Seasons of War

heads of their houses who through the years he had known them had been flushed with pride and self-assurance. The servant boy poured them each a bowl of equal parts wine and fresh water before ghosting silently out the door. Otah took a pose that opened the audience.
    ‘We will be meeting the Galts sometime in the next several days,’ Otah said. ‘I can’t say where or when, but it will be soon. And when the time comes, we won’t have time to plan our strategy. We have to do that now. Tonight. You have all brought your census?’
    Each man in turn took a scroll from his sleeve and laid it before him. The number of men, the weapons and armor, the horses and the bows and the numbers of arrows and bolts. The final tally of the strength they had managed. Otah looked down at the scrawled ink and hoped it would be enough.
    ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s begin.’
    None of them had ever been called upon to plan a battle before, but each had an area of expertise. Where one knew of the tactics of hunting, another had had trade relations with the Wardens of the Westlands enough to speak of their habits and insights. Slowly they made their plans: What to do when the scouts first brought news of the Galts. Who should command the wedges of archers and cross-bowmen, who the footmen, who the horsemen. How they should protect their flanks, how to pull back the archers when the time came near for the others to engage. Their fingers sketched lines and movements on the floor, their voices rose, became heated, and grew calm again. The moon had traveled the width of six hands together before Otah declared the work finished. Orders were written, shifting men to different commands, specifying the shouted signals that would coordinate the battle, putting the next few uncertain days into the order they imagined for them. When the captains bowed and took their poses of farewell, the clouds had appeared and the first ticking raindrops were striking the canvas. Otah lay on his cot wrapped in blankets of soft wool, listening to the rain, and running through all that they had said. If it worked as they had planned, perhaps all would be well. In the darkness with his belly full of wine and his mind full of the confident words of his men, he could almost think there was hope.
    Dawn was a brightening of clouds, east as gray as west. They struck camp, loaded their wagons, and once again made for the Dai-kvo. The flow of refugees seemed to have stopped. No new faces appeared before them - no horses, no men on foot. Perhaps the rain and mud had stopped them. Perhaps something else. Otah rode near the vanguard, the scouts arriving, riding for a time at his side, and then departing again. It was midmorning and the sun was still hidden behind the low gray ceiling of the world when Nayiit rode up on a thin, skittish horse. Otah motioned him to ride near to his side.
    ‘I’m told I’m to be a messenger,’ Nayiit said. There was a controlled anger in his voice. ‘I’ve drilled with the footmen. I have a sword.’
    ‘You have a horse too.’
    ‘It was given to me with the news,’ Nayiit said. ‘Have I done something to displease you, Most High?’
    ‘Of course not,’ Otah said. ‘Why would you think you had?’
    ‘Why am I not permitted to fight?’
    Otah leaned back, and his mount, reading the shift of his weight, slowed. His back ached and the raw places on his thighs were only half healed. The rain had soaked his robes, so that even the oiled cloth against his skin felt clammy and cold. The rain that pressed Nayiit’s hair close against his neck also tapped against Otah’s squinting eyes.
    ‘How are you not permitted to fight?’ Otah said.
    ‘The men who are making the charge,’ Nayiit said. ‘The men I’ve been traveling with. That I’ve trained with. I want to be with them when the time comes.’
    ‘And I want you to be with me, and with them,’ Otah said. ‘I want you to be the bridge between us.’
    ‘I would prefer not to,’ Nayiit said.
    ‘I understand that. But it’s what I’ve decided.’
    Nayiit’s nostrils flared, and his cheeks pinked. Otah took a pose that thanked the boy and dismissed him. Nayiit wheeled his mount and rode away, kicking up mud as he did. In the distance, the meadows began to rise. They were coming to the Dai-kvo from the north and west, up the long, gentle slope of the mountains rather than the cliffs and crags from which the village was carved. Otah had never come this way before.