or else come from within his own company. He'd done what he could about
the first, and the second there was no protection for. He raised his hands.
"So most of what we've done since the spring opened has been walk," he
said. "Well, we're in summer now, and you've seen what war looks like.
It's not the war I expected, that's truth. But it's the one we've got,
and you can all thank the gods that we're on the side most likely to
win. But don't think that because this went well, this is over with.
It's a long walk still ahead of us."
He sighed and shifted his weight, the plank wobbling a little under his
feet. A log in the fire popped, firing sparks up into the darkness like
an omen.
"There arc a few of you right now who are thinking of leaving. Don't ...
Quiet now! All of you! Don't lie to yourselves about it and don't lie to
me. This is the first taste of war most of you've seen. And some of you
might have had family or friends in Nantani. I did. But here's what I
have to say to you: Don't do it. Right now it looks like our friends the
Galts can't be stopped. All the gods know there's not a fighting force
anywhere in the cities that could face them, that's truth. But there's
worse things for an army to face than another army. Look at the size of
this force, the simple number of men. It can't carry the food it needs
with it. It can't haul that much water. We have to rely on the land
we're covering. The low towns, the cities. The game we can hunt, the
trees and coal we can feed into those traveling kilns of theirs. The
water we can get from the rivers.
"If the cities North of here can organize-if they can burn the food and
the trees so we have to spend more of our time finding supplies, if they
foul the wells so that we can't move far from the rivers, if they get
small, fast bands together to harass our hunting parties and scouts-we
could still be in for hell's own fight. We took Nantani by surprise.
"I'hat won't happen twice. And that's why I need every man among you
here, keeping that from happening. And besides that, any of you that
leave, the general's going to hunt down like low-town dogs and slit your
bellies for you."
Sinja paused, looking out at the earnest, despairing faces of the boys
he'd led from Machi. He felt old. He rarely felt old, but now he did.
"Don't be stupid," he said, and got down from the plank.
The men raised a late and halfhearted cheer. Sinja waved it away and
headed back to his tent. Overhead, the stars shone where the smoke
didn't obscure them. The cooks had made chicken and pepper rice.
Stinging flies were out, and, to Sinja's mild disgust, Nantani seemed to
be a haven for grass ticks. He spent a quiet, reflective time plucking
the insects out of his skin and cracking them with his thumbnails. It
was near midnight when he heard the roaring crash, thunder rolling
suddenly from the ruined city, and then silence. The dome had fallen, then.
How many of his men would know what the sound had meant, he wondered.
And how many would understand that he'd given them all the strategy for
slowing the Galts, point by point by point. And how many would have
snuck away to the North by morning, thinking they were being clever. But
he could tell the general he'd done as he was told, and no man present