The Legend of Broken

“I have noticed, Sentek,” Radelfer laughs, glad to see Arnem take heart. “Although I would scarce have believed it possible, had anyone merely told me. We are on the verge of strange and powerful changes to our world …”

4

We have observed, then, that it has become Sentek Arnem’s firm intention, influenced by Caliphestros’s lectures in the history and weapons of warfare, to make the siege of Broken, not a drawn-out, dismal affair, but a quick and decisive struggle. Odds do not favor him, as we have also seen: Lord Baster-kin’s single khotor of Guard troops would have been no match for the sentek’s similar number of Talons and their Bane allies in the open field, but with the granite walls and iron-banded, foot-and-a-half-thick oak gates of Broken to protect them, the Guardsmen present a formidable challenge, a foe whose chief weaknesses — inexperience and the unprofessionalism that is ever its consequence — Arnem will have to exploit, not with the usual brute weapons of the siege, but with that most difficult type of operation to conduct, a grand deception: a deception that is based not simply on a single device, nor upon the actions of one unit in one phase or area of a battle, but a deception that is coordinated and conducted by an entire army in every part of the field, and is carried through without recourse to savage force.

We observers can best understand this strategy as it unfolds, not by attempting to comprehend every order given by those who have constructed it. Rather, by taking to the skies, once more, as we did at the outset of this tale, we shall make for the walls of Broken, where we will watch the great ruse unfold below us. Now, however, we fly in good and Natural company: that of Caliphestros’s two allies, the enormous owl he gave the name of Nerthus, and the small but daring starling he calls Little Mischief. It is not difficult to find them, as both birds are in the air above the great city, scanning its streets for any sign of unusual trouble, trouble that they will quickly call to the attention of the remarkable man who is their unique friend. But we immediately see that we have taken flight during the first dismal light of day, which reveals storm clouds still moving on Broken from the horizon to the west. Their speed threatens the city with rain violent enough to match the thunder and lightning that has flashed and rumbled through the night: but will it be rain that serves Caliphestros’s strange purpose, the answer to the Riddle of Water, Fire, and Stone, and serves it in time?

The alarm horns of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard sound above the main gate of Broken, the East: the point at which any enemy concerned with capturing Broken’s richest districts would attack. And if we swoop down upon the streets of the First District of the city, along with our feathered guides, we soon see a tall figure emerging from the Kastelgerd Baster-kin, wrapped from neck to calves in a cloak of black velvet, with a cowl of the same luxurious material covering his shoulders, neck, and head. It is the lord of the Kastelgerd himself: and when he quickly enters a waiting litter, we hear his distinctive voice shout a command, telling its bearers to make for that same East Gate of the city. We follow the quick progress of the litter, and soon watch as the tall, black-clad man disappears into one of the two ingeniously engineered towers that guard the portal. No one of the city’s gates (all of a piece with the great granite walls, and therefore able to support entryways of a thickness and weight far more prodigious than any other city has ever been able to boast) is stronger than the East, simply because of the successive waves of marauders that have appeared from that direction over the centuries, only to be beaten back or convinced to bypass Broken. And so, Lord Baster- kin ascends the worn but seamless steps within the northernmost of these towers without fear; and if we, like Nerthus and Little Mischief, take a perch at the top of a wealthy merchant’s home nearby, we can easily observe the exchange of words that takes place between Baster-kin and the Guardsmen stationed at this crucial position.

“There, my lord!” cries a Guardsman, pointing to the spot where the eastern road takes a slight turn to descend the mountaintop, before disappearing from view. “Only see the dust — there must be thousands of them!”

A great cloud of dust such as would, indeed, ordinarily be raised by so large a number of approaching troops is rising from just under the last section of roadway that those on the wall can see; and yet Baster-kin’s answer is calm. “Quiet, you fool.” He pulls back the hood of his cowl, revealing the topmost portion of a coat of the finest chain mail. Then, looking up and down the wall to see that some thirty or forty men have gathered to observe the ghostly cloud that seems all too close to the gate, he calls out, in a voice now filled with anger: “All of you! Find your spines, and quickly! The traitor Arnem and his unholy Bane allies do not have so many as a thousand troops to bring against us — this dust is simply an indication of how dry the approaches to the city, like our own streets, have become in recent weeks. But look to the west and see the great storm that approaches! When it descends, this cloud of dust shall disappear like the deceitful apparition it is. However”—Baster-kin’s eyes narrow as he turns them to the eastern approach and the dust cloud once more—“this most certainly does indicate that Arnem has decided to make his first thrust against this gate, without question in the hope of seizing our most sacred centers and persons of power, and then forcing the release of his wife and the other rebels in the Fifth District. Well, we shall deal with Lady Arnem and her friends presently. For now, however, assemble our most powerful ballistae upon this wall and within this position, along with the main portion of our men. Do not abandon the other gates, but leave only small watches at each. Position men and machines in such a way that, if the sentek achieves what no marauder leader ever has, and somehow gains entrance through this mass of oak, iron, and stone, he and his followers will be cut down as soon as they enter the city. Move, all of you, we have little time!”

At which the men of the Guard are sent scurrying, their officers trying to call out coherent and coordinated orders — and Lord Baster-kin silently bemoaning the quality of the men with whom he has been left to defend the city. But his faith in its walls and gates, especially the mighty East, is absolute, for he has himself seen to its constant strengthening and restrengthening during his time as Merchant Lord. He has even ignored many of the great stone city’s other original yet less visible structures, and allowed them to fall into disrepair, beginning with the Fifth District …

Nerthus and Little Mischief may now return to the sky, having seen the great activity that has begun to take place on the walls beside and in the streets below the East Gate of Broken. The owl and the starling (and we ourselves) can see from the sky that the approaching force that lies just under the eastern line of sight from the walls of Broken is not, in fact, Caliphestros and Arnem’s main force. Rather, it is a detachment of the smaller humans from Davon Wood. And, as the birds arrive above this group, which is led by several of the small men on the strange little horses that the owl and the starling have recently seen added to the army moving up the mountain, we can all attest to the limited number of this group that has separated itself from Caliphestros and Arnem’s main force, apparently for the sole purpose of creating the enormous cloud of dust that now fills the sky above the eastern approach to the city.

Indeed, no more than fifty of the men and women from the Wood, riding their small horses, are at work on the road and in the large, dry patches of ground about it, dragging large limbs hacked and torn from nearby fir trees, the needles of which cut into the parched earth almost as violently as do the hooves of the horses, whose movements seem somehow more active, even more frenetic, than are those of their more familiar cousins, just as the smaller humans seem more lively, even wild, than do their larger relations. It is a strange sight, which both Nerthus and Little Mischief understand but little; however, the birds nevertheless follow their instructions to descend upon the familiar and ever-friendly figure of Visimar, and see what instruction he offers next.

They find the old man sitting atop his mare on the edge of the broad area in which the men and women from the Wood are raising their ever-greater dust cloud. Next to Visimar is that same small woman whom both birds last encountered in the treetops just above their meeting with Caliphestros in Davon Wood. These two — Visimar and the small woman — seem to be attempting to command the activity of the others before them; but it is clear that actual authority rests with a man far more fitted, in appearance, for the job: a filthy little man that the birds would consider to be stricken by one of the diseases that, were he one of their kind, lead to pecking and tearing at one’s own feathers, as well as to speaking in nonsense chatter.

More remarkable yet, this small man on a small horse has strangely sharpened teeth plainly visible; and yet, for all his mad peculiarities, this atrocious-smelling human never fails to get the most active behavior from his fellows, and so makes the authoritative tasks of both Visimar and the woman next to him almost unnecessary.