The Legend of Broken

new mist — this one very damp indeed — creeping up and over the mountain. “We have little time. Yantek Ashkatar has signaled that he is ready. Sentek, it is for you to give the order.”

“I do not think the order was ever truly mine to issue, Caliphestros,” Arnem replies. “But insofar as it may be, you have it.”

And with that, the great experiment begins …

6

With strong but careful blows of great wooden mallets, Linnet Crupp’s men release the restraining blocks on Caliphestros’s strange machines. The first of the clay vessels slide almost noiselessly (for they, too, have been greased, like the rails upon which they ride) up and into the sky, staying aloft for what seems an impossible period of time. Not a sound is heard from any member of the attacking force, although cries of sudden alarm do go up from those members of the Merchant Lord’s Guard positioned above the South Gate.

“My lord Baster-kin!” these men shout. “Still more ballistae, at the South Gate!” Within moments, Baster-kin has himself become visible, even before the first of the clay containers has reached the end of its flight.

“What in Kafra’s name …?” he blasphemes, his furious gaze watching the vessels sail to what must surely be spots short of the gate. But he has not reckoned on Linnet Crupp’s mastery of the art of such arcs; and although the vessels land on the lower half of the gate, land they do, smashing to bits and coating appreciable areas of the stout oak with a remarkably adhesive substance, the odor of which he cannot yet identify.

But when Crupp orders quick adjustments to the ballistae, raising both their bows and the ramps upon their frames, and then commands a second launch, the next flight of vessels find their way to the top of the gate with expert precision; and from here, it is impossible for any man upon the walls to mistake their strong stench.

“Incendiaries, Sentek?” Lord Baster-kin shouts derisively. “This is why you tied your fortunes to the sorcerer Caliphestros, who has clearly gone soft in the head? Ha! Only look at the western slope of the mountain, you fools — within minutes we shall be pelted with a driving rain, and what of your ‘incendiaries,’ then, you traitorous dolts?”

Arnem views the black figure on the wall with the thin-eyed, smiling hatred of a man who believes he will shortly deliver the decisive blow to his enemy. “Yes, driving rain,” he murmurs. “Eh, Lord Caliphestros?”

“You are yet too confident, Sentek,” Caliphestros replies. “Crupp, be quick! We have the range, now — in less time than you would have thought imaginable, that gate must be coated. Coated! Fire, fire, and above all, continue firing!”

The coverage of the remaining surface of the South Gate takes less time than is required for Crupp’s expert loaders to loose all the containers from their bindings inside their carts; and such is a good thing, too, for, just as the first containers have achieved their work, Arnem, like every other man on the mountain, is momentarily blinded by a series of lightning strikes brilliant enough to cut through the foggy morning, and then shaken by a clap of thunder louder than any he can ever remember hearing. The rain, when it comes, is all that Caliphestros has predicted, hoped for, and relied upon; and in its wake, those before the South Gate, as well as those atop it, become witness to something that no one among them (save the old sage himself) has ever before encountered, and that many, particularly atop Broken’s walls, will wish never to have seen even this once:

It is announced by Heldo-Bah, who left his own contingent of riders to continue their work below the East Gate once he felt the first drops of rain fall; at that point, having made sure that the Bane riders knew only to stay in their position so long as the rain permitted any dust to rise, he joined Keera, Veloc, and Visimar in riding wildly for the South Gate. None of them wished to miss Caliphestros’s promised creation of an event that Heldo-Bah has repeatedly called a fantasy. But despite the noisy Bane’s doubts, by the time the four arrive on the spot, none are disappointed, nor are the hundreds of Bane and Broken troops who have moved forward to see living proof of:

The fire automatos. When the windswept rain strikes the South Gate, that portal is completely coated in Caliphestros’s slowly dripping concoction; and, to the amazement of all, the thick oak between the iron bands of the gate is suddenly consumed in a fire completely strange, one that seems something out of a vision, or perhaps more rightly a nightmare. It is a fire that the awed Heldo-Bah, as only he can, declares:

“Kafra’s infernal piss …”†

The first and most arresting aspect of the fire is its brilliance. For while the others in Arnem’s force have expected, at best, to see a traditional fire that has somehow defied the falling rain, this is a conflagration primarily blue and especially white in color — and, most remarkable of all, it is has not been extinguished, but ignited by the rainfall. Furthermore, the harder the storm pelts down upon the gate, the more fiercely the fire burns. Nor does it do so atop the great oak blocks: rather, its fierce, destructive heat appears to burn ferociously into the wood, as though it were a living, burrowing being, anxious to reach some point within or beyond the oak itself. In addition, its action is swift: the whitest parts of its terrible flame hiss and snap to match the pelting waters that drive it on.

All among Arnem’s force are anxious to brave the few archers of the Guard who have remained atop the South Gate (to do what good it is impossible to tell, for they are greatly outnumbered by the superior Talon and Bane bowmen who are covering the actions of Crupp’s ballistae), and to take turns feeding Crupp’s great machines: for, as Caliphestros continually cries out, the fire automatos must be constantly replenished, constantly fed, that the blue-and-white-flamed creature may continue to sate its feverish appetite to move inward, ever inward, as if it is a being not only voracious but single-minded:

And its sole goal, it seems, is to reach the opposite side of the oak before it, and reduce the mighty iron banding that binds those prodigious wooden towers to a pile of glowing scrap that the Broken horsemen will be able to pull away with comparative ease.

For all these reasons, and despite every word of doubt that he has ever voiced concerning both the Riddle of Water, Fire, and Stone (for who can doubt, now, that water and fire have indeed come together to defeat the mighty stone walls of Broken?) and the fire automatos itself, Heldo-Bah races about in mad ecstasy upon his pony, until he has clapped eyes upon the legless old man he has so often mocked. When he sees Caliphestros, sitting proudly — but still without complete satisfaction — on the back of the white panther, Heldo-Bah dismounts and races for the pair of them, first pushing his face in the pleased panther’s neck and burrowing as far into her wet, pungent fur as he is able, and then insisting on removing the old philosopher’s skullcap and kissing his balding pate.

“Heldo-Bah!” Caliphestros protests, although even Stasi cannot take his protests seriously enough to attempt to defend him. “Heldo-Bah, there is yet work to do, and you are behaving like a child who has become disordered in his mind and senses!”

“Perhaps so,” Heldo-Bah declares, taking a seat upon Stasi’s powerful back and coming as close to embracing the distinguished gentleman in front of him as Caliphestros will allow. “But you have made good on your promise, old man!” he cries. “And in doing so, you have made every other portion of this attack seem possible!” Carelessly replacing Caliphestros’s cap and tweaking his bearded cheek, the forager returns to the ground, and loudly kisses the muzzle of the great cat, who, while mystified by the action, is no less understanding of its intent, and in sheer joy, opens her mouth to let out that curious half-roar that is her method of communication.

And yet, Heldo-Bah thinks to himself, this is not the mournful sound that he has heard her make in the past; quite the contrary. The forager therefore turns to Caliphestros, who is busy fixing his skullcap with no little annoyance, to ask, “Lord Caliphestros? Is this joy at the humiliation of those who took the lives of her children? Or some other happiness that I do not understand?”

By this time, Caliphestros notices that the entire previous scene has been observed by Visimar, Keera, and Veloc, all of whom sit upon their mounts with wide grins, as Heldo-Bah retrieves his own pony and remounts it. “Nay,” Caliphestros says. “This is a specific happiness, I have but lately learned. When Lord Radelfer came to our camp, he brought me most extraordinary news: the sole cub of Stasi’s who was taken alive, all those years ago, by Baster-kin’s hunting party has been kept alive, for the amusement of the athletes in the