sanyam 1

AN

AUTUMN
WAR

Tor Books by Daniel Abraham

The Long Price Quartet

A Shadow in Summer

A Betrayal in Winter

An Autumn War

The Price of Spring (2009)

AN

AUTUMN
WAR

Daniel Abraham

A Tom Doherty Associates Book
New York

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. AN AUTUMN WAR: BOOK THREE OF THE LONG PRICE QUARTET Copyright 0 2008 by Daniel Abraham All rights reserved. Edited by James Frenkel Maps by Jackie Aher A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 1001(1

www.tor-forge.com Tor' is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Abraham, Daniel. An autumn war / Daniel Abraham.-1st ed. p. cm. "A Tom Doherty Associates hook." ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1342-3 ISBN-10: 0-7653-1342-1 1. 't'itle. PS3601.B677 A96 2(x)8 813'.6 --dc 22 2008016974

First Edition: July 2008 Printed in the United States of America 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Jim and Allison, without whom none of this would have been possible

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Once again, I would like to extend my thanks to Walter Jon Williams, Melinda Snodgrass, Emily Mah, S. NI. Stirling, Terry England, Ian Tregillis, Ty Franck, George R. R. Martin, and the other members of the New Mexico Critical Mass Workshop.

I also owe debts of gratitude to Shawna McCarthy and Danny Baror for their enthusiasm and faith in the project, to James Frenkel for his unstinting support and uncanny ability to improve a manuscript, and to Tom Doherty and the staff at Tor for their kindness and support.


AN

AUTUMN
WAR

PROLOG

Three men came out of the desert. Twenty had gone in.

The setting sun pushed their shadows out behind them, lit their faces a ruddy gold, blinded them. The weariness and pain in their bodies robbed them of speech. On the horizon, something glimmered that was no star, and they moved silently toward it. The farthest tower of Far Galt, the edge of the Empire, beckoned them home from the wastes, and without speaking, each man knew that they would not stop until they stood behind its gates.

The smallest of them shifted the satchel on his back. His gray commander's tunic hung from his flesh as if the cloth itself were exhausted. His mind turned inward, half-dreaming, and the leather straps of the satchel rubbed against his raw shoulder. The burden had killed seventeen of his men, and now it was his to carry as far as the tower that rose tip slowly in the violet air of evening. Ile could not bring himself to think past that.

One of the others stumbled and fell to his knees on wind-paved stones. The commander paused. He would not lose another, not so near the end. And yet he feared bending down, lifting the man up. If he paused, he might never move again. Grunting, the other man recovered his feet. The commander nodded once and turned again to the west. A breeze stirred the low, brownish grasses, hissing and hushing. The punishing sun made its exit and left behind twilight and the wide swath of stars hanging overhead, cold candles beyond numbering. The night would bring chill as deadly as the midday heat.

It seemed to the commander that the tower did not so much come closer as grow, plantlike. He endured his weariness and pain, and the structure that had been no larger than his thumb was now the size of his hand. The beacon that had seemed steady flickered now, and tongues of flame leapt and vanished. Slowly, the details of the stonework came clear; the huge carved relief of the Great Tree of Galt. He smiled, the skin of his lip splitting, wetting his mouth with blood.

"We're not going to die," one of the others said. He sounded amazed. The commander didn't respond, and some measureless time later, another voice called for them to stop, to offer their names and the reason that they'd come to this twice-forsaken ass end of the world.

When the commander spoke, his voice was rough, rusting with disuse.

"Go to your High Watchman," he said. "Tell him that Balasar Gice has returned."

BALASAR GICE HAD BEEN IN HIS ELEVENTH YEAR WHEN HE FIRST HEARD THE word andat. The river that passed through his father's estates had turned green one day, and then red. And then it rose fifteen feet. Balasar had watched in horror as the fields vanished, the cottages, the streets and yards he knew. The whole world, it seemed, had become a sea of foul water with only the tops of trees and the corpses of pigs and cattle and men to the horizon.

His father had moved the family and as many of his best men as would fit to the upper stories of the house. Balasar had begged to take the horse his father had given him