The general smiled. "There was a touch of sorrow in his eyes and a long,
thoughtful pause. Sinja felt a decision being made, though he couldn't
say what the issue was.
"Enough to go against their own kind. Not in the field, but I'll want
them as translators and agents. And whatever you can tell me of the
winter cities. I'll want that as well."
Sinja smiled knowingly to cover his racing mind. Gice wasn't taking his
army North. He was going east, into the cities of the Khaiem, with
something close to every able-bodied man in (;air behind him. Sinja
chuckled to hide a rush of fear.
""They'll follow you any place you care to go, so long as they're on the
winning side," Sinja said. "Are you sure that's going to be you?"
"Yes," the general said, and the bare confidence in his voice was more
persuasive than any reasoned argument he might have given. If the man
had been trying to convince himself, he would have had a speech
ready-why this insanity would work, how the army could overpower the
andat, something. But Balasar was certain. The general sipped his water,
waiting the space of five long breaths together. 'T'hen he spoke again.
"You're thinking something?"
"You're not stupid," Sinja said. "So you're either barking mad, or you
know something I don't. No one can take on the Khaiem."
"You mean no one can face the andat."
"Yes," Sinja agreed. "'That's what I mean."
"I can."
"Forgive me if I keep my doubts about me," Sinja said.
The general nodded, considered Sinja for a long moment, then gestured
toward the table. Sinja put down his howl and stepped over as the
general unrolled a long cloth scroll with a map of the cities of the
Khaiem on it. Sinja stepped back from it as if there were an asp on it.
"General," he said, "if you're about to tell me your plans for this
campaign, I think we might be ahead of where we should be."
Balasar put a hand on Sinja's arm. The Gait's gaze was firm and steady,
his voice low and strangely intimate. Sinja saw how a personality like
his own could command an army or a nation. Possibly, he thought, a world.
"Captain Ajutani, I don't share these plans with every mercenary captain
who walks through my door. I don't trust them. I don't show them to my
own captains, barring the ones in my small Council. The others I expect
to trust me. But we're men of the world, you and I. You have something I
think I could use."
"And you have nothing to lose by telling me," Sinja said, slowly.
"Because I'm not leaving this building, am I?"
"Not even to go speak to your men," the general said. "You're here as my
ally or my prisoner."
Sinja shook his head.
"'That's a brave thing to say, General. It's only the two of us in here."
"If you attacked me, I'd kill you where you stood," Balasar said in the
same tone of voice he'd used before, and Sinja believed him. Balasar
smiled gently and nudged him forward, toward the table.
"Let me show you why ally would he the better choice."