The Legend of Broken (76 page)

And, with no more cleverness or cruelty to offer, with nothing at all remaining, save a look of simple fear, the First Wife of Kafra turned and moved swiftly out of the small clearing toward the south, glancing back only once, with what seemed to Keera, now, an expression of not only resentment, but, perhaps, regret, as well.

As soon as she had disappeared, the three foragers quickly leapt down from their high perches to tree limb after tree limb, until they were upon the woodland floor once again. Each was plainly full of questions; although Keera and Veloc could see that the encounter had drained Caliphestros—despite his final posture of defiance and anger—of too much energy to allow any possibility of immediate reply, and so brother and sister were silent. Heldo-Bah, of course, exhibited no such delicacy, and no such manners:

“
You,
old man,” he said, stepping closer, “have a great deal of explaining to do …”

“I suppose I do, Heldo-Bah,” Caliphestros replied, his great store of exhaustion finally making itself audible in his voice. Keera and Veloc both rushed to each of his arms, fearing that he would fall from the panther’s shoulders; but he indicated that he was able to travel unaided atop Stasi with a quick lift of his hand. “For now, however—let us get to our destination, before the fighting begins …”

“Demons take the fighting!” Heldo-Bah replied. “I have seen much fighting, in my time—but never have I seen so strange an encounter as that one. No—I will remain with the rest of you, to learn what lies behind all this.”

Caliphestros nodded, urging Stasi forward once more. “And learn it you shall—but I am not yet ready to speak of it.”

It was not long before the group approached the high rocks that offered a broad view of the trees and ground on the southern side of the Fallen Bridge; and, in the distance, the flickering lights of the torches being carried by Lord Baster-kin’s Guard could just begin to be seen. Before long, their laughing, triumphant voices, aided by wine, mead, and beer, began to become audible: a clear demonstration that they believed the complete lack of resistance they had thus far encountered was an indication, not of any trap or stratagem on the part of the Bane, but of the terror with which they had filled their enemies’ hearts.

As the battle between Ashkatar’s men and Lord Baster-kin’s Guard rages

about them, the foragers learn the deeper truth of what they are

witnessing …

Through their own and Stasi’s ability to move with unmatched swiftness, Keera, Veloc, and Heldo-Bah managed to compensate for the time lost during the strange but enlightening encounter that had left Lord Caliphestros racked by turmoil and a weariness of the spirit, and to reach the high rock formation that had been their original destination before hostilities erupted. Here they positioned themselves behind stony barriers in time to observe the lesson that would soon be taught to the soldiers of Broken (even if only to the Merchant Lord’s Guard) about war: not war as it was taught to or practiced by the officers and men of that kingdom, but war as it was best understood and fought by the Bane.

“But I do not understand the distinction of which you have often spoken, my lord,” Keera said softly, looking out amid the ground lying to the south and east of the misty crags overhanging Hafften Falls and the Fallen Bridge, across which the forward units of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard had already made their way, and were now trying, with almost uniform failure, to drag their
ballistae,
nearly all of which slipped from the surface of that giant tree, only to crash into pieces in the rocky waters below. “A hammer or a blade is not different when used by different peoples,” Keera continued. “Is not war the same? Why should there be one variety of war for the Tall, and another for the Bane?”

“Because war is not a thing separate from the mind, like the hammer or the blade,” Caliphestros replied quietly, his head ever turning to make out the forms of Bane swordsmen, spear carriers, and archers who had already taken up positions amid the northernmost part of Davon Wood, while more of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard continued a march that they presumed would take them closer to the enemy. “It is an
expression of
the mind,” the old scholar continued, “one used to achieve a certain object, yes, but one that bespeaks the nature of the
collective
mind of that people.”

“Yes, yes, all very interesting, I’m sure,” Heldo-Bah interrupted. “But now, Lord Caliphestros, if we may return to the small matter of what we saw take place between yourself and the First Wife of Kafra—”

But Heldo-Bah was silenced by a quick warning blow to the ribs issued by Veloc.

“
Aiee,
Veloc!” Heldo-Bah noised, quietly but urgently. “Are you mad? There are not Tall enough entering the Wood, that you think you must attack one of your only friends?”

“Let Keera be the one to ask about such things, Heldo-Bah,” Veloc replied, as he took several sheets of parchment and a bit of writing charcoal from a small bag at his side. “You have all the tact of a shag bull.”

Heldo-Bah, ready to argue further, was distracted when he noticed just what his friend was doing. “And what does all this mean?” he asked, indicating the parchment and charcoal.

“I shall make a few notes,” Veloc answered, “that I may remember all that his lordship says without error.”

“You?”
Heldo-Bah said. “The man who believes that his precious history can only be accurately related by the historian to his audience through spoken words, whereas writing provides opportunity for lies?”

“And so do I believe still,” Veloc declared. “These are, as I said, but notes, used to remind me of certain details that, when I speak of it later, may be useful in recalling the whole with greater accuracy.”

“With even
more
lies, is what you mean,” Heldo-Bah judged.

“Hush, now,” Veloc said, with great self-importance. “Let us learn what his lordship would have us know …”

The conversation between Keera and Caliphestros had not ceased, during this interval, and the old man was continuing to explain his same theme: “Had Yantek Ashkatar kept to his original plan,” he said, “then he would have committed an error of enormous proportions. The Bane have not the training to face soldiers of the Tall, or even of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, in an open field, nor have they the weapons or the physical stature. They should have been cut to pieces. Now, however”—and at this, Caliphestros held his hand out to the moving shadows on the forest floor, hundreds of them, marching without any organization at all, due to the trees that everywhere prevented any such order—“it is the Guard who have made the terrible error of attempting to fight their enemy upon his ground, and according to his methods.”

Keera looked curious, but far less confused, having been given these thoughts by so expert a mind. “You must have fought in many wars yourself, my lord, to know such principles.”

“Myself?” Caliphestros shook his head. “Not at all. Oh, I have witnessed many battles, true, but only as a man of medicine in the employ of one side or the other, who gave his service to heal the wounded, and to ease their pain. But to understand such things, truly? There are great minds, Keera, who have practiced warfare—generals, kings, and emperors—who have gathered their own and others’ knowledge into books of instruction, which are available for any to read, and which I used in offering my advice to Yantek Ashkatar. And in this sense, we have been fortunate.”

“Fortunate, old man?” Heldo-Bah echoed. “How is it ‘fortunate’ to find a full
khotor
of the Merchant Lord’s Guard entering Davon Wood? Amusing, perhaps, but …”

Although Veloc once again shoved at his friend for daring to interrupt, Caliphestros turned and spoke to Heldo-Bah without anger or rancor: “Because it is now plainly evident that neither the Grand Layzin nor Lord Baster-kin has deigned to read any such books, whereas a truly wise soldier—such as Sentek Arnem, who is even now marching his
khotor
of Talons toward the Cat’s Paw—would never have made such a mistake. It violates everything he was ever taught by his own tutor, Yantek Korsar, or by his own experience in fighting such tribes as the Torganians and the eastern marauders. He would have waited, and drawn Ashkatar out onto the Plain—and, as I say, despite the fact that the steel we have spent these many days forging is superior even to that carried by the Talons, the manner in which they fight, their discipline and organization, is something that requires years for large groups of men to learn—and its absence among the Guard shall prove as important as any grade of steel.”

“Leaving only the small flaw,” Heldo-Bah murmured, also, now, listening to the sounds of passing Guardsmen beneath the rocks atop which the three foragers and the pair who had become their traveling fellows were carefully hidden, “that the Guard are a vicious group of murderers, able to do more than a little damage to our warriors on their own.”

“Some, perhaps,” Caliphestros answered, with a shrug of his shoulders. “But in the end, for the few wounds the Bane may receive, these Guardsmen will trade their lives—and when Sentek Arnem does reach the Cat’s Paw, he will be met by a scene of death and horror, of hundreds of Tall bodies in the Cat’s Paw amid those poor Bane souls who took their lives in the river before we were able to determine a cause and a method of preventing the rose fever. And that horror will make him pause, unwilling to trade the best troops in his kingdom for a highly uncertain outcome. And then, we may find him ready to treat with us. But hush, now …” The old man brought his face in contact with the fur of Stasi’s neck and cheek, burying it sidelong in that rich white coat, as if it gave him some sort of deep, even mystical comfort to do so: not only, Keera believed she could see, because of the danger that was so close about them on all sides, now, but because of the lingering yet still-unexplained hurt done to the old man’s soul (nay, she thought, to his
heart
) by his encounter with the First Wife of Kafra, the woman called Alandra. “Let us be silent, or as silent as we can,” the old man continued. “Further talk can only threaten our being discovered, and, as Heldo-Bah has said, even if these Guardsmen lack order and insight, they do not want for bloodlust.”

Perhaps cheered at finally having his thoughts recognized as valid by the old man, even if in a somewhat less than direct or congratulatory manner, Heldo-Bah half-rose, producing the sword he had carried since meeting Caliphestros in one hand, and his gutting blade in the other. “Well, as to that,” he whispered, “rest assured, you shall all be safe—I may not wander out into this madness, but the Moon help any Guardsman, or any five Guardsmen, who wander too close to these rocks. Stay low, all of you.” He looked directly into Stasi’s eyes. “And that includes you, my lovely,” he said, before disappearing into the shadows only a short distance away.

Veloc turned in sudden shock. “Heldo-Bah!” he hissed, as loudly as he was able. “Don’t be a fool—”

“Do not bother, Veloc,” Caliphestros murmured; and when Veloc turned to the old man, he found to his surprise that the old man was smiling in true admiration. “You were right, Keera, in this as in most things: a profoundly irritating man, but possessed of great courage …” Stasi growled lowly at the disappearance of the third forager, and Caliphestros ran his hands deep into her fur, stroking and scratching and trying to calm her. “Take your ease, Stasi—this is one task for which our filthy friend is best suited—whereas
you
must remain here with me.”

And this last statement, it seemed to Keera, as she lifted her eyes to determine the position of the Moon and thereby the time of night, was more a plea than a command …

The Moon had not traveled very far from where Keera first glimpsed it before the battle began. The encounter started where Caliphestros had said it likely would: near the Cat’s Paw, thus ensuring that, once the whole of Baster-kin’s
khotor
were in the Wood, they would not be able to flee back across the Fallen Bridge. Indeed, the foragers and Caliphestros would later learn that Ashkatar had ordered that any Tall given the responsibility of remaining in the rear of their force to hold the southern end of the bridge be dispatched first: this was not to be an encounter in which prisoners would be taken or cowards allowed to flee, but one of complete destruction, which would, therefore, not only allow the Bane to indulge their special loathing for the Merchant Lord’s men, but serve as a warning—again, just as Caliphestros had said it would—to any other troops from Broken who were on their way to Davon Wood with the purpose of attacking and destroying the exile tribe.

Thus, the cries that echoed from the southern bank of the Cat’s Paw, indicating that actual combat had been joined, were especially horrifying, produced not merely by wounded and dying men, but by the screams of those who were thrown down from the rocky heights into the violent riverbed below. This horror, of course, was no accident, but rather a key part of Ashkatar’s plan, designed to make those Guardsmen in the Wood lose whatever small ability the forest had left them to organize their numbers into coherent ranks and conduct an effective resistance; and it served this purpose completely.

Of course, there were other varieties of horror with which the doomed Guardsmen were forced to contend; indeed, there were few if any that they escaped. It is the peculiar nature of the forest, and of primeval
†
forests such as Davon Wood in particular, to change in aspect as soon as night falls, and threats are heard, seen, or felt, into a place of infinite danger; and hard on the heels of this change, the interloper who finds himself stranded in what is without doubt the realm of some other force, realizes the extent of his error. Even the foragers atop the rocks had not truly realized the extent to which Ashkatar’s painted warriors had established their presence in every part of the Wood; but following the first terrible screams that echoed up from the chasm beneath the Fallen Bridge, and the subsequent drone of a Davon ram’s horn being blown, every tree, rock, bush, or shadow seemed to disgorge one or more such brave souls. As always, unlike the forces of the Tall, the Bane fighters included women, more than ready and trained to inflict deadly punishment upon their enemies; and their cries, being the higher in pitch, quickly drove the men of Baster-kin’s
khotor
into a kind of fear that bordered on madness.

And once this confused and unstable (indeed, given the darkness of the Wood, to which the eyes of the Guardsmen were not at all accustomed, this
nightmarish
) condition had been established, almost anything seemed possible. First, of course, Ashkatar’s constant emphasis on vicious war cries from both his male and female warriors made it impossible for units of Broken soldiers to relay orders or to take any accurate measure of how many enemy forces were actually involved in the fight. In truth, the Bane were badly outnumbered; but terror is a mighty method of nullifying such imbalances of power. This effect was only increased by the fact that any attempt by a soldier of the Tall to call for aid instantly marked both the man in distress and those who dared raise their voices in response for death. Fear, again, is whipped into panic if a soldier fighting for his life on foreign ground feels that he cannot even communicate with his fellows without immediately being confronted with the image of an enemy whose body is painted to match the leaves and bark of the surrounding wild plants and trees, or, worse yet, the fur and teeth, feathers and beaks of the deadliest night creatures, and whose immediate attack, therefore, quite aside from being incomprehensibly loud and savagely noisy, is wild and almost bestial in its appearance as well as its violence. Such terrifying methods, if carried off with the skill of which the Bane were masters, could go a very long way toward counteracting differences in numbers, if those differences were not utterly overwhelming.