The Legend of Broken (53 page)

“But how can you make such judgments, my lord?” Keera asks, her voice rising over the eternally roaring waters of the Cat’s Paw, “when the body itself is so very decayed?”

“Most of my conclusions are the result of simple observation,” Caliphestros replies. “Keera, have you ever tried to loose one of the Tall’s golden arrows from your bow?”

“We have never had reason or opportunity,” the tracker answers. “When we discover such valuable items, they are always in the bodies of similarly executed outcasts from Broken, and our Groba insists that they be brought back to decorate that council’s Den of Stone, in order to increase the mystical power of that place.”

“Well, then,” the old man continues, “perhaps now you might examine at least one more such shaft from a practical point of view?”

Bemused, Keera steps toward the mass of decay on the ground; but then she pauses, seeking reassurance. “It—
will
it be safe to touch them?”

Caliphestros smiles gently in admiration. “While I should not be surprised if your healers and other wise men and women were unable to divine the cause of his death immediately, now that you, Keera, know it to be the rose fever, I will wager what is left of my legs that you know its chief properties.”

“I—believe so, Lord Caliphestros,” Keera answers. “As you have said, the rose fever, unlike some similar diseases, seems to lose its threat with the host’s death.”

“Indeed,” Caliphestros replies. “Although when my assistant brought my arrow to me”—he quickly takes the flower-entwined example that he displayed to the foragers on the previous evening from within his smallest, lightest satchel—“I was forced to take extra precautions. Only when you told me your tale did I realize they had been unnecessary, for both myself and my … messenger …”

As Keera makes her first informal estimate of the weight of the shaft she took from the soldier, she says, with affected disinterest, “Yes, your messenger—
messengers
—I wonder if we may not discuss
all
the creatures who do your bidding, ere we rejoin the others, my lord …” She moves quickly from the body a final time, using the seemingly inconsequential moment required to study and clean bits of decayed flesh from the arrow. “For it is the only thing that you have yet to—”

“Clever, my girl,” the old man answers, with a light laugh. “But let me retain one small secret for now, eh? Now, to the business at hand. What do you note about the arrow?”

Keera’s face fills with disappointment as she lets the arrow rest upon her finger. “The balance is wretched. You could not loose this shaft from more than a short distance with any chance of accuracy. And these flights—there is no question of their being able to steady its course, even could you launch it further.”

“Just so,” Caliphestros judges approvingly. “And what, then, would you guess the likelihood of the best Broken archers killing a man with such arrows to be, even were the condemned close by?”

“Small, my lord,” Keera replies. “If it exists, at all.”

“Indeed, Keera,” Caliphestros says. “These arrows are intended to thus deceive Broken’s enemies. And to attempt to spread a disease that the priests of Kafra were unaware could
not
be spread after death. They no doubt thought it identical with the Holy Fire, the pious fools …”

“Whatever their thinking, they pressed the deadly heads into the softer parts of his flesh,” Keera says, “after he was already dead.”

“Excellent.” Caliphestros urges Stasi a little closer to the corpse, glancing at it again for as long as he can tolerate the stench. “Thus we can, indeed, conclude that the fever had killed him before he was pierced by such precious ritual weapons.”

“Then when we were at that wretched pool upriver,” Keera says, “you were adamant about our not touching any creatures, the dead along with the living, because we could not say just what affliction had killed which creature, particularly from a distance.”

“Well reasoned, Keera,” Caliphestros answers. “Would that I had been able to teach the Kafran priests and healers such logic. My quickly increased alarm was due to my detecting the presence of what you call
Moonfire;
for after the victims of that disease—call it what you will, Holy Fire, the
Ignis Sacer
of the
Romani
, or the name other Christ-worshippers use, Saint Anthony’s Fire—die, their bodies release a type of evil vapor or bad air,
†
one that the illness seems to use, to carry itself on to other living beings.”

“But, surely,” Keera answers, “if one disease can ride upon the air released by the bodies undetected, others—such as the rose fever—would do the same.”

Caliphestros lets a deep breath escape him in frustration. “Indeed. It is an inconsistency that I have not been able to resolve, save to think that these pestilences, like other orders of beings, are not all equally clever. Why should one sickness remain dangerous after its host has died, while another does not? Most that call themselves healers—and none worse than the Kafran—cannot grasp the notion that this a question that
must
have an answer. To nearly all such, it is the will of their god, and that is enough.”

Although he is about to continue, Caliphestros, like Keera and Stasi, suddenly goes rigid and looks up, when a loud
“Shhh!”
sounds from above. The panther growls low, looking for a tree to climb as well as the human who has, presumably, made the sound; but she finds neither, until Heldo-Bah’s voice continues to whisper, “Can you two not conclude this imbecilic discussion, or must you tease out every little thread of mutual congratulation, to assure one another of your shared genius?”

Not even Stasi can locate the gap-toothed Bane at first, thanks to his ever-reliable trick of keeping his body smeared with the scents of various animals when in peril; and it is unsurprising, therefore, that neither Caliphestros nor Keera can spot him, either. Soon enough, however, Heldo-Bah’s ugly mouth and teeth—made somehow even more repellant by their being upside down—appear, along with the rest of his face, when he lets himself slowly hang by the knees from the lower limb of a nearby oak tree, its branches laden with leaves.

“Heldo-Bah!” Keera says. “So you
did
make good time in getting here!”

“And shall remember your unkind words on that subject,” Heldo-Bah replies. “The very thought that we would shirk our duty at a moment such as—”

“Get them into the trees, will you not, Heldo-Bah?” comes Veloc’s whispering voice, from further up; then, to his sister, he adds, “You are in greater danger than you know, Keera—I would suggest any one of this stand of trees for you, and that rather obliging beech, there, for Lord Caliphestros and his companion, who will find its lower limbs easily conquered.”

Heeding Veloc’s sense of urgency with no more than whispers and gestures, the old man is able to direct Stasi up and into the nearby beech, which does indeed have several stout lower limbs that grow at odd angles, offering easy pathways upward to the panther’s sharp claws and powerful legs. In only a few quiet moments, cat and rider find themselves in the higher reaches of the beech, at about the height of the three Bane, who are nestled into other, more upright trees of different varieties.

“At last,” Heldo-Bah whispers. “I did not think that either of you would ever allow us to get a word in, that you might get off the ground and into safety. Great gods, what vain chattering …”

Now that Keera is away from the rotting soldier, the scent of men becomes unmistakable, bringing several low growls from Stasi before Caliphestros quiets the panther. Yet it is not the simple scent of one tribe of men, but the complex aromas of at least two, and perhaps more. “Yes—I make it out, now,” Keera pronounces. “Our own warriors, somewhere close by. But something else, too—not the honest scent of true Broken soldiers, but the scented, well-preening aroma of—of—”

“Baster-kin’s Guard, sister,” Veloc says, directing his chin to the far side of the river. “They imagine themselves well hidden, but even I can pick up the scent and detect their movements. I imagine they await the arrival of some more powerful contingents of the actual Broken army—a fact that would be comforting, were our own men not also proving inexplicably noisy, behind us …”

“Behind us?” Caliphestros asks. “You mean to say that we …?”

“Yes, old sage,” Heldo-Bah replies scornfully. “You’ve hit upon it: we’ve stumbled between two quietly advancing forces, and sudden revelation of our presence may be enough to earn us either outright execution from the Guard, or several mistakenly aimed, poison-tipped arrows from advance groups of our own archers, who are no doubt very, very nervous just now. A devilish predicament …”

“But what can your commander be thinking?” Caliphestros says, somewhat stunned. “When stealth and the Wood have always been your people’s greatest protections?”

“I believe he intends some gesture,” Heldo-Bah replies, “to make the Tall reconsider all their usual thoughts about how our people fight.”

Veloc is far from satisfied with this explanation: “And yet it is inexplicable that Ashkatar should make so terrible an error—he is a great soldier.”

An idea strikes Veloc at that moment, and he turns to face south. “Linnet!” he suddenly says, not in a full shout, but in a whisper loud enough to be clearly detected. “Linnet-of-the-Line,
any
Linnet-of-the-Line, in the Army of the Bane Tribe!”

“Veloc, you imbecile, shut your mouth!” Heldo-Bah commands; and it is well that he does, for almost immediately, an arrow that they both recognize as having come from a sharp-eyed Bane archer’s short bow strikes the tree near the handsome tracker’s head. “Do you listen to nothing that I say? Do you imagine that Ashkatar’s men are acquainted with the
average
forager’s methods of concealment, much less our own, and so can know who we are? Fool!”

At the commotion, Stasi growls deeply, looking now to the woodland to the south and its small race of men, who suddenly seem a source of threat: unusual and confusing considerations, for her, an animal who has always respected the Bane enough to spare them from vengeful attacks, just as they have always respected her. Caliphestros whispers words of explanation and reassurance to his companion, stroking her magnificent white coat, but she will not take her brilliant green eyes from the forest, and the hairs of her mighty neck and shoulders she keeps high, as her tail begins to flick in a manner that would ordinarily mean death for some creature. Keera, observing her fellow foragers’ confusion and the discomfort of their new allies with equal alarm, decides that she alone can remove the threat of violence from this turn of events.

“The pair of you!” she whispers loud to her brother and Heldo-Bah, swinging down to a lower branch of her tree. “Make no move. And if you would please oblige me, Lord Caliphestros—I will bring some member of our own forces to our position without useless death. If I can …”

With a few more fast, agile movements, Keera reaches the forest floor, and disappears into the undergrowth of the thicker woodland. Her brother offers one quick protest, but Heldo-Bah has a tight hand over his mouth before he can do any more.

Their wait is a mercifully short one. There are few of Ashkatar’s officers and men who do not know Keera, at least by reputation; and she manages to find and return with a young pallin who relates that the Bane commander’s force has been on the watch for the return of Heldo-Bah’s foraging party—along with “unexpected guests,” Ashkatar has been careful to say, although he has vouchsafed no more to his men, in the hope that they would not serve their various watches in a state of panic, knowing that they were awaiting the coming, not only of the sorcerer Caliphestros, but of possible strange companions and familiars of that great and mighty entity. No warning of Ashkatar’s, of course, could truly have prepared his men; for when the young Bane warrior sees not only the old man but the enormous white panther, as well, descending from their beech tree, he begins to visibly shake.

Keera puts a reassuring hand to his shoulder. “Do not fear, Pallin,” she says. “They have proved true friends of our tribe—for many years, it turns out.”

“Yes,” the young man gasps, his dark features going quite white, “but you must understand, Tracker Keera. Since I was a child, I have been told that this animal was but a myth. And the sorcerer was spoken of only when my mother wished to terrify me into complying with her wishes—”

“Well,” Heldo-Bah laughs quietly, leaping to the ground from the next-to-lowest limb of his own perch, “now
you
will have something with which to terrify
her
, young Pallin! As is only right and just, the world turning as it does, and all parents who engage in such behavior eventually receiving a dose of their own medicine, when the Moon is playing fair.”

“Pay no attention to Heldo-Bah,” Veloc says reassuringly; but he realizes his error immediately, for any comfort he might have offered with his manner is removed by his referring to his infamous friend by name, a name almost as fearful to the pallin as is that of Caliphestros.

“Heldo-Bah?”
says the young man, again turning to Keera. “Then it is true you travel with the murderer—” Quickly realizing his own misstep, the soldier glances back at the approaching forager. “Although I have been told, we have all been told, of the great and terrible quest upon which the Groba sent you, several days ago, and I respect your patriotism, sir—”

“Don’t bother, boy,” Heldo-Bah whispers cheerfully, showing the filed, irregular teeth in a grin that does little to help the trembling young fellow. “I do what I do for my friends, out of the desire to extract vengeance on the Tall, and because I must—no great nobility involved in it, as you will yourself discover, should your yantek actually be fool enough to take you out across the river and onto the Plain.” The lethal eyes search the forest further south. “Where is he, by the way? I rather expected
him
to greet us, after what we’ve been through.”