that it's going to conic and drop our screen of leaves before the Galts do."

Otah smiled.

"No, actually, I'd been worrying about other things entirely. "Thank you

for distracting Inc."

The Khai Cetani actually chuckled.

"I'll go and speak With my leaders," he said, clapping Otah on the

shoulder. "Keep their spirits up.-

"I'll do the same," Otah said. "It's coming. They'll he here soon."

The camps had been divided. Groups of men no larger than twenty. Only

one stayed close the road on either side. The others fanned out to the

west. When the Galts appeared at the edge of the last cleared forest,

runners would come from the watch camps, and the men would make their

way to the road. Trees already had been felled at four places along the

path-two before they reached the forest, another halfway to the hill on

which Otah now stood, and the last where the road turned a little to the

south and then west again toward Nlachi. The first time they were forced

to stop, they would expect the attack. By the fourth, Otah hoped they

would only think it another delay. The mixed coal would have their steam

wagons running hotter than thev intended. The hearhunting bows would

prick the steel chambers. In the chaos, the armies would appear, falling

on the Galts' long vulnerable flanks. If it all went well. If the plan

worked. If not, then the gods alone knew how the fight would end.

Night fell cold.'l'he wide cloudless sky seemed to pull the warmth of

the day and land up into it, and Otah, most honored and powerful man in

his city, wrapped an extra cloak around himself and settled down against

it tree, Ashua Radaani snoring gently at his side. I Ic had expected his

dreams to be troubled, but instead he found himself ice fishing, and the

fish he saw moving below the ice were also Kiyan and his children,

playing with him, tugging at the line and then darting away. A trout

that was also Kiyan in a silver-blue robe leapt from the waterwith the

logic of dreams frozen and vet unfrozen-and splashed back down to Otah's

delight when a rough hand shook him awake. Dawn was threatening, gray

and rose in the east, and Saya the blacksmith towered over him, checks

so red they seemed dark in the dim light, nose running, and a grin

showing his teeth.

""They've come, Most High."

Utah leapt up, his back and hip aching from the cold night and the

unforgiving ground. To the east, smoke rose in a wall. Coal smoke from

the Galtic wagons strung along the road from Cetani like beads on a

string. It was earlier in the day than he'd expected them, and as he

pulled on his makeshift armor of boiled leather and metal scale, his

mind leapt ahead, guessing at what tactical advantages the Galtic

captain intended by arriving with the dawn. .

None, of course. They had no way to know Otah's men were there. And

still, Otah considered how the light would strike the road, the trees,

what it would make visible and what it would hide. He could no more stop

his mind than call down the stars.

The sun found the highest reaches of the smoke first, where it had

diffused almost to nothing. Closer to the ground, the smoke was already

visibly nearer. The Gaits had passed the third log barrier while the

runners had come to him. The fourth lay in wait where Utah could see it.

The innocent forest was alive with his men, or so he hoped. From his

place at the ridge of the low hill, he saw only the dozen nearest,

crouched behind trees and stones. Utah heard somethingthe clank of metal

or the sound of a raised voice. He willed them to be silent, fear and

anger at the sound almost enough to make his teeth ache until he heard

it again and realized it was the first of the Gaits.

The bear hunter appeared at his side. He held three of the spearlike

bolts and the great bow. Saya the blacksmith scampered up with another,

its steel heads only just fastened to it. Men appeared on the road below

them.

"The horn. Where's the horn?" Utah said, a sudden fear arcing through

him. If he had learned the lesson of drums and horns from the Galts only

to misplace the signal at the critical moment ... But the brass horn was

at his hip, where it had been since they'd set their trap. He took the

cold metal in his hands, brushing dirt from the mouthpiece.

""They look a bit rough around the edges, eh?" Saya whispered, pointing

at the road with his chin. "Amnat-Tan must have done them some hurt."

Utah looked at the Galtic soldiers. "There were perhaps a hundred that

he could see on this small curve of road. Ile tried to recall what the

men he had faced outside the 1)ai-kvo's village had looked like; how

they had walked, how they had held themselves. He couldn't. The memory

was only of the battle, and of his men, dying. Saya took a pose of

farewell and slunk away, down toward the trees where the battle would

soon begin.

The first of the steam wagons came into sight. He could hear it clacking

like a loom. The wide belly at its back glowed gold in the rising sun.

It was piled with sacks and boxes. Tents, perhaps, or food. Coal for the

furnaces. The packs that soldiers would have worn on their shoulders.

The wreckage he had seen at the 1)ai-kvo's village had let him

understand what these things were, but seeing one move-wheels turning at

the speed of a team at fast trot, and vet without a horse near-was no

less strange than his dreams. For a moment, he felt something like awe

at the mind who had conceived it. The first of the soldiers below him

saw the fallen log and called out-a long musical note that might have

been a word or only a signal. The sound of the steam wagon changed, and

it slowed, jittered once, and came to a halt. The long call came again

and again as it receded down the road like whisperers at court passing

the words of the Khai to distant galleries. The Galts came together,

conferring. At Otah's side, the bear hunter sat back, bracing the curve

of the bow against the soles of his feet. I Ic took one of the bolts,

steadying it between his fists as, two-handed, he drew back the wire.

The how creaked.

"Wait," Utah said.

A man came forward, past the steam wagon. He wore a gray tunic marked

with the Galtic "free. I Iis hair was dark as Utah's own, his skin dark

and leathern. The crowd of men at the fallen trees turned to face him,

their bodies taking attitudes of respect. Utah felt something shift in

his bell-.

"I lim," Utah said.

"Most High?" the huntsman said, strain in his voice.

"Can you hit the man in gray from here?"

'['Ile huntsman strained his neck, turned his body and his bow.

"I lard. Shot," he grunted.

"Can you do it?"