"A man who doesn't know what he's doing with this can scrape the meat
off his legs," the huntsman said.
Otah stopped tossing the bow and turned to consider the man. The
huntsman blushed, realizing what he had just said and to whom. He took a
pose of obeisance and backed away from the two Khaiem, folding himself
in among the trees and vanishing. The Khai Cetani sighed and took a pose
of apology.
"He's a good enough man," he said, "but he forgets his place."
"He isn't wrong," Otah said. "If this were a better time to have our
orders questioned, I'd have listened to him. But then, if it were a
better time, we wouldn't be out here."
The last of the men and women fleeing Cetani had passed them five days
before, carts and wagons and sacks slung over hunched backs. For five
days, the combined forces of Cetani and Machi had haunted these woods,
sharpening their weapons and planning the attack. And growing bored and
hungry and cold. Two nights ago, Otah had ordered an end to all fires.
The smoke would give them away, and the prospect of a halfsleeping man
dropping a stray ember on the forest floor was too likely. The men
grumbled, but enough of them saw the sense of it that the edict hadn't
been ignored. Not yet.
It wouldn't be many more days, though. If the Galts didn't come, the men
would grow restive and careless, and when the time came, it would be the
battle before the Dai-kvo again, only this time, the Galts would march
into Machi. The bodies left in the streets wouldn't be of poets. They
would be the families of every man in the hidden clumps that dotted the
hills. "Their mothers, fathers, lovers, children. Everyone they knew.
Everyone that remained. That Was good for another day. Perhaps two.
"You're thinking of the frost," the Khai Cetani said. "You're worried
that it's going to conic and drop our screen of leaves before the Galts do."
Otah smiled.
"No, actually, I'd been worrying about other things entirely. "Thank you
for distracting Inc."
The Khai Cetani actually chuckled.
"I'll go and speak With my leaders," he said, clapping Otah on the
shoulder. "Keep their spirits up.-
"I'll do the same," Otah said. "It's coming. They'll he here soon."
The camps had been divided. Groups of men no larger than twenty. Only
one stayed close the road on either side. The others fanned out to the
west. When the Galts appeared at the edge of the last cleared forest,
runners would come from the watch camps, and the men would make their
way to the road. Trees already had been felled at four places along the
path-two before they reached the forest, another halfway to the hill on
which Otah now stood, and the last where the road turned a little to the
south and then west again toward Nlachi. The first time they were forced
to stop, they would expect the attack. By the fourth, Otah hoped they
would only think it another delay. The mixed coal would have their steam
wagons running hotter than thev intended. The hearhunting bows would
prick the steel chambers. In the chaos, the armies would appear, falling
on the Galts' long vulnerable flanks. If it all went well. If the plan