The Legend of Broken

fact with which Heldo-Bah toys even more delightedly than he does with the shining trinket.

“Baster-kin will probably sentence you to be mutilated for this failure,” he laughs. “Provided we don’t kill you first, of course.”

The soldier begins to sweat profusely at these words, and Veloc examines him disdainfully. “A fine specimen of Broken virtue,” the handsome Bane decides. “Keep him alive, Heldo-Bah — the Groba will have our stones, if we come away from this with no useful information.”

“You won’t have to wait for the Groba,” Keera says, eyes ever on the landscape about her. “Kill him and I’ll geld you myself, Heldo-Bah. I’ve told you, we are not Outragers—” She stops, nose to the breeze once more. “The cattle,” she says, leading the way further east.

A dozen yards further on, and the tall field grass gives way to close-chewed pasture. The three Bane go onto their bellies at its edge, and from there they can make out the silhouettes of well-fed shag cattle against the deep blue of the horizon. “The Moon has cleared the trees,” Keera says, pointing to a half-circle of light that shines bright in the sky just east of their position.

“A good omen,” Heldo-Bah declares. “You see, Keera—”

“Be silent, blasphemer!” Keera orders impatiently. “A good omen for the Bane — when they’re neither defying the Groba nor stealing. We must be quick — the light increases the risk.” She turns to her brother. “All right, Veloc, let’s get the grumbler his dinner. Heldo-Bah, question that soldier, but do not harm him.”

Veloc eyes the cattle. “We’ll take a steer. I know women who will do anything for ground shag horn, they say it heightens the pleasure—”

Keera smacks an open hand to her brother’s head. “Do not finish that statement, pig. By all that’s holy, the pair of you will drive me mad … Be sure it is a steer, Veloc, and not a bull — bad enough to kill any horned animal when the Moon is high, let alone a sacred bull—”†

“Sister,” Veloc chides, “unlike Heldo-Bah, I know the articles of our faith. I’m not likely to commit such serious sacrilege.”

“Well, stones or horns, bring me beef,” Heldo-Bah declares. “I’ll need a decent meal by the time I’ve done with our friend …”

Veloc is on his feet with his short bow drawn, advancing into the pastureland. He and his sister are among the finest archers in the Bane tribe, and Veloc scarcely bothers to take aim before loosing a shaft. Immediately, a strangled moan comes from a shag steer, and the Bane can see that Veloc’s arrow is protruding from the beast’s neck at what appears an ideal spot: even at half the distance, it would be a remarkable shot.

Heldo-Bah pounds Veloc’s back with a congratulatory hand. “A fine shot, Veloc — we’ll eat well tonight! Quick, now — you two fetch the haunches and the back straps, while I talk with our prisoner!” Veloc and Keera trot away, Veloc grinning at his friend’s praise. “That’s right,” Heldo-Bah adds, under his breath. “Go and get me my dinner, you vain ass …”

Turning to stride delightedly toward the struggling soldier, Heldo-Bah pauses when he hears Veloc cry in stifled alarm. Glancing back into the pasture, the gap-toothed forager sees that the shag steer has risen unexpectedly from the ground and come close to goring its would-be executioner: The arrow has not pierced the animal’s flesh as deeply as they had thought. Comprehending her brother’s predicament, Keera races faster to aid him; Heldo-Bah, however, only shakes his head with a small laugh. “I’ll mate with one of Keera’s river spirits before I’ll chase a wounded shag steer about in the dark …”

The captive soldier lets out a low moan; and when Heldo-Bah turns to him again, the forager’s aspect has changed to something more unsettling than anything we have yet witnessed. Anger, foolishness, despair, jocularity: Heldo-Bah has already exhibited all of these—

But now, for the first time, when he is alone with the soldier, it becomes clear that his casual comments about murder have some root in experience.

The soldier senses this, and his moans become more pitiable. “Oh, don’t carry on so, Tall,” Heldo-Bah says quietly. “Think of this as a small taste of Bane life.” He gives the collar of the young Guardsman’s tunic a painful tug, pulling the captive up onto his knees. In this position, the two can just look each other in the eye: Heldo-Bah puts his head close to the Guardsman’s, then turns both his own and his captive’s faces to watch the shining Moon. “Things look different from this point of view, eh?”

The youth’s widening eyes indicate clearly that he thinks Heldo-Bah mad, and his panic makes him take too large a breath, shaking dirt loose from the sod in his mouth. He begins to choke as the dirt catches in his throat: if Heldo-Bah does not help him, he will soon die, and both of them know it. Yet the Bane forager goes on studying him calmly.

“Bad feeling to be treated no better than a useless animal, eh, Tall? I’ve an idea — I’ll save your life, that should finish your Broken pride for good and all!” Heldo-Bah then works the sod out of the Guardsman’s mouth, after which the captive spits, and retches yellow slime. He catches his breath, heaving noisily — and quickly finds one of Heldo-Bah’s knives at his throat. “Now, now — no noise or crying out, Tall. You’ll be dead before anyone hears you.”

The soldier can only gasp: “Are you going to kill me?”

“That — is a distinct possibility.” Heldo-Bah keeps his knife leveled at the soldier’s neck. “How willing are you to educate me?”

“To—what?” stammers the Guardsman.

“Educate me!” Heldo-Bah answers plainly. “I am only a Bane forager, Tall, I know nothing about the truly important things in life: your great society, for instance, and the laws that keep it great …” Heldo-Bah lets the knife at the soldier’s throat draw a little blood, then shows the sticky blade to the young man, who can see the precious liquid clearly in the Moonlight. “For instance — why would the priests of Kafra deliberately kill a sickly comrade of yours on our side of the River?”

“What are you talking about?” the captive moans.

The question brings the forager’s knife back to his throat. “I can cut deeper, Tall, if you play at ignorance with me. You’re a member of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard — you know all that has gone on in this part of the frontier.”

“But—” Heldo-Bah’s mounting pressure on the knife is moving the young man to tears of despair. “But this is my first patrol, Bane! I know nothing save what has happened tonight!”

Heldo-Bah’s air of delighted menace collapses. “You’re joking.”

“Joking? Now?”

“Then you’re lying. You must be! Your first patrol? Not even my luck is that bad!”

The Guardsman shakes his head as emphatically as the Bane’s knife will permit. “I tell you, I know nothing —” And then, a faint light of recognition fills the man’s eyes. “Wait.”

Heldo-Bah looks quickly out at the pasture. Veloc and Keera are stalking the mortally wounded steer, whose death throes make it ever more dangerous. “Oh, I’ll wait, Tall — that much is certain. I’m certainly not joining those two …”

“I did hear something — in the mess. Earlier. About an execution.”

“Good! Your chances of surviving the night have improved enormously. Now—who was executed? And why in that manner?”

“What manner?”

“In the manner he was killed, damn you! Why force him across the bridge, shoot him down with ritual arrows, then leave the body untouched, with the arrows still in it? You Tall haven’t suddenly lost your taste for religion or wealth, have you? Those arrows were from the Sacristy of your High Temple, we know this, and a lot of gold and silver went into the making of them — what does it all signify?”

“I–I don’t know any more than I’ve told you, I swear it! I heard two soldiers talking about an execution that took place some days ago — one asked the other if he thought it had succeeded.”

“Succeeded?” Heldo-Bah does not hide his skepticism. “With nearly half a dozen arrows in him? Of course it succeeded! What’s your game, Tall?”

Again the knife presses hard, and the Guardsman must strain not to cry out. “I don’t think — that is, it seemed they were speaking of something else! Not if they had succeeded in killing the man, but — something else.”