men fought and were killed. Some fled and were hunted down or ignored, at the whim of the soldiers who found them. And the great blackening dome of jade sang out its grief and mourning.
    Sinja caught sight of the pavilion erected by the growing pile of treasure. The banners of Galt and Gice hung from the bar that topped the fluttering canvas. Sinja and the soldiers Balasar Gice had sent to collect him strode to it. At the seafront, ships stood ready to receive what had once been Nantani, and was now the fortune of Galt. Balasar stood at a writing desk, consulting with a clerk over a ledger. The general still wore his armor - embroidered silk as thick as three fingers together. Sinja had seen its like before. Armor that would stop a spear or a sword cut, but weighed likely half as much as the man who wore it. And still when Balasar caught sight of them and walked forward, hand outstretched to Sinja, there was no weariness in him.
    ‘Captain Ajutani,’ Balasar said, his hand clasping Sinja’s, ‘come sit with me.’
    Sinja took a pose