"Captain Ajutani? lie's here, in the city. Wintering here with the rest

of us. He's done quite well for himself. And for us. I le's given me

some very good advice."

Eustin grunted and shook his head.

"Still don't trust him, sir."

"He's more or less out of opportunities to betray us," Balasar said, and

Eustin spat into the fire by way of reply.

Over the next days, the arms' shifted slowly from the rigorous

discipline of the road to the bawdy, long, low riot that comes with

wintering in a captured city. The locals-tradesmen and laborers and

utkhaiem alikeseemed stunned by the change. They were polite and

accommodating because Balasar's men were armed and practiced and

thousands strong, but as Balasar walked down the long, winding red brick

streets, he had the feeling that "Ian-Sadar was hoping to wake from this

nightmare and find the world once again as it had been. A hard, bitter

wind came from the North, and behind it, the season's first thin,

tentative snow.

lie found his mind turning hack to the west and home. The darkness

Eustin had seen in him grew with the prospect of returning. The years he

had spent gathering the threads of his campaign had come to their end;

that it was ending in triumph only partly forgave that it was ending. He

found himself wondering who he would be now that he was no longer the

man driven to destroy the andat. In the mornings, he imagined himself

living on his hereditary estate near Kirinton, perhaps taking a wife.

Perhaps teaching in one of the military academics. All his old dreams

revisited. As the sun peaked low in the sky and scuttled toward the

horizon, the fantasy darkened too. He would be a racing dog with nothing

left to chase. And worst, in the dark of the nights, he tried to sleep,

his mind pricked by another day gone by without word from the North and

the sick fear that despite all their successes, something had gone wrong.

And then, on a cold, clear morning, the courier from Coal arrived. Only

it wasn't from Coal. Not really. Because Coal was dead, and Balasar had

another ghost at his heels.

""I'hey came without warning," Balasar said. ""They were hiding in the

trees, like street bandits. He was the first to fall."

"I'm sorry to hear it," Sinja said. "It was a dishonorable attack. Not

that the honorable one did them much good from what I've heard."

Eustin's face might have been carved from stone.

"You have a point to make, Captain?" Balasar asked.

"Only that he did make an honest man's try on the field outside the

Dal-kvo's village, and he failed. "There's only so much you can count

against him that he tried a different tack."

He killed my men, Balasar wanted to say. Wanted to shout. He killed Coal.

Instead, he paced the length of the wide parlor, staring at the maps

he'd unrolled after he'd unsewn the letter from the remnants of the

northern force. The oil lamps hung from their chains, adding a thick

buttery light to the thin gray sunlight that filtered in from the

windows. Cetani was occupied, but the library was emptied, Khai and poet

missing along with the full population of the city. Machi remained. The

last of the poets, the last of the books, the last of the Khaiem. His

fingertips traced the route that would take him there.

"It's no use, General," Sinja said. "You can't put an army in the field

this late in the season. It's too cold. One half-decent storm will

freeze them to death."

"It's still autumn," Dustin said. "Winter's not come quite yet."

"It's a Northern autumn," Sinja said. "You're thinking it's like

Eddensea, but I'll tell you it's not. There's no ocean nearby to hold

the heat in. General, Machi isn't going anywhere between now and the

first thaw. The Dal-kvo's meat on a stick. Your man burned his books.

"I'hev have the same chance of binding a fresh andat before spring that

I have of growing wings and flying. And you have every chance of killing

more of your men than have died since we left the \Vestlands if you go

out there now."

"' ou've always given me good advice, Captain Ajutani," Balasar said. "I

appreciate your wisdom on this."

"I wouldn't call it wisdom particularly," Sinja said. "Just a common

interest in not turning into ice sculpture in a bean field somewhere be-

twwwecn here and there."

"Thank you," Balasar said, his tone making it clear that the meeting had

ended. Sinja saluted Balasar, nodded to Eustin, and made his way out.

The door closed with a click. F,ustin coughed.

"Do you think he's lying?" Balasar said. "I le'd been living in \lachi.

If there were a place he didn't rant captured, it would be there."

Eustin frowned, arms folded across his chest. lie looked older, Balasar

thought. The grief of losing Coal was heavy on his shoulders too. In a

sense, they were the last. 'T'here were other men who had taken part in

the campaign, but only the two of them had been there from the

beginning. Only they had been to the desert. And so there was no one

else who could have this conversation and truly understand it.

"I le's not lying," Eustin said. I lis voice was thick. Balasar could

hear how much it had cost him to agree with Sinja. "h,verything I've

heard says the cold up there is deadly. It's not a pleasant day out now,

and the season's milder here."

"And Nlachi's army?"

Eustin shrugged.

"It wasn't an honorable fight," he said. "If we empty t'tani and "lan-

Sadar, we've got something near three times the men Coal had at the end."

It would take them weeks to reach Nlachi, even if they started now. A

bad storm would be worse than a battle. "Ian-Sadar, on the other hand,

was a safe place to winter, and when the spring came, they could

overwhelm Machi in safety. They could revenge Coal a thousand times

over. 'T'here was no army that could come to \lachi's aid. Meaningful

defenses for the city couldn't be built in that time.

Snow was the only armor the enemy had, and the turning seasons would he

enough to remove it. Every strategist in Galt would counsel that he

wait, plan, prepare, rest. But there were poets in Machi, and all the

world to lose if he failed.

He looked up from the maps. His gaze met Eustin's, and they stood

together in silence, the only two men in the world who would look at

these facts, these odds, these stakes, and have no need to debate them.

"I'll break it to the men," Eustin said.

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