towers to drop rocks on us as we pass. 'hiking hlachi is going to be
unpleasant. Assuming we get there."
"You still have doubts?" Balasar asked.
"I've never had doubts. One bad storm, and we're all dead men. I'm as
certain of that as I ever was."
"And you still chose to come with us."
"Yes, sir."
"Why?"
Sinja looked at the burning coals. The deep orange glow and the white
dust of ash. Why exactly he had come was a question he'd asked himself
more than once since they'd left'I n-Sadar. He could say it was the
contract, but that wasn't the truth and all three of them knew it. He
flexed his fingers, feeling the ache in his knuckles.
""There's something I want there," he said.
"You'd like to he the new Khai Machi?"
"In a way," Sinja said. "Something I'd ask from you instead of my share
of the spoils, at least."
Balasar nodded, already knowing what Sinja was driving toward. ""I'he
Lady Kiyan," he said.
"I don't want her raped or killed," Sinja said. "When the city falls,
I'd like her handed over to me. I'll see she doesn't do anything stupid
or destructive."
"Her husband and children," F,ustin said. "We will have to kill them."
"I know it," Sinja said, "hut she's not from a high family. She's got no
standing aside from her marriage. She won't pose a threat."
"And for her sake, you'd betray the Khai?" Balasar asked.
Sinja smiled. 't'his question, at least, he could answer honestly and
without fear.
"For her sake, sir, I'd betray the gods."
Balasar looked at Eustin, his eyebrows rising as if asking an unvoiced
question. Eustin considered Sinja for a long moment, then shrugged.
Grunting, Balasar shifted and pulled a wooden box from under his cot. He
took a stoppered flask from it-good Nantani porcelain-and three small
drinking howls. With growing unease, Sinja waited as Balasar poured out
water-clear rice wine in silence, then handed one howl to Eustin, the
next to him.
"I have a favor to ask of you as well," Balasar said.
Sinja drank. The wine was rich and clean and made his chest bloom with
warmth, but not so much he lost the tightness in his throat and between
his shoulders.
"We can go in," Eustin said. "Waves of us. Small numbers, one after the
other, until we've dug out every nook and cranny in the city. But we'll
lose men. A lot of them."
"Most," Balasar said. "We'd win. I'm sure of that. But it would take
half of my men."
""That's had," Sinja said. "But there is another plan here, isn't there?"
Balasar nodded.
"We can send a man in who can tell us what the defenses are. Who can
send word or sign. If we're lucky, perhaps even a man who can help with