The Legend of Broken

willing to follow my commander into the danger that lay across the river. I would not have them think me so disobedient and cowardly.”

Arnem puts a hand to the boy’s shoulder. “You are neither, Pallin. Discipline is a vital thing in an army; it can also be a deadly one. More often than not, I would agree that your speaking out was irresponsible. But in this instance?” Arnem looks down toward the line of the trees on the southern border of the Plain, now almost invisible in the growing darkness. “I cannot find it in me to call it so. For to have taken nearly five hundred drunken men into Davon Wood, when he also had every reason to believe that the Bane were fully aware of our people’s intention to invade their homeland, was a decision that now places the blame for the disaster on your sentek — not on you. Although I sincerely doubt that the fool yet lives to assume that responsibility. Come, now — on your feet.” The pallin obeys the order, slowly but in what passes for a soldierly manner. “Step closer to the light, and let my friend, here, who is a talented healer, examine you.” Arnem indicates Visimar, and the cripple steps forward.

Visimar makes several satisfied sounds as he goes about inspecting those parts of the pallin’s body that would be first to display any sign of either the rose fever or the Holy Fire, and each murmur seems to embolden the Guardsman, so much so that, after several moments have passed, he says:

“If you would not mind, Sentek Arnem — I should much rather march with your men than return to the city.”

Arnem shakes his head, immediately and definitively. “There are many soldiers that would like to march with the Talons, Pallin. But our reputation is not based upon pride or arrogance. There are maneuvers that you must know, and through long training be able to execute quickly and unhesitatingly. Men’s lives depend on your knowing such, as has already been demonstrated on this march. I understand your reluctance, but — as I say, I will give you notes vouching for your behavior, to be delivered to both your family and Lord Baster-kin. Be easy in spirit — there will be no recrimination. In addition, I will offer you this, Pallin — we’ll tilt the table just a bit, so that the knucklebones† will be certain to roll in your favor. I shall state in my report that upon our arrival we were able to rescue you, and only you, from a rearguard action your fauste was conducting. I may even add that we were forced to pull you away from the combat, so heated was your blood. I think that should suffice.”

The pallin looks to the ground uneasily. “If you will but hear one additional fact in confidence, Sentek, at some distance from these others, I shall do as you say, if you still think it wise.”

Looking to the others and shrugging, Arnem indicates to them that they should remain where they are with a gesture of his hand, then walks off to the edge of the small world of light created by Akillus’s torch.

By the time Arnem and the young Guardsman return, the older officer has apparently managed, whatever their secret conversation, to convince the pallin that his return will take place without punishment, if he will follow Arnem’s original plan. “But I shall ask one favor of you, in return, Pallin,” Arnem says, as he moves toward and then mounts the Ox. “Remain outside camp, while I go to my tent to secure you a mount and compose the dispatches we have discussed. My men will know the truth of what has taken place in the Wood soon enough — I do not want more rumors than I can manage flying about camp. Akillus, remain here with the pallin, and I shall send one of your scouts back with the horse and the reports, along with whatever rations they have prepared.”

Akillus salutes, reluctantly but without question, and the pallin quickly does the same. Arnem offers them both a nod, and tries to smile reassuringly to the Guardsman.

“The soldier’s life is not the Guardsman’s, Pallin,” the sentek says. “Particularly when you leave the walls of Broken. There’s little enough use on the frontiers for making arrests and cracking skulls, to say nothing of watching over cattle. I am sorry that your first taste of large-scale action had to be so horrifying — but remember these truths the next time you feel tempted to castigate yourself.” He laughs once, cajolingly. “And consider a change of services upon your return to Broken …” Arnem turns to his chief of scouts. “And don’t go badgering the boy, Akillus,” Arnem declares.

“Aye, Sentek,” Akillus replies. “Come, Pallin — let’s see what scraps of wood we can collect to make this torch something other than a source of light. It will help to keep the wolves back, even if the evening is warm …”

It is a generous attitude to adopt, of the type that Arnem and Niksar have long since learned to expect from the gregarious Akillus. Visimar, however, having been helped onto the saddle of his mare by Niksar, is impressed. “Akillus is indeed a rare man — you are to be congratulated for elevating him, Sixt Arnem.”

“He is my left arm,” Arnem agrees, smiling at Niksar as he does. “Now that Niksar has suspended his spying duties and become my unquestioned right …”

“Sentek!” the linnet protests, until he realizes that his commander jests.

Arnem smiles, wearily but genuinely, to his friend and comrade, and in moments the three riders have passed over the spiked ditch and similarly bristling eastern gateway in the protective barrier about camp that has been constructed with astonishing speed by the engineers of the Talons during the hours since the khotor arrived on the Plain. The officers’ wine-red cloaks are lifted behind them by the western wind as they trot into camp, a martial image that is made all the more impressive when placed in direct contrast to Visimar’s faded black and silver cloak. But even the latter is somehow strangely comforting, in its heightened implication of a perhaps arcane but no less lucky influence: for the old man has undeniably demonstrated both the power of the good fortune he brings to the troops, as well as his wisdom.

Arnem’s tent, imposing from the outside, is perhaps more spare and severe within than one might expect from a man of such rank. Thick, quilted walls and modest personal quarters are to the rear, furnished only with a camp bed, writing table, and oil lamps, all of which are curtained off by warm, silencing hides that offer privacy from the tent’s front section. That area is dominated by a large table that serves as both senior officers’ mess and council center: all in all, a highly mobile structure that is all the commander needs, and more than he ever expected to be awarded, as a young man. He has no illusions — as do, say, the eastern marauders — about creating a traveling den of pleasure to serve as his home while campaigning. He is therefore unsurprised when he enters to find those same senior officers (save Akillus) all in attendance, talking quietly and respectfully among themselves, then standing to salute as he joins them: this is the principal purpose of his tent, to the sentek — professional — and the sooner the business of his men can be planned and executed, the sooner he may gain what little rest he will allow himself; and the sooner, too, will his assigned tasks be completed, and he himself be allowed to rejoin his family, high on Broken’s mountain—

And yet, on this night, his usually reassuring thoughts of home are usurped by what he has been told concerning both his wife and his children by, first, Akillus, and, later, the young member of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard: a most bizarre set of what the Guardsman referred to, not as rumors, but as confirmed facts, concerning some kind of a rebellion in the Fifth District, and of Isadora’s and Dagobert’s participation — even more, their leadership — of the uprising; and these are tales about which he intends to know far more, before he will make any move against a Bane enemy that cannot help but be in the full flush of victory over the most despised arm of their enemy …

Arnem waves a hand to his officers, urging them to sit. “I shall require a moment, gentlemen,” he declares, never breaking stride as he heads for his personal quarters. “Therefore, be as you were, but make certain your reports are ready.”

Once behind the curtain that screens his quarters from the council area, Arnem pauses to wash his face and hands in a plain brass basin of cold, clean water that the ever-silent, ever-reliable Ernakh has made sure to have ready. Running his hands through his hair, more to keep himself alert than for appearances, Arnem towels off any lingering water, places the moist, cool piece of cloth about his neck, and turns to lean over his camp table, taking two pieces of waiting parchment and a nub of charcoal and quickly composing the notes to Lord Baster-kin and the Guardsman’s family that he promised the youth. Instructing Ernakh to have a scout deliver these reports, as well as to relieve Akillus, that the latter may represent his own men at the council table, and making sure that Ernakh orders the scout to take some of the food that is being prepared outside the tent with him, Arnem dispatches the skutaar out the back of his tent, and finally returns through the hide curtain to sit in the lone camp chair that occupies the head of the council table. At last allowing himself to breathe deeply with some small relief, he then eyes the expectant faces around him, noticing first his chief archer.

“Fleckmester,” he says, with a slightly surprised although approving tone. “I take it your ability to attend this council means that you are satisfied with the defensive dispositions of your archers at the Fallen Bridge?”

“Indeed I am, Sentek,” Fleckmester replies. “I do not doubt that the Bane still have silent eyes in the trees