""They died in my war. My men, in my war."
"I see what you mean about pride."
Balasar looked up sharply, his lips thin, his face flushing. Sinja
waited, and the general forced a smile. The maple leaves tapped against
each other in the shifting breeze.
"I should have kept better discipline," Balasar said. "The men came to
Udun for a slaughter. There's no mercy out there today. It's going to
take longer to sack the city, it's going to mean more casualties for us,
and tltani and 'Ian-Sadar will know what happened. They'll know it's a
fight to the last man."
"As I recall, you came to destroy the Khaiem," Sinja said. "Not to
conquer them."
Balasar nodded, accepting the criticism in Sinja's tone as his due.
Sinja half-expected to see the general's hands take a pose of
contrition, but instead he looked into Sinja's eyes. There was no
remorse there, only the hard look of a man who has claimed his own
failures and steeled himself to correcting them.
"I can destroy the Khaiem without killing every fruit seller and baker's
apprentice along the way," Balasar said. "I need your help to do it.
"You had something in mind."
"I want your men to carry messages to Utani and Tan-Sadar. Not to the
Khaiem. The utkhaiem and merchant houses. Men who have power. Tell them
that if they stand aside when we come, they won't be harmed. We want the
poets, and the books, and the Khaiem."
Sinja shook his head.
"You might as well run a spear through us now," Sinja said. "We're
traitors. Yes, I know we're a mercenary company, and we took service and
on and on. But every man I have was born in these cities we're sacking.
Waving a contract isn't going to excuse them in the eyes of the
citizens. Send prisoners instead. Find a dozen men your soldiers haven't
quite hacked to death and use them to carry the messages. They'll be
more effective than we will anyway."
"You think they can be trusted not to simply flee?"
"Catch a man and his wife. Or a father and child. There have to be a few
left out there. Bring me the hostages and I'll keep them safe. When the
husbands and fathers come back, you can give them a few lengths of
silver and a day's head start. It won't undo what we've done here, but
having a few survivors tell tales of your honorable treatment is better
than none."
Balasar sipped his tea. "l'he general's brow was furrowed.
""That's wise," he said at last. "We'll do that. I'll have my men bring
the hostages to you by nightfall."
"Best not to rape them," Sinja said. "It takes something from the spirit
of the thing if they're treated poorly."
"You're the one looking after them."
"And I can control the situation once they're in my care. It's before
that I'm worried by."
"I'll see to it. If I give the order, it will be followed. "They're my
men." Ile said it as if he were reminding himself of something more than