day's end. The stories they told Otah were the same. Ships had come to

Yalakeht-warships loaded heavy with Galtic soldiers. Some of the ships

were merchant vessels that had been on trade runs to Chahuri- "lan.

Others were unfamiliar. The harbor master had tried to refuse them

berths, but a force of men had come from the warehouse district and

taken control of the seafront. By the time the Khai had gathered a force

to drive them hack, it was too late. Yalakeht had fallen. Any hope that

Otah's army might he on a fool's errand ended with that news.

In the night, more men came, drawn by the light and scent of the army's

cook fires. Otah saw that they were welcomed, and the tale grew. Boats

had been waiting, half assembled, in the warehouses of Galtic merchants

in \'alakcht. Great metal boilers ran paddle wheels, and pushed their

wide, shallow boats upriver faster than oxen could pull. Boats loaded

with men and steam wagons. The low towns nearest Yalakeht had been

overrun. Another force had been following along the shore, hauling food

and supplies. The soldiers themselves had sped for the Dal-kvo. Just as

Otah had feared they would.

Utah sat in his tent and listened to the cicadas. They sang as if

nothing was changing. As if the world was as it had always been. A

breeze blew from the south, heavy with the smell of rain though the

clouds were still few and distant. Trees nodded their branches to one

another. Utah kept his hack to the fire and stared out at darkness.

"There was no way to know whether the Galtic army had reached the

village yet. Perhaps the Dai-kvo was preparing some defense, perhaps the

village had been encircled and overrun. From the tales he'd heard, once

the Galts and their steam wagons reached the good roads leading from the

river to the village itself, they would be able to travel faster than

news of them.

It had been almost thirty years ago when Otah had traveled tip that

river carrying a message from Saraykeht. The memory of it was like

something from a dream. "There had been an older man-younger, likely,

than Otah was now-who had run the boat with his daughter. They had never

spoken of the girl's mother, and Otah had never asked. That child

daughter would he a woman now, likely with children of her own. Otah

wondered what had become of her, wondered whether that half-recalled

river girl was among those flying out of the storm into which he was

heading, or if she had been in one of the towns that the army had destroyed.

A polite scratch came at the door, his servant announcing himself. Utah

called out his permission, and the door opened. He could see the

silhouettes of Ashua Radaani and his other captains looming behind the

servant boy's formal pose.

"Bring them in," Otah said. "And bring us wine. Wait. Watered wine."

The six men lumbered in. Utah welcomed them all with formal gravity. The

fine hunting robes in which they had come out from Machi had been

scraped clean of mud. The stubble had been shaved from their chins. From

these small signs and from the tightness in their bodies, Utah knew they

had all drawn the same conclusions he had. He stood while they folded

themselves down to the cushion-strewn floor. "Then, silently, Utah sat

on his chair, looking down at these grown men, 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 he 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 crossbowmen, who the footmen, who the

horsemen. How they should protect their flanks, how to pull hack the

archers when the time came near for the others to engage. 'T'heir

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 I)ai-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 he 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 hack, 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.