already on her way to the wooden cages. She glances back to her brother and Heldo-Bah once, and Veloc puts his hands tightly together and raises them to her, urging strength and hope; while Heldo-Bah vents his worries for Keera’s family on the two hurrying soldiers.
“You heard your commander, bitch’s turd!” he shouts, chasing after the soldiers and kicking them to a run. “And if I hear one word of complaint from my friend, be sure that the yantek will be the next to know of it!” Heldo- Bah turns to Ashkatar, allowing a small grin to enter his face.
“Something amuses you, Heldo-Bah?” Ashkatar rumbles.
“Your disposition’s improved no more than my manners,” Heldo-Bah says merrily. “I thought perhaps you’d actually grown into this ‘yantek’ foolery; and so, yes, it both amuses and, I must admit, pleases me to know that you can still tend to business as in the old days.”
“Hmm!” Ashkatar noises. “Your disposition wouldn’t please the Moon, either, Heldo-Bah, if you spent your time defending the tribe, rather than foraging and raising hell with the Tall!” The whip cracks again, causing a passing dog to leap and yelp in fright. Then the Bane yantek turns and, retrieving Keera’s foraging sack, marches to the Den of Stone. “And you people!” he calls out to the small but agitated crowd that is still calling for the Groba to emerge and tell whatever they may know. The mob turns as one, when its members hear the whip come alive again. “What in damnation is the matter with you? What don’t you understand? It’s plague, damn it all! Do you think the Groba and the Priestess are sorcerers, who can drive it from us with magic? Get to your homes, damn you, and let them do their work in peace!” Ordering a few more soldiers to break up the crowd, Ashkatar takes up position just in front of the stone pathway that leads up to the entrance to the Den of Stone, and cracks the whip once more. “I mean it!” he calls to the crowd. “I’d enjoy flaying someone alive, right now — so don’t any of you try my patience any further!”
Between Ashkatar’s bellowing and the soldiers’ less than gentle prodding with long staffs, the crowd breaks up; and as the last of them disappear, an aging, grey-bearded Bane in a simple broadcloth robe appears at the top of the stone pathway that leads into the cave. His bald pate gleams with sweat in the light that seeps through the trees above, and glows orange as it reflects the softer illumination of a torch that is mounted just beside the mouth of the cave. Searching Okot’s crowded square, this frail, proud character finally shouts, “Yantek Ashkatar!”
Ashkatar spins about expectantly. “Yes, Elder?”
“The Groba wishes to know if the foraging party of Keera the tracker has returned yet!”
“Two of them are here, Father — Keera herself is delayed.”
“Then send the others in to us.” At which the wizened old man turns back toward the entrance to the Den of Stone.
“The foragers, Elder?” Ashkatar calls. “Before I have an answer to my request?”
“Your answer will depend on what the foragers have to tell the Groba,” the Elder replies, annoyance clear in his voice, a voice that is far stronger than his overall appearance would lead one to expect. “And so, send the first two of them in to us!” Before waiting for another question, the old man shuffles back into the cave.
Ashkatar heaves a worried breath, indicating the cave with his whip. “Well — Veloc. Heldo-Bah. You heard him — you’d better go, damn it …”
Both foragers set their bags down near Keera’s, Heldo-Bah taking advantage of another moment: “Watch these for us, won’t you, Yantek? I hate to ask, but there
“Get
Heldo-Bah laughs and takes to the pathway, leaving Veloc to ask, “Just what ‘request’ were you referring to, Yantek? If I may ask?”
“You may, Veloc. I want permission to lead a small raid across the river. Snatch one or two of Baster-kin’s Guard, and see what they can tell us.”
Veloc nods judiciously. “I believe we may have saved you that chore, Ashkatar …,” he says, following Heldo-Bah along the pathway.
“You—
But the foragers have already disappeared into the Den.
1:{xiii:}
Within the Fifth District of Broken, a remarkable woman struggles
to protect a secret, as well as a child, as her husband takes his
leave of the city: at first triumphantly, and then most strangely …
Isadora Arnem realizes that she must hurry, if she is to have a meaningful amount of time alone with her husband in his quarters before the commencement of the Talons’ triumphant march out of Broken on their way toward their fateful encounter with the Bane. And so, after being helped on with her cloak by her two daughters, Anje (at fourteen already a wise young maiden) and ten-year-old Gelie, the most theatrically humorous of her brood of five, Isadora rushes to make a few final adjustments to her lustrous golden hair, gathering its thick tresses at the back of her neck with a silver clasp. She then kisses the girls, and calls farewell to two of her sons — Dagobert, the eldest at fifteen, and Golo, a very athletic eleven — who are playing at sword fighting with wooden sticks, having been inspired by their father’s parting words to them several hours earlier. Finally, she turns toward the central doorway of their home, a spacious if unpretentious Fifth District building composed for the most part of wood and stucco, and finds herself, unexpectedly but not surprisingly, faced with twelve-year-old Dalin,† the last of the Arnem children.
Dalin has recently been selected by the God-King and the Grand Layzin themselves for royal and sacred service; service all the harder to refuse because he is not the scion of the Arnem house, but only its second son. It is a calling that the boy is eager to undertake, an eagerness that has caused the many noisy arguments with his parents, particularly his mother, that have of late driven his father to stand watch on the walls of the city at night. With dark, handsome features that strongly resemble Sixt’s, clever Dalin is also the most like his father in his pronounced stubbornness: all similarities that make it especially hard for Isadora to even think of parting with the boy, particularly when Sixt is about to embark on what may be a long and dangerous campaign.
Isadora sighs, seeing that Dalin is blocking her exit and preparing to debate the subject still further. “Don’t let’s fight anymore, just now, Dalin,” his mother says. “I must be quick if I am to meet your father.”
But it is wise and very womanly Anje who takes charge of the situation. “Yes, Dalin,” the maiden says, dragging her brother out of the doorway. “Mother and Father will have little enough time to themselves, as it is.”
“That’s right, Dalin,” young Gelie adds; but then, at a hard look from her brother, she hides herself within the folds of her mother’s blue-green cloak. Peering out just once, she adds, “Don’t be so selfish, honestly!” before disappearing again.
“Be quiet, Gelie!” Dalin replies, angered that he cannot resist Anje’s strength, and must therefore yield the doorway. “You don’t know anything about it, you’re just a child — but Mother is perfectly aware that I should have gone into service long ago!”
“We can talk more about the matter when I return,” Isadora says, gently if wearily. “But for now, you must let me go and see your father off.”
“I know what that means,” Dalin says bitterly. “You’re hoping I’ll have forgotten about it — I’m not a fool, Mother.”
“Well,” Gelie declares, her wide eyes going particularly round. “You’re certainly making a very good show of being one!” And then, at another angry scowl from Dalin, she is back amid the folds of the cloak.
“Both of you, be quiet,” Anje commands, now pulling Gelie close to her, even as she maintains her grip on Dalin. “Go ahead, Mother — I’ll keep these two from killing one another.”
Isadora cannot help but give her oldest daughter, with whom she shares so much more than their similar types of great physical beauty, an amused and grateful smile; and then she says, “Thank you, Anje. But you may let
