The Legend of Broken

“Yourself.”

“Yes, Sentek.” Niksar is fighting hard to maintain his discipline. “Bring your aide to his quarters. There is to be a council at the Sacristy of the High Temple. The Grand Layzin is to attend, and also Lord Baster-kin.”

Arnem stands up straight and glances at Pallin Ban-chindo, who, although he keeps his gaze fixed on the horizon, cannot help but smile at this news. Arnem urges Niksar a few paces further down the wall.

“Who told you this?” Arnem’s tone is earnest.

“Yantek Korsar himself,” Niksar replies, no longer concerned with shielding his uneasiness from watchful sentries. “Sentek, his manner was strange, I’ve never seen him …” Niksar holds up his hands. “I can’t describe it. Like a man who senses Death hovering nearby, yet makes no move to avoid it.”

Arnem pauses, nodding slowly and scratching at his short beard. He does not truly believe that this summons can be related to the heated debate over his son’s entry into the royal and sacred service — if it is, why involve such high officials of religion, commerce, and the army, to say nothing of young Niksar? But the possibility is unsettling, nonetheless. At length, however, the sentek shrugs once, affecting merely mild consternation. “Well — if called, we must attend.”

“But, Sentek, I–I have never been summoned to the Sacristy.”

Arnem understands Niksar’s apprehension: for the Grand Layzin can order anything from a man’s banishment to Davon Wood to his ennoblement, without any explanation that base mortals might comprehend. To be summoned to the Sacristy, seat of the Layzin’s power, is therefore cause for great celebration or for deep dread; and even Niksar — a man who could not display any more obvious signs of Kafra’s favor — cannot greet the call with confidence.

How much more, then, should an older, less handsome man — one lacking great wealth and certainty of faith — feel cause for alarm?

But Arnem has confronted greater terrors. “Pull yourself together, Niksar,” he says. “What interest can the Layzin have in you?” Hastening Niksar toward the nearby guard tower, the sentek adds with a laugh, “Why, you make even me look like a Bane forager …”

Just before he descends the spiral stairs, Arnem claps his earlier companion on the shoulder. “Stay alert, Ban-chindo — you may get your action yet!”

The pallin draws in a proud breath and smiles. “Yes, Sentek!”

Inside the guard tower, where torchlight dances on stone surfaces, Arnem and Niksar prepare to start down the winding steps; but before they can, they, along with every other soldier on the western wall, are frozen by an unmistakable sound:

Echoing up from the far side of Lord Baster-kin’s Plain comes a horrifying shriek of terror and pain, one clearly made by a man.

Rushing back out, Arnem and Niksar see that Ban-chindo’s spear now drifts from his side uncertainly. “Sentek?” he murmurs. “It comes from the direction of the torches …”

“It does, pallin.” Arnem listens for further cries; but none come.

“I — have never heard such a sound,” the pallin admits softly.

“Likely some Bane has fallen prey to wolves,” Niksar muses, his own face knotted with puzzlement. “Although we heard no howling …”

“Outragers?” Ban-chindo’s voice is scarcely more than a whisper, revealing that the extent to which the Bane raiders are not only disdained but feared in Broken. “Attacking one of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard? Surely the others heard him cry out, if we were able to.”

“Perhaps,” Arnem murmurs, as the three soldiers move to the parapets. “But sound plays evil tricks on a man, near the rocks of the Cat’s Paw. We once campaigned for a month down there, and lost many men to wolves — you could hear them attacking from a mile’s distance, yet they could take a picket off without his nearest comrades detecting a thing. And yet, as Niksar says, we have heard no howling …”

“A panther?” Niksar suggests. “They are silent during attack.”

“So is their prey,” Arnem replies. “Difficult to scream with a set of panther’s teeth embedded in your throat.”

Pallin Ban-chindo’s dread rises, as his superiors discuss these grim possibilities, further freeing his young tongue: “Sentek — I know that those who live in the Wood are unworthy, but — I pity the creature who made that sound. Even if it was a Bane. What can have caused it, if neither wolves nor a panther?”

“Whatever the full explanation, Ban-chindo,” Arnem pronounces, “understand that what you have just heard is the unmistakable voice of human agony. Understand it, respect it — and get used to it. For such are the sounds of the glory you seek so desperately.” Arnem softens his tone. “Keep careful watch. Like as not the torches and this scream were not connected — but if a party of Bane Outragers has got past Baster-kin’s men, it means that they intend to enter the city. And I want them stopped—here. Send word along the walls — and alert those two shirkers below, as well.” Ban-chindo nods, his mouth too dry to speak. “I can count on you, Pallin?”

Straining hard, Ban-chindo finds his voice. “You can, Sentek.”

“Good man.” Arnem smiles, and moves Ban-chindo’s spear so that it is tight against the young man’s shoulder once more. “At attention,† lad. There’s worse to come, if I’m any judge — and we must all be ready …”

1:{iv:}

The Bane foragers secure a fine meal for

themselves — and for the wolves on the Plain, as well …

Having heard the scream, though not quite so distinctly as the men atop Broken’s walls, Keera and Veloc have leapt from their hiding place on the northern, or Broken side of the Fallen Bridge. They rush through the rich spring grass that rises above their knees to join Heldo-Bah, who has gone to scout for any members of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard who may be patrolling this portion of the boundary of the great merchant’s plain. Keera seethes with anger, as she keeps her nose in the air to locate their troublesome friend.

“I told him!” she hisses. “You heard me, Veloc, I said no killing!”

“No killing unless it was necessary,” her brother answers evenly, lifting his short bow over his head, reaching for an arrow from the small quiver at his waist, and nocking it. “That is, in fact, what you said, Keera — and perhaps it was necessary.”

“‘Perhaps it was necessary,’” Keera mocks. “You know just as well as I do that—”

But they have reached a small circle in the grass, flattened violently as if by a struggle. At the edge of the circle, hidden in standing grass, they find not only Heldo-Bah, but a soldier of Broken. The latter is young, muscular, and would stand at well over six feet — if his legs were not bent at the knees and bound so tightly with strong gut- line to his arms that his feet are crushed painfully to his thighs. Heldo-Bah, cackling quietly, stuffs moist sod into his captive’s mouth. The soldier bleeds near one knee; but his well-bred face shows more terror than pain.

“It seems they’ve just changed the watch,” Heldo-Bah tells Keera, getting up. “We should be safe enough while we finish our business.”

“You suppose so?” Keera demands angrily, letting her fists fly at Heldo-Bah’s arm. He stifles a small bark of pain. “With that cry that he gave? How could even you be so stupid, Heldo-Bah?”

“Can I help it if the man’s a coward?” Heldo-Bah replies, sullenly rubbing the spot on his arm that Keera struck. “I hadn’t touched him, and then he suddenly saw my face, and screamed like some frightened girl! Besides, I made sure that he was patrolling alone.” Looking at the soldier’s face, Heldo-Bah’s own features fill with delight once more: his grin displays the filed teeth with their black gap, and he pokes the young man’s red-brown leather armor with one of his marauder knives. “Not your night, Tall,” he says, removing a wide brass band encircling the muscles of the soldier’s upper right arm. The center of the band has been beaten into a bearded, smiling face with empty almond eyes, a thin, flaring nose, and full lips — the image of Kafra. It marks the captive soldier as what the three Bane expected to encounter: a member of the Personal Guard of the Lord of the Merchants’ Council.† It is a