speaking to Riaan about before we came?"
"Himself mostly," the captain said. "Is there another subject he's
interested in?"
"He was concerned when I spoke with him. Concerned with things that
never seemed to occur to him before. You wouldn't have anything to do
with that, would you?"
"No, General," Sinja said. "Wouldn't be any profit in it."
Balasar nodded and resumed the path to his rooms. Eustin fell in beside him.
"I don't like that man," Eustin said under his breath. "I don't trust him."
"I do," Balasar said. "I trust him to be and to have always been my
staunchest supporter just as soon as he's sure we're going to win. He's
a mercenary, but he isn't a spy. And his men will be useful."
"Still."
"It will be fine."
Balasar didn't give his uncertainties and fears free rein until he was
safely alone in the borrowed library, and then his mind rioted. Perhaps
Sinja was right-the poet could fail, the Khaiem could divine his
purpose, the destruction he'd dedicated himself to preventing might be
brought about by his miscalculation. Everything might still fail. A
thousand threats and errors clamored.
He took out his maps again for the thousandth time. Each road was marked
on the thin sheepskin. Each bridge and ford. Each city. Fourteen cities
in a single season. They would take Nantani and then scatter. The other
forces would come in from the sea. It was nearing summer, and he told
himself again and again as if hoping to convince himself that after the
sun rose tomorrow, it would be a question only of speed.
In the first battle he'd fought, Balasar had been a crossbowman. He and
a dozen like him were supposed to loose their bolts into the packed,
charging bodies of the warriors of Eymond and then pull back, letting
the men with swords and axes and flails-men like his fathermove in and
take up the melee. He'd hardly been a boy at the time, much less a man.
He had done as he was told, as had the others, but once they were safely
over the rise of the hill, out of sight of the enemy and the battle,
Balasar had been stupid. The grunts and shrieks and noise of bodies in
conflict were like a peal of thunder that never faded. The sound called
to him. With each shriek from the battle, he imagined that it had been
his father. The nightmare images of the violence happening just over the
rise chewed at him. I le'd had to see it. He had gone back over. It had
almost cost him his life.
One of the soldiers of Eymond had spotted him. He'd been a large man,
tall as a tree it had seemed at the time. He'd broken away from the
fight and rushed up the hill, axe raised and blood on his mind. Balasar
remembered the panic when he understood that his own death was rushing
up the hill toward him. The wise thing would have been to flee; if he
could have gotten back to the other bowmen, they might have killed the
soldier. But instead, without thought, he started to bend back the
leaves of the crossbow, fumbling the bolt with fingers that had seemed
numb as sausages. Though only one of them was running, it had been a race.
When he'd raised the bow and loosed the bolt, the man had been fewer