The huntsman was silent for half a breath.

"Yes," he said.

"'T'hen do. I)o it now."

The wire made a low thrum and the huntsman did something fast with his

ankles that caught the bow before it could fall. He was already bending

back again when the huge arrow struck. It took the gray man in the side,

just below his ribs, and he collapsed without crying out. Otah fumbled

with his horn, raising it to his lips. The note he blew filled his ears,

so that he only knew the Galts below him were calling out to each other

by the movement of their jaws and their drawn swords and axes.

The second bolt flew at the steam wagon as the soldiers fell back. It

struck the belly of the steam wagon with a low clank and fell useless to

the ground. A horn answering Otah's own called, and something terrible

and sudden and louder than anything Otah had ever heard before drowned

it out. A great cloud gouted up into the sky from perhaps three hundred

yards back in the Galtic column, and then the huntsman at his side

loosed the third bolt, and Otah was deafened.

The cloud of steam and smoke boiled up toward him, and Otah found

himself coughing in the thick, hot air. The huntsman loosed one last

bolt into the murk, stood, drew two daggers, and bounded down toward the

road. Otah stepped forward. He was aware of sounds, though they were

muffled by the ringing in his ears-screams, a trumpet blast, a distant

report as another steam wagon met its end. The road came clear to him

slowly as the mist thinned. The cart had tipped on its side, spilling

its cargo and its men. Perhaps a dozen men lay on the sodden ground,

their flesh seared red as a boiled lobster. Many still stood to fight,

but they seemed half-stunned, and his own men were cutting them down

with a savage glee. The furnace had cracked open, strewing burning coal

across the paving stones. The leaves on the nearest trees, damp from the

steam, seemed brighter and more vibrant than before. Two more steam

wagons burst, the sound like doubled thunder. Otah cried out, rallying

his men to his side, as he moved down to the road and the battle.

The first skirmish, here at the head of the column, was the critical

one. The way forward had to be blocked. If they could push the Galts

back here, they could drive them into their own men, confuse their

formations, keep their balance off. Or so they'd planned, so he hoped.

And as he came down the hill, it seemed possible. The Galts were

wideeyed with surprise, confused, afraid. Otah shouted and waved an axe,

but there was no one there to threaten with it. It had already happened.

The Galts were pulling back.

A bodyguard formed around him as he walked down the road, sol diers

falling in around him and marching hack toward Cetani, cutting down

Gaits as they went. In the distance, a horn sounded the call for

horsemen to attack. Small formations of Gaits-two or three score at

most-held the road's center, confused, surrounded, and unable to

retreat. A few ran to the trees for cover, only to find the forest alive

with enemy blades. The rest fell to arrows and stones. Some engineer had

made sense of Otah's trick, and great white plumes of steam rose into

the sky as the wagons spent their pressure. The air reeked of blood and

hot metal and smoke; it tasted rank. "Twice, a wave of Gaits swung

toward Otah and his steadily increasing guard, only to he thrown hack.

The (;alt army was in disarray, surrounded, confused. Horsemen in the

colors of the high families of Machi and Cetani raised their swords in

salute when they saw Otah.

He walked over the dead and the dying, past steam wagons that had burst

open or been spared, horses that lay dead or flailed and screamed as

they died. The sun was almost at the top of its arc, the whole morning

gone, when Otah reached the last of the wagons, his bodyguard now nearly

the size of his entire force. They had followed him, pinching down on

the Gaits as he'd moved forward. The plains before them stretched out to

Machi, stands of Galtic archers holding positions to cover the retreat.

Otah raised his horn to his lips and called the halt. Others horns

called the acknowledgment. The battle was ended. The Gaits had come this

far and would come no farther. Otah felt himself sag.

From the south, he saw a movement among the men like wind stirring tall

grass. The Khai Cetani came barreling forward, a wide grin on his face,

blood soaking the ornate silk sleeves of his robes. Utah found himself

grinning hack. Ile took a pose of congratulations, but the Khai Cetani

whooped and wrapped his arms around Utah's waist, lifting him like Utah

was a child in his father's arms.

"You've done it!" the Khai Cetani shouted. "You've beaten the bastards!"

We have, Otah tried to say, but he was being lifted upon the shoulders

of his men. A roar passed through the assembled men-a thousand throats

opening as one. Otah let himself smile, let the relief wash over him.

The Galtic army was broken. They would not reach Machi before winter

came. Ile had done it.

They carried him back and forth before the men, the shouts and salutes

following him like a windstorm. As he came hack to the main road, he was

amazed to see the Khai Cetani-all decorum and rank forgotten-dancing arm

in arm with common laborers and huntsmen. The Khai Cetani caught sight

of him, raised a blade in salute, and called out words that Otah

couldn't hear. The men around him abandoned their dance, and drew their

own blades, taking up the call, and Otah felt his throat close as he

understood the words, as he heard them repeated, moving out through the

men like a ripple in a pond.

7b the Emperor.

BALASAR STOOD IN THE GREAT SQUARE OF 'IAN-SADAR. 'I'IlE SKY WAS WHITE

and chill, and the trees that stood in the eastern corners were nearly

bare of leaves. A good day, Balasar thought, for endings. The

representatives of the utkhaiem stood beneath square-framed colonnades,

staring out at him and his company two hundred strong and in their most

imposing array of arms and armor and at the Khai "Ian-Sadar, bound and

kneeling on the brickwork at Balasar's feet. The poet of the city had

burned to death among his books on the day Balasar had entered the city,

but the disposition of the Khai was less important. A few days waiting

in the public jail where men and women passing by could see him

languishing posed no particular threat to the world, and the campaign

that was now behind him had left Balasar tired.

"Do you have anything you want to say?" Balasar asked in the Khai's own

language.

He was a younger man than Balasar had expected. Perhaps no more than

thirty summers. It seemed young to have the responsibility of a city

upon him or to be slaughtered in front of the nobles who had betrayed

him to a conqueror. The Khai shook his head once, a curt and elegant motion.