The Legend of Broken

your company chooses to contest the appointment …?” All that emerge are expressions of agreement with the sentek’s choice, causing Arnem to smile again. “Well, then, Linnet Gotthert — I have another plan, equally important, in mind for you: under cover of the brawl about to begin, set out for the banks of the Cat’s Paw in the area of Lord Baster-kin’s Plain, and judge the preparations of both the Bane, and those patrols of the Merchant Lord’s Guard who keep regular watch in the area of the Fallen Bridge. Your men can get some well-deserved rest, once there, to say nothing of decent food, and then report to me when I bring the column along in no more than two days’ time.” Arnem glances at Visimar, and sees that the cripple does not object to his ploy.

“Very well, Sentek,” Gotthert replies, both disappointed (for his men clearly wish to play some role in avenging Donner Niksar) and relieved that his unit’s ordeal within the stockade is over. Giving his superior a final salute, and receiving one in acknowledgment, Gotthert begins to move toward the southeast, followed by his troops; but Arnem, having observed the look upon Gotthert’s and his men’s faces, delays them for a moment.

“You shall at least see this chastisement of Esleben, Gotthert,” the sentek calls, “which will do double duty as the official pyre for your former commander.” Looking to his right, Arnem finds Fleckmester has drawn up a double line of his strongest bowmen. In front of them burns a shallow trench of pitch and oil, and each man has nocked an arrow with a large, dripping head, and all await only the word to fire.

“Fleckmester!” Arnem calls, holding his own sword aloft. “Collapse the westward wall first, and proceed from there in the necessary order. If any of the townspeople interfere — shoot them down!”

Fleckmester shouts out the commands to light, aim, and loose the fiery shafts: the dried fir logs always favored in the construction of such palisades prove vulnerable to the flames, and in mere moments the whole of the western wall is burning with a fury to give even the madmen from Esleben some pause.

“All right, Taankret,” Arnem calls to the Krebkellen of infantry and cavalry fausten. “You could hardly ask for a more obliging invitation!”

“Indeed, Sentek!” Taankret replies, the marauder blade going high enough in the air for all to see in it the reflection of the raging fire. “Men of Broken — we move!”

Taankret’s words are uttered as the fort’s western wall begins to collapse with loud cracks, sending burning wood aloft amid a storm of sparks, even as the fire spreads to and begins to destroy the southern and northern walls.

“Very good, then, Linnet Gotthert,” Arnem says to the new commander of the garrison troops. “The diversion of your antagonists’ attention is complete — away with you and your men, and Kafra go with you. We shall meet soon, on the banks of the Cat’s Paw!”

Each man of the Esleben garrison salutes both Reyne Niksar and Arnem as they pass; and yet the blue- cloaked troops do not move with full dispatch until they actually see the Esleben fort transformed into a most worthy funeral pyre for a most worthy officer. When the eastern wall of the structure is pulled down at the last by the collapse of the other three, all the men to the west are privileged to watch as the ignoble rope with which Donner hanged himself finally serves an admirable purpose: whipped by the collapse of the wall to which it is fixed, it hurls the body of Reyne Niksar’s young brother high into the air above the flames, even causing Donner’s form to lay out horizontally as it comes crashing down upon the now-enormous pile of pine logs below, which glow and flame in shades ranging from red to orange, from yellow to white. Arnem could not have wished for a better execution of the funereal spectacle, and the sentek is quick to turn to the master archer, Fleckmester, and salute him in gratitude; and the garrison men do the same, as they set out at a run.

The sentek marvels, as he has so many times in his long career, at the resourcefulness of the average Broken soldier. Neither Linnet Gotthert nor any of his garrison comrades could even have suspected what their ultimate duty was likely to be, this night; and yet Arnem now observes their willing disappearance into the darkness, as though their actions were the result of a long and detailed council of war. The sentek takes a moment to reproach himself for the duplicity that underlies the orders he has given them; yet he cannot take a great deal of time for such self-recrimination: although the townsfolk of Esleben, and the people who have been drawn in from the countryside, are moving as mobs will — relying on a few individuals initiating each tentative advance — the pain of the disease that is driving them is clearly mounting, and there is only one spur to rash action more potent than lunacy: sheer physical agony.

Even so, Arnem is able to see the mob are strangely moving past pain, almost as if their sickness is destroying their ability to sense that most potent of physical influences. And, faced with this degenerated behavior among what are, after all, subjects of Broken who must, until very lately, have been no more mad than himself, Arnem finds himself spurring the Ox off to some little distance from Visimar and Niksar, and at the same time — almost thoughtlessly, and by the light of a Moon that has now made its way up over the hills and valleys — searching for the silver clasp that his wife placed in one of his inner pockets before the Talons’ triumphal march out of Broken. When he finds it, he withdraws the thing, and gazes down at the stern, one-eyed face and the portentous ravens it artfully depicts; then, without considering what he is doing, he actually addresses it:

“And so, great Allsveter,” he murmurs, repeating the term that he has sometimes heard his wife murmur when contemplating the thing. “Was it you who inspired a brave young man to end his misery thus?”

Replacing the clasp in his deepest pocket, Arnem shakes his head to clear it of nonsense; but then he hears the discreet voice of Visimar:

“Are you troubled enough to address the gods of old, Sentek? Fearing, perhaps, that Kafra has betrayed his own people?”

Quickly looking to see that Niksar has chosen to bury his grief by personally taking charge of the Wildfehngen units, Arnem glares at the old man harshly. “Nothing of the kind. The object is a meaningless token from my wife, to whom my thoughts turn before any battle, particularly so strange an engagement. Make no more of it, old fool.”

“As you will, Sixt Arnem,” Visimar replies; and then he breathes heavily with concern. “But I fear I must tell you that matters in the home you long for may be growing as wretched as they are here. For the rose fever in Broken, it seems, is spreading …”

Arnem’s face reveals clear bewilderment. “And how come you to know this?” the sentek asks, making ready to join his aide.

“I should almost enjoy telling you that I have employed sorcery,” the cripple replies. “But we have no time for childish games. You shall simply have to trust that I know it — and, it may interest you to know, I have at the same time received further proof that my master yet lives.”

“Truly?” Arnem replies, his interest showing plainly. “I pray so. For, by the look of things, we shall require the keenest of minds soon.”

Visimar eyes him carefully. “Why should the ‘sorcerer,’ the ‘heretic’ Caliphestros, have any interest in serving the needs of Broken? And how could he serve them, in a way acceptable to the rulers of the great kingdom?”

Before Arnem can answer, he receives an urgent request for leadership from Niksar. “I believe that he shall, when he realizes, as we all soon must, what is truly at work in this land.” Then the balled spurs go into the Ox’s side, and Arnem is away. “Reyne!” he shouts. “Ride out to join the left claw with Akillus, and I shall do the same with the right! Let us finish our work quickly, and then push our foes back toward Taankret — let the Krebkellen be completed!”

As the Ox passes before the infantry Wildfehngen—knowing, as such warrior mounts ever do, the importance of the moment and his role in it — the infantry formations begin locking their great, convex skutem shields† about the sides of their three quadrates, while Arnem continues to call out his orders with such authority that not a man misses a word: “Remember, Talons — although I wish no death to befall these people, my concern for your own lives is far greater; and should you find yourselves in peril, I shall not begrudge you a wounding or even a lethal blow — however diseased your enemies may be!”

A roar goes up from the Wildfehngen, who have been unleashed; and the great machine that is this part of Broken’s finest legion sets to work:

High as their emotions are, they never outstrip discipline. Akillus and Niksar’s left fauste of horsemen make quickly for the townsmen, who show the ferocity of madmen collected into throngs: there is no order in their violence, only raw rage, and it is not long before the Broken horsemen have encircled and pressed them into the oncoming foot soldiers. Despite these predictable results,