The Legend of Broken (19 page)

When they have reached the rock-and-mortar walls that enclose the village well, the foragers note that there are Bane soldiers everywhere, blending in because they wear no armor. Their agitation at this moment of supreme crisis is admirably controlled, given their relative inexperience. Uncertainty as to just how to manage the situation is clear in their faces, but they keep moving, getting tribe members into lines and keeping them there, doling water from the well to healers who fetch it, and guarding the Den of Stone from the villagers’ desperate demands for information.

For the ordinarily calm forest community, it is an unprecedented sight; and even Veloc and Heldo-Bah feel their nerves begin to fray, in the face of a scene that looks to burst into mayhem at any moment.

“All right, Keera,” Ashkatar says. “I’ll have two of my men take you up—” He points the whip toward the wooden cages. “Pallin—yes, you! And the other, as well. Get over here, I’ve a job for you!”

Seeing whom the voice emanates from, the two young pallins dash toward the Bane commander. Their faces are covered in charcoal and ash, and it is clear that they must have been tending the fire up the pathway, but that this work is being done in rotations to avoid any one man being exposed for too long to the flames and the heat. Both of the pallins, having removed their scale armor, go about their business with their short-swords belted around their soft, quilted gambesons, which ordinarily shield their flesh from the weight and the rivets of their armored hauberks.

“Yes, Yantek?” the first pallin says, as they reach Ashkatar.

“This woman may have family in the
Lenthess
—stay with her until she finds them or you’re certain they’re not within. Understood?”

The two young warriors hesitate, examining Keera, then Veloc and Heldo-Bah, and paying close attention to the sacks on the backs of the men. The second pallin pauses, leaning toward his commander.

“But, Yantek—” he struggles to say. “She is only a
forager
 …”

Ashkatar drops Keera’s bag from his shoulder, takes his arm from her and snatches his whip from his side; then, in another swift motion, he cracks it once as he wraps it around the youth’s neck four or five times. Then he pulls the choking soldier’s face close to his own.

“She is an important member of the Bane tribe, boy, and she is a mother and a wife! If I had to snap your neck right now to save hers, I wouldn’t hesitate—understand? Never show the pride of the Tall to me, soldier, or the river will know your guts. Now—escort her!”

Ashkatar pulls the whip from the pallin’s neck in a hard jerk that leaves burning lines in his flesh, which the soldier grabs at to make sure his head is still secure. The first pallin, having taken Ashkatar’s point (it would have been difficult to miss) approaches Keera gently.

“Come, lady,” he says nervously, “we will not leave you until we know what has become of your family …”

“Correct,” Ashkatar says, nodding. “Take her up at once; the Groba wishes to speak to her as soon as she is finished with this mournful work.”

“Yes, Yantek,” the second pallin manages to wheeze out, his throat nearly as distressed as his neck. “We will guard her with our—”

“Go!”
shouts the commander, and the soldiers hurry to catch Keera, who is 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
is
an order to things, in this life, and while some of us stand sentry, others must attend to—”

“Get
inside,
” Ashkatar warns. “And keep your business brief.”

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—
what
?” Ashkatar shouts as they enter the cave. “What in blazes are you saying? Veloc! And it’s
Yantek
Ashkatar, blast your soul!”

But the foragers have already disappeared into the Den.

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 me have one last moment alone with Dalin. I think I shall be safe.”

“I wouldn’t depend on it, Mother,” Gelie calls, as Anje drags her from the hallway into the sitting room nearby. “He’s dangerous, truly—I may be killed, after you leave!” As Anje pulls the little one along, Gelie adds, “Although, if I am, I’m sure no one in this family will care!”

Isadora chuckles, and for an instant light comes into her eyes, which are so deeply blue as to appear almost black, at moments. “That’s nonsense, Gelie, and you know it,” she replies.

Gelie forces Anje to pause. “It is?” she says brightly.

“Yes,” says Isadora simply, without turning to the girl. “You know perfectly well that your father would be devastated. So would the cats.”

Gelie turns, stamping her feet hard for effect as she enters the sitting room. “That’s cruel, Mother—just cruel!”

Laughing lightly at this declaration, Isadora looks to the doorway through which Gelie has disappeared, and murmurs, “I honestly think that we will have to find a king for that one to marry …” Turning to find Dalin still unamused, Isadora approaches a table by the entryway, taking from it a silver clasp. Her son knows the object: it depicts the face of a furious, bearded man, one of whose eyes is covered by a patch, and on whose shoulders sit two large, crow-like birds.
†
Glancing at the clasp and wondering (not for the first time) why it is not Kafra’s face that smiles out from its surface, Dalin senses an opening, which he seizes as his mother fixes the clasp to her gown beneath her cloak:

“Mother—is it true what they say about you?”

Isadora’s blood stirs. “People say many things about your father and me, Dalin. Do you listen to gossip?”

“It’s not gossip—it doesn’t sound like gossip, at any rate.”

There will be no avoiding yet another subject that Isadora hopes to avoid, it seems: “And what is it that people say?” she asks.

“That you—they say—” The boy can scarcely form the words. “They say that you were raised by a witch!”

Her annoyance and anger deepening, but still scarcely detectable, Isadora says evenly, “She wasn’t a witch, Dalin. Just a wise, odd woman, of whom silly people were afraid. But she was the most learnèd healer in Broken, and she was kind to me—she was all I had, remember, after my own parents were murdered.” She faces the boy, filling her words with weight: “Besides, I’d like to think that you are wise enough not to listen to stories like that. You know that empty-headed people say all manner of malicious things about us, because your father is so important, but wasn’t born wealthy. Many in this city resent his success. But far more think him a great man—so, when you hear people talking about your parents, have the nerve to dismiss them for the worthless souls they are, and walk away. And now—” Isadora walks to the doorway at last. “I must go. Run inside, and if you don’t want to play with the others, then have cook make you something special to eat. Or, why not ask Nuen
†
to tell you marauder stories, while you practice swordsmanship?”

Isadora refers to the strong, cheerful woman of eastern marauder stock who has lived with the family as nurse, governess, and household servant for some thirteen years: ever since Arnem discovered her, along with several other women of her kind, during a brief campaign along the southeastern portion of the Meloderna valley, being used as slaves (and worse) in the fields and homes of grain merchants, in plain violation of Broken’s ban against such absolute servitude.

“All right,” Dalin replies, moving dejectedly away from her. “But I
do
know that you’re simply avoiding the subject of my service, Mother—and I’m not going to stop reminding you …”

As he disappears up the house’s central stairway, Isadora watches him go with a smile, the resemblance to his father occurring to her once again.

Finally, Isadora steps onto the stone terrace outside the doorway, and moves through the family’s spacious garden, which is surrounded by a ten-foot wall, on her way to a gate in the farthest side of that protective barrier, a wooden portal within a stone archway that gives out onto the Path of Shame.

The Arnem family’s garden is unique: the statuary, carefully tended plantings, and orderly pathways that fill the courtyards of the great houses in the First and Second districts are absent, and disorder by design reigns. Some years earlier, before Dalin developed his troublesome preoccupation with the Kafran church, it had been the desire of all the children to create, within the safety of their garden’s walls, a space much like the dangerous but fascinating wilderness that covers the slopes of Broken’s mountain below the walled summit. In particular, the Arnem brood took adventurous pleasure from the scenery that surrounds the noisy course of Killen’s Run, the rivulet that emerges from beneath the southern walls of the city to make its way to the base of the mountain and join the Cat’s Paw, before that mighty river storms its way along the northern edge of Davon Wood.

Sixt Arnem was both amused and impressed by his children’s notion: for, as we have seen, he was and is not a man who shares the taste of the kingdom’s most important citizens for excessive fineries; and he saw in his children’s idea a chance for them to learn about the Natural world outside the city without being exposed to the dangers of panthers, bears, and wolves, to say nothing of those malignant creatures who hunt children whilst walking upright: those troubling citizens of Broken who let their Kafran belief in purity and physical perfection bleed into unnatural lust for the bodies and souls of the very young.

And so, Arnem proudly put the family servants at the disposal of his three sons and two daughters for several days, and the project was undertaken. Cartloads of large, mossy stones, along with smaller rocks worn smooth by the waters of Killen’s Run, had been brought into the Fifth District from their original resting places, to the consternation of most of that district’s inhabitants. So, too, were imported, in not inconsiderable numbers, those creatures—fish and frogs, newts and salamanders—whose natural home was the waters of the Run, where they sought safe remove in which to breed beneath its larger configurations of stones. The safety of these delicate beings would be increased by the children’s plan, although the initial experience of being transported proved to terrify at least a few past their ability to survive the trip; most, however, were safely deposited in the artificial streambed that was cut into the Earth through the whole length of the Arnems’ garden. Ferns, wildflowers, rushes, grasses, and young trees were carefully transplanted along the banks and hillocks that lined the new waterway; while, in the greatest offense to those few persons of fashion from the Arnems’ class who were aware of the doings in their garden, a very old and, some said, important piece of statuary—a fountain that depicted Oxmontrot’s son, the God-King Thedric, vanquishing a forest demon that spat water from its pursed lips—was smashed to bits by the family’s two strongest servants, who, like the rest of the Arnems’ staff, proved enthusiastic in assisting the children in realizing their vision of a wild mountain stream. Where the statue had once stood, the children oversaw the construction of a waterfall, with the fountain’s spring-fed waters tumbling over a group of large, piled stones and into a deep, cold pool.

From out of this lovely and calming collection point flows the garden’s artificial breck
†
(as Isadora often refers to the thing, using what she had been told, as a child, was the language of her ancestors); and the
breck
forms several smaller falls and pools as it winds to the foot of the garden. Here the stream vanishes, joining the city’s sewer system beneath the gutter of the Path without; but the children made certain at the start to supervise the installation of a series of safeguards: fine metal grates covered by small rocks, supporting a sifting bed of gravel. This successfully keeps any living creature within the stream from being swept away, while still keeping its waters fresh.

As she walks through this unfashionable but lovely setting, Isadora allows the peace of the garden to give her a moment of calm pause, for she knows that, having left the ever-loud and sometimes (in Dalin’s case) hurtful activities of her own children behind, she must soon enter the Fifth District, and its busiest thoroughfare, the Path of Shame. Fortunately, it is the quietest time of the day, in the district: the hours when drunkards sleep off their revelries of the previous night, or half-wittedly prepare for their next round. As she steps through the arched door in the thick garden wall, Isadora pauses, attempting to savor the moment. Yet there can be such a thing as too much quiet, even in the Fifth District. for, along with the sounds of adult debauchery and corruption, the comforting sound of children at play—children of an age that would make them suited to enter the royal and divine service—is also noticeably muted. But the diminution of this sound is not a change that varies from day to day; it has been steadily declining for months and even years, although Isadora tries to put meaningless explanations to the change, such as the citizens of her district having become so concerned with intoxication of various kinds that even fornication is losing its place in their schedule of daily activities—

But there have long been other explanations for the change, she knows, explanations whispered even by drunkards: tales that Isadora has assiduously driven from her mind. Now, however, she listens, she must listen, more carefully to these stories of Kafran priests and priestesses, protected by Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, coming by night to pay poor couples to place their children in the God-King’s service, because the pool of worthier families’ children is too small for the royal retinue’s purposes—shrouded as those purposes may be …