The Legend of Broken

When the Bane commander had asked his counterpart from Broken how many of his tribe’s warriors Arnem would require to support his two khotors of Talons, the sentek’s answer had perhaps been predictable: only so many as could be armed with weapons forged from Caliphestros’s amazing new metal (which the sentek had climbed the mountain behind Okot to observe being made, with the greatest interest and satisfaction). The number had been placed at only some two hundred and fifty of the best-trained men and women in the tribe; for without such weapons, Arnem assured the Groba Elders, no Bane warrior dared participate in the coming attack on the mighty, granite-walled city. With these final issues decided, the return to Arnem’s camp had gotten under way. It was a march made far more arduous by the need to delicately handle Caliphestros’s carts, and to transport the contents, container by container, across the Fallen Bridge: each container was tightly sealed, that the fumes emitted by the various contents might not overcome its carrier or carriers — yet even at that, there were one or two near mishaps high above the Cat’s Paw. Once reassembled in the carts on the Plain, however, and with horses rather than men to draw the conveyances, progress moved at a much faster pace; but nothing could stop soldiers of either the Bane or Broken armies from wondering what could possibly be in the containers that might create such an effect.

This air of mystery only deepens, now, as the Talons strike their camp: for, with the full combined force of Bane and Broken warriors beginning to move up the southern route of ascendancy toward the great city, a ring of mist begins to form about the middle and upper reaches of the mountain. Pure white, the mist is nonetheless remarkably dry; and there is a fast-spreading tendency among both the Bane and the Talons — who have come to regard each other as allies with remarkable speed, a sentiment urged on by each of their trusted and even beloved commanders — to view the mist as some sort of a blessing from their respective deities, since it will make their movements far more difficult to detect from the walls of the city. (They cannot know, as you do, readers who encounter this Manuscript many years from now, that what they believe their unique and divine gift was, in fact, the first appearance in the mountain’s history of that same misty halo by which Broken has since become known, and by which it shall likely continue to be marked until the end of time.†) Matched with the general enthusiasm for Caliphestros’s steel, which both Bane and Talons are experienced enough warriors to recognize is indeed an unqualified boon, the mist creates an air that further promotes the heartiest of feelings between former enemies.

The mist, meanwhile, is having an entirely different effect in Broken: as Arnem had hoped, it is indeed making it almost impossible for the men of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard who are manning the walls of the city to determine just what direction the allied† armies are approaching from. The realization of this confusion, relayed by Akillus’s stealthy scouts, causes an increasingly congenial atmosphere to overtake the expedition below: for the Talons and the Bane both know full well that they will require such compensatory advantages. Say what one will of Baster-kin’s Guard, they shall now be fighting, not in the dark, foreign terrain of Davon Wood, but from behind Broken’s seamless walls and mighty oak and iron gates: a position whose superiority is almost impossible to measure in numbers or comparative skills. Certainly, however, odds of less than two warriors to one — which the Guardsmen will be facing, if they not only fight soberly, but organize their positions and their system of response to assault so that it is quick and effective — should not, under ordinary circumstances, be sufficient to cause any defenders of the city alarm, any more than they should bode well for the attackers. Thus Arnem and Ashkatar are inclined to view every favorable development or disposition with even greater encouragement than they usually would, and are forced to turn indulgent ears and eyes to the several and often amusing situations that grow out of the Talons and the Bane warriors becoming acquainted with each others’ ways during the march.

The need for this indulgence is only reinforced when they consider the probability that the Guard’s exacting and often quite terrifying commander will himself be at his men’s backs: the Merchant Lord, no doubt driven on by the consuming desire for a new wife and family, which he has sacrificed so much to gain, as well as by the defection of his seneschal, will press his men toward a rugged defense, one that they may well be capable of achieving.

“What think you of this, my lord Caliphestros?” Arnem calls merrily as he gallops back to the baggage train from his usual position at the head of the column. “A nearly dry mist? What does this herald for your certain prediction of rain?”

Caliphestros is still tightly clinging to Stasi’s shoulders, as the panther walks next to the first of the two carts, in which rides Visimar as Keera drives, making up for what she lacks in physical strength by her ability to communicate with the two horses that pull the conveyance through her manipulations of their reins and harnesses. Stasi, for her part, makes it ever clear to the beasts that only strict obedience to their mistress will be tolerated, without actually frightening the horses so greatly that they bolt. Veloc and Heldo-Bah manage the reins of the second cart, and in the beds of both vehicles, pairs of the Talons’ rearguard men make certain that that the tie lines which secure the brass containers are neither too tight nor too loose, but offer just enough flexibility to both secure the apparently precious cargo and absorb whatever unseen jolts in the road the carts themselves cannot.

“I realize fully the military advantage of this strange phenomenon,” Caliphestros replies, eyes ever on the beds of the two carts. “And I am glad that it brings with it no moisture — yet. But when the time comes, Sentek, we shall require rain — a good, driving rain, and as I now have no clear view of the night sky, I am less sanguine than I was that we shall get it. Certainly, the wind from the west that was earlier so promising has died down — and that is not something that pleases me.”

“Well, if you would but tell me why you require such a rain,” Arnem replies, hoping that his roundabout attempt to pry will not sound so heavy-handed as its statement feels, “then I might dispatch several of Akillus’s men either farther up or down the mountain, to a position where they could more clearly attempt to divine the approaching weather.”

“And I might oblige your rather obvious ruse, Sentek,” Caliphestros replies, “if I thought it truly possible for your scouts to do so. But the dying down of the wind, together with the surrounding hills and mountains that both obscure and channel patterns in the weather, make it seem unlikely that their reading from anywhere on this trail would be accurate …” The old man nods once. “But I will offer you this, in reply: send Linnet Akillus — for I know he will never be able to pass up such an opportunity for adventure and the gaining of intelligence — as well as whatever men he requires on this errand, and if their news is good, I shall agree to explain what I can about what we carry in these carts.”

“Thus you trust Akillus fully,” Arnem says with a smile, “but myself only reservedly … Hak, in your scheme of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ I cannot tell which of us thereby makes the better man …”

The old scholar is unable to keep from returning the soldier’s smile. “So you have thought upon my words, eh, Sentek? And, I suspect, understood them.”

“Studied, yes, but understood?” Arnem shakes his head, then turns to notice that both Keera and Visimar are listening intently. “Who, I still do not know, is the one good man in Broken who does evil in the name of what he perceives as good?”

“Truly, you have not divined as much, Sentek?” Caliphestros answers, surprised. Urging the sentek as close to his side as the Ox will bear, given Stasi’s presence, the aged scholar strains his body as far toward the commander as its compromised state will allow, speaking in a whisper: “It is Lord Baster-kin, himself.”

Keera gasps suddenly, in a manner almost audible to the eternally inquisitive drivers of the cart behind them. Arnem, for his part, pulls away, stunned. “Lord—!”

Caliphestros hisses silence. “Please, Sentek—I tell you this in all confidence. It must remain shielded, especially from that noisy sack of verbal and physical obscenities who drives the cart behind us. So let us speak no more of it. You shall study upon it, now, as you studied upon my earlier statement, and come to comprehend my meaning, in your own time.”

Still stunned, somewhat, from what he has heard, Arnem can only reply weakly, “I fear that time will be too short, my lord. We are not so far from the Southern Gate of Broken as you may think, and the time it takes to reach it is all I can give to such contemplation.”

“But this is not at all so,” Caliphestros replies. “Did you yourself not say that we shall need to pause at the open, roughly flat meadow upon which your cavalrymen train, just south of the city, before we reach the walls? Your purpose was, as I recall, to allow your engineers to begin the construction of the various ballistae that I requested from the wood of the surrounding trees, as well as to determine how many horses have escaped Lord Baster-kin’s efforts to capture them and thus supply additional