The Legend of Broken

nonetheless endearing berating. Ashkatar’s treatment of the female fighters of the Bane tribe, meanwhile, is not tempered by any belief that women possess more fragile souls than do men: if they did, he is quick to remind them, they would have done well to have stayed home. Far from being no less demanding of his women, Ashkatar’s whip sometimes cracks more often in their company; and when, as Arnem and Caliphestros have predicted, the thunderous pounding upon the Southwest Gate caused by Bal-deric’s ballistae cause a sudden panic upon the eastern walls, and Lord Baster-kin is heard to shout his own commands (equally loud, but far less endearing) that more than half his artillery be shifted to the Southwest Gate, it is the women archers of the Bane who are ordered forward to harass the movement, under cover of stout blinds assembled by all the bowmen of each people’s contingent, as well as under the great shields of Taankret’s Wildfehngen.

But it is the insults and derision thrown at the men of the Guard as they pass from the East to Southwest Gate by the Bane women warriors that are especially disheartening to Baster-kin’s inferior soldiers. For to take an arrow, to such men, is terrifying or deadly enough — to take it to the loud sounds of women in a seeming constant state of uncontrolled laughter, is quite another. Yet when one linnet of the Guard has the temerity to suggest to Lord Baster-kin that some of the Guard’s few bowmen be moved to address the problem, words are heard raining down from the Southwest Gate (for it is to this position that Baster-kin has himself moved, to supervise the re-construction of many of the ballistae that he had only just succeeded in getting his men to fully assemble on either side of the East Gate) that are as something more than music to Bal-deric’s ears:

“Silence, you idiot! These unnatural women are only meant to make your legs weak and your minds confused — as indeed they are doing! I have told you: one of these two actions, that at the East or that at the Southwest Gate, is intended as a ruse: but what good is a ruse, when see how even the most weighty rocks make little or no dent in the oak and iron of the Southwest! By Kafra, if this is all the traitor Arnem has to offer us, then we can have every expectation of success — provided sniveling cowards such as yourself find their manhood, and are not shaken by a collection of mad but harmless hags in armor!”

Word of this remark is immediately sent by runner to “the traitor Arnem”; who knows that now, he must exhort his own main force to prepare for the truly critical assault, the unique attack that will follow the work of Caliphestros’s ballistae at the South Gate. For it is not simply that the legless old philosopher has pledged the destruction of that gate at the commencement of what increasingly resembles a tempest; that is merely the third deception that composes his plan. There is a fourth deception that completes the great design; and it is that deception for which Arnem’s men, especially his horsemen, must be prepared to move quickly and decisively.

And so, just as the first of Caliphestros’s strange and comparatively few war machines — the construction of which was made possible only by the experience and comprehension of Linnet Crupp — is finally rolled into position on the small open space before the South Gate, Sentek Arnem begins to ride up and down every position that his men hold, preparing them for an act that seems far less natural than it does to his allies: an assault upon the city that is the heart of their own kingdom.

Preparatory appeals such as this, whatever legend may tell us, are seldom effective if they have not been preceded by years of experience, respect, and near-constant reminders that a commander has never asked his men to go into action without attending to every necessary preparation to ensure their success, as well as complete willingness to share their danger. Arnem’s words now are therefore few:

“There is little more that I can tell you, Talons,” he calls, still an impressive figure, after so many days spent primarily in the saddle, atop the great grey stallion named for the Mad King. “Little more, save that of which I have attempted, until now, not to speak; but speak of it now I must. We all stand to see our families beyond these walls, if we indeed have any, at the very least shunned, likely censured and perhaps far, far worse for our part in today’s action. Your loyalty in refusing to allow this to weaken your dedication, even once, speaks for itself; and if it did not, what should I say that would make up the lack? But I have withheld one fact from you, because I did not wish that same steady dedication that you have shown to revert into undisciplined zealotry: Lord Baster-kin will see me punished, should we fail, with as much injustice and cruelty as he once levied against Lord Caliphestros, who courageously returns to this city with us to see his former enemy chastised. But it is not any venom that the Merchant Lord may direct toward me that chills my soul. No, rather it is the sickened desire, tainted by anger, that he directs toward Lady Arnem — toward my wife—that has so frightened me that I have not been able to speak of it, until today: for the Merchant Lord has — for many years, it seems— coveted Lady Arnem!” Murmurs of astonishment that rapidly become the beginnings of rage spread through the Talons. “Nor is that all!” their commander continues. “In order to make possible his sickened fancy, he has knowingly ordered not only myself, but all of our khotor into parts of the kingdom he knew to be diseased! If we lived through this ordeal, supposed his lordship, we would but die in the Wood, with either result suiting his purpose — but if neither eventuality came about, this would suit his design, as well, for, besides declaring us traitors to the Grand Layzin and hence the God-King, the Merchant Lord has, these many months, been poisoning his own diseased wife, under the guise of treating her, in order that he may be free to take my lady to his side, and produce new sons for the clan Baster-kin — sons more fit for leadership than his own scion, whose death his lordship has been mad enough, only recently, to oversee in the Stadium!”

And this news, as the sentek had hoped, brings the full anger and determination of the Talons to the fore. Despite their always strong loyalty to their commander, more than a few have been confused, in the most shielded parts of their souls, by much of what they have seen and been ordered to do, on this strangest of marches. But even an intimation of harm to — and worse than harm to, violation of — Isadora, the woman who Arnem has rightly claimed is more the beating heart of their ranks than he is himself, is simply too much for the men to bear. Combined with their deep worries for the fates of their own kin, this revelation causes protestations to erupt from every direction, and every kind of pledge and oath is declared: there will be no further need for the sentek to urge the men to find their mettle.

All that is left for him to do is demonstrate to the Talons, and to all the army, that access to the Fifth District, and the city beyond, is possible. For this is, in fact, the final deception embodied in the allied plan: not to bring the citizens of the Fifth District out of Broken, but to take possession of that district, and use it as a base of operations from which to destroy Lord Baster-kin’s Guard. And so, with his men still roaring their angry defiance of the Merchant Lord, as well as their passionate defense of the Lady Arnem, to say nothing of their long-standing hatred of the Guardsmen, Arnem gallops to the position that Caliphestros and Crupp have taken up before the South Gate.

“Well, Sentek,” Caliphestros announces, “it seems improbable to me that the moment will ever be more propitious.”

“Indeed, my lord,” Arnem replies; and Caliphestros can see that the sentek’s passion has been no mere performance designed to exhort his troops; now that he has spoken of it publicly, Arnem’s fear for his wife and his son has risen to the surface, and he is impatient for what is to come.

“Tell me, my lord — what in the world are those things?” Arnem questions, as Crupp commands the men who crew the ballistae to load the first of the clay containers that contain the old man’s devilishly foul substance into the cradles that sit at the back ends of lengthy, greased ramps. The ramps themselves are secured through adjustable gears of elevation atop heavy wheeled frames, but the angle of flight they are meant to achieve is clearly higher than any device the men commanded by either Bal- deric or Crupp himself would usually be able to achieve; yet Crupp and his men are experienced with all such weapons, and unlikely to commit obvious errors. Rather, it is the ballistae themselves that appear, for all the world, less like the usual variety of torsion-driven battering machines, such as Linnet Bal- deric continues to use at the Southwest Gate, than they do enormous bows placed upon their sides.

“I first designed and experimented with such devices when I dwelt for a time in the land of the Mohammedans,” Caliphestros explains, “before they, too, declared my presence ‘offensive.’ But they soon decided — with apologies, Sentek, but just as you did — that the weapons could have but little use as devices for battering, and were therefore a mere folly. Having already encountered, in Alexandria, the formula for the fire automatos, I had been thinking from the first of how such machines could be adapted for the delivery of the substance: a longer span for the two bow wings, a gentler force of release, to be compensated for by a higher trajectory.” Turning to the western sky, Caliphestros, along with the rest of Arnem’s force, feels a