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.
"How are you not permitted to fight?" Otah said.
""I'he men who are making the charge," Nayiit said. "The men I've been
traveling with. That I've trained with. I want to be with them when the
time comes."
"And I want you to be with me, and with them," Otah said. "I want you to
be the bridge between us."
"I would prefer not to," Naylit said.
"I understand that. But it's what I've decided."
Nayiit's nostrils flared, and his cheeks pinked. Utah took a pose that
thanked the boy and dismissed him. Nayiit wheeled his mount and rode
away, kicking up mud as he did. In the distance, the meadows began to
rise. They were coming to the Dai-kvo from the North and west, up the
long, gentle slope of the mountains rather than the cliffs and crags
from which the village was carved. Utah had never come this way before.
For all his discomfort and the dread in his belly, this gray-green world
was lovely. He tried not to think of Nayiit or of the men whom his boy
had asked permission to die with. We are his fathers, Maati had said,
and Utah had agreed. He wondered if the others would also see Nayiit's
duty as a protection of him. He wondered if they would guess that I)anat
wasn't his only son. He hoped that they would all live long enough for
such problems to matter.
The scout came just before midday. He'd seen a rider in Galtic colors.
He'd been seen as well. Otah accepted the information and set the
couriers to ride closer and in teams. He felt his belly tighten and
wondered how far from its main force the Galts would send their riders.
That was the distance between him and his first battle. His first war.
It was near evening when the two armies found each other. The scouts had
given warning, and still, as Otah topped the rise, the sight of them was
astounding. The army of Galt stood still at the far end of the long,
shallow valley, silent as ghosts in the gray rain. 'T'heir banners
should have been green and gold, but in the wet and with the distance,
they seemed merely black. Otah paused, trying to guess how many men
faced him. Perhaps half again his own. Perhaps a little less. And they
were here, waiting for him. The I)ai-kvo's village was behind them.
He wondered if he had come too late. Perhaps the Galts had sacked the
village and slaughtered the Uai-kvo. Perhaps they had had word of Otah's
coming and bypassed the prize to reach him here, before his men could
take cover in the buildings and palaces of mountain. Perhaps the Galts
had divided, and the men facing him were what he had spared the
[)ai-kvo. "There was no way to know the situation, and only one course
available to him, whatever the truth.