The cloud of steam and smoke boiled up toward him, and Otah found
himself coughing in the thick, hot air. The huntsman loosed one last
bolt into the murk, stood, drew two daggers, and bounded down toward the
road. Otah stepped forward. He was aware of sounds, though they were
muffled by the ringing in his ears-screams, a trumpet blast, a distant
report as another steam wagon met its end. The road came clear to him
slowly as the mist thinned. The cart had tipped on its side, spilling
its cargo and its men. Perhaps a dozen men lay on the sodden ground,
their flesh seared red as a boiled lobster. Many still stood to fight,
but they seemed half-stunned, and his own men were cutting them down
with a savage glee. The furnace had cracked open, strewing burning coal
across the paving stones. The leaves on the nearest trees, damp from the
steam, seemed brighter and more vibrant than before. Two more steam
wagons burst, the sound like doubled thunder. Otah cried out, rallying
his men to his side, as he moved down to the road and the battle.
The first skirmish, here at the head of the column, was the critical
one. The way forward had to be blocked. If they could push the Galts
back here, they could drive them into their own men, confuse their
formations, keep their balance off. Or so they'd planned, so he hoped.
And as he came down the hill, it seemed possible. The Galts were
wideeyed with surprise, confused, afraid. Otah shouted and waved an axe,
but there was no one there to threaten with it. It had already happened.
The Galts were pulling back.
A bodyguard formed around him as he walked down the road, sol diers
falling in around him and marching hack toward Cetani, cutting down
Gaits as they went. In the distance, a horn sounded the call for
horsemen to attack. Small formations of Gaits-two or three score at
most-held the road's center, confused, surrounded, and unable to
retreat. A few ran to the trees for cover, only to find the forest alive
with enemy blades. The rest fell to arrows and stones. Some engineer had
made sense of Otah's trick, and great white plumes of steam rose into
the sky as the wagons spent their pressure. The air reeked of blood and
hot metal and smoke; it tasted rank. "Twice, a wave of Gaits swung
toward Otah and his steadily increasing guard, only to he thrown hack.
The (;alt army was in disarray, surrounded, confused. Horsemen in the
colors of the high families of Machi and Cetani raised their swords in
salute when they saw Otah.
He walked over the dead and the dying, past steam wagons that had burst
open or been spared, horses that lay dead or flailed and screamed as
they died. The sun was almost at the top of its arc, the whole morning
gone, when Otah reached the last of the wagons, his bodyguard now nearly
the size of his entire force. They had followed him, pinching down on
the Gaits as he'd moved forward. The plains before them stretched out to
Machi, stands of Galtic archers holding positions to cover the retreat.
Otah raised his horn to his lips and called the halt. Others horns
called the acknowledgment. The battle was ended. The Gaits had come this
far and would come no farther. Otah felt himself sag.
From the south, he saw a movement among the men like wind stirring tall
grass. The Khai Cetani came barreling forward, a wide grin on his face,