The Legend of Broken (34 page)

Visimar observes what has washed over Arnem’s features, even as the sentek continues to lovingly groom his horse. “I only persist in broaching the subject, Sentek,” the older man says kindly, “so that you will realize that, if you speak of it once, we need not dwell on it. I could see at the time that you disdained the rituals; and I heard that, after my own punishment, you refused to stand guard at any others—and that your refusal played no small part in the God-King’s decision to suspend the practices altogether. I tell you truly that I then felt happiness for you. Not loathing.”

Arnem looks up, his eyes dark. “Such understanding would be extraordinary, Visimar. And it cannot have made these years easier.”

Visimar tilts his head thoughtfully. “It has not—and yet it has. My body’s suffering would have been worsened by perpetual hatred of men such as yourself, Sixt Arnem. You were all—and remain, whether or not you know it—nearly as helpless,
effective
prisoners of the priests and the merchants as both myself and my master once were. Or so he and I have always believed—and, I think, you have begun to suspect.”

Much of the darkness lifts suddenly from Arnem’s aspect. “You said ‘
have
always believed’—so the tales are true, and Caliphestros yet lives!” Visimar glances away uncertainly; but he does not deny it. “I have always suspected as much,” the sentek continues, with apparent relief.

Visimar smiles at Arnem’s eagerness, knowing it grows from a strong desire to be absolved of the shame of having guarded the Kafran mutilation rituals—even if such participation had been compulsory. For the old acolyte also knows that, where matters of such violent moment are concerned, compulsion does not absolve participation, in the mind of the superior military man: instead, he will wonder—if, eventually, he refuses to carry out a repugnant order, and then finds that his refusal leads, not to his punishment, but to a reassessment of the actions ordered—how many other unfortunates might have been spared, had he objected earlier.

“Well, Sentek, I can but say that I
knew
him to have been alive, at least until fairly recently,” Visimar replies. “But as to the questions of
how
I knew it, and whether or not he lives still, I can say but little, save that I have plainly been in no condition to seek him out. I
will
tell you this, however: if anyone could have survived for so long, without his legs and in the most dangerous parts of that wilderness, it would have been my master. And so—fear not, Sixt Arnem. If Caliphestros
is
still among the living, then we shall both meet him again, and likely soon.”

Just then, the two men mark the sound of a horse approaching at the gallop. The man astride the hardworking white animal is Niksar, returned to them from the column’s head.

“Sentek!” Niksar shouts; and even through the young linnet’s urgency, Visimar can see that Arnem’s aide remains confounded by the manner in which his commander continues to spend private moments in close counsel with an aging unbeliever. “You must rejoin the vanguard. Scouts have reached the next town—one is now returning.”

Arnem, reading trouble in Niksar’s noble features, shifts his attention. “But this will be Esleben—surely the merchants and farmers of so wealthy a town can offer no such complaints as we have heard already.” Arnem studies Niksar closely. “Yet your face tells me that they can …”

“Their objections are far
worse,
from the first look of things,” Niksar replies, hoping his commander will pull away from the madman at his side—as, indeed, he does.

“Stay well back, Anselm,” Arnem orders, as he sets out. “We cannot say when dissatisfaction may turn into something distinctly more unpleasant!”

Visimar nudges his horse with his thighs back toward the marching troops. “True enough, Sentek Arnem,” he muses, as his whispering is drowned out by the rhythmic tramp of the infantry. “Neither here—nor anywhere else, in this kingdom. Not on this journey …” Knowing he has a part to play in that journey, Visimar becomes all happy congeniality, as he draws alongside the foot soldiers of the Talons; and they give loud voice to their satisfaction at his choosing to march for a time in their company.

{
ii
:}

At the head of the marching column of Talons, Arnem and Niksar gallop past the suddenly and plainly apprehensive lead cavalry units. They are entering a lush, flat expanse of farming fields, beyond which, almost a mile from the head of the column, lies Esleben: a considerably larger and more well-to-do place than any of the communities the expedition has yet passed. This is a result, not only of its rich farmland, but of its place at the juncture of the Daurawah Road and a similarly well-traveled route that spans the kingdom from north to south. It is also the terminus of an impressive stone aqueduct that brings water from the Cat’s Paw to the south: an aqueduct that powers the enormous stone mills that are the town’s chief places of employment and sources of profit. The mills and the farming required to feed them have long kept Esleben an energetic town; yet that energy seems fixed, today, on turmoil. Arnem and Niksar can hear, above the drumming of their horses’ hooves, the unmistakable voice of a mob, echoing among the town’s stone-walled,
thatch
-roofed mills, granaries, forges and smiths,
†
as well as its many taverns.

In order to guard against raids by the Bane upon this wealthy center of commerce, its garrison of twelve veterans of Broken’s regular army, always commanded by an experienced linnet-of-the-line, is maintained in a strong stockade on Esleben’s eastern limits. The impenetrable nature of Broken’s borders means this fortification has never seen any real “battle”; today, however, the rage of the townspeople is great enough to lead to a most disordered clash of arms. Yet this violence seems to be directed against any man who wears the distinctive armor or identifying symbols of Broken’s own legions: in addition to seeing two of his mounted scouts amid a throng of menacing villagers, Arnem sees that the third scout, who is riding back to the column, is spurring his horse as if his life, and not simply a report, depends upon it. Arnem and Niksar increase their own pace, and meet the approaching scout midway between the town and the rest of the men. One look at the golden-haired young soldier, as well as at the lather on the flanks of his mount, is all Arnem requires to understand that the two scouts still in Esleben may be surrounded by more trouble than they can manage on their own.

“Ho, soldier!” cries Arnem, reining in the Ox. The scout’s horse rears with a cry of its own, after which the soldier gets a fist to his chest in salute and tries to catch his breath. “Akillus!”
†
Arnem continues; for he knows each scout in the Talons by name, as they are the most intrepid of Broken’s already brave troops; and none is braver than the chief scout before the sentek. In addition, Akillus is, because of his seemingly inexhaustible good humor, a favorite of Arnem’s “The people of Esleben are even less pleased to see us than their neighbors have been, it would seem,” the commander says.

The scout pauses a moment to steady his voice, and wipes at the moist brown shoulders of his horse as he brings the mount alongside the Ox. “Aye, Sentek,” he answers, his concern for his two comrades still in the town, as well as for his horse, plain in his face, if not his disciplined words. “We thought to contact the garrison, but—the villagers are keeping them penned up inside their own stockade, and have for some time, apparently. And, when we asked the village elders for an explanation … Well, Sentek, what we received in reply was a mob of madmen. And may the golden god shrivel my stones if we’ve been able to learn the cause of it all—”

“Akillus!” Niksar says, though his rank is but marginally higher than the chief scout’s own. “Whining villagers are no reason to blaspheme before your commander.”

Akillus begins to apologize, but Arnem holds up a hand. “Yes, yes, forgiveness granted, lad.
‡
Crowds are tricky things—I suspect that even Kafra will not begrudge your outburst.” Pulling a scrap of parchment and a bit of hard charcoal from a pocket beneath his armor, Arnem quickly scrawls a short note, which he hands to the scout. “Return to the column, now, Akillus. Give this to the first
Lenzinnet
††
that you find, and have him bring his unit back with you. We go on ahead.”

“Sentek?” says the scout uneasily. “Surely you should wait—”

But Arnem has put his ball-headed spurs
§
to the Ox’s sides, and is away to the town at a hard gallop. Niksar, sighing in fretful familiarity at Arnem’s impetuousness, makes ready to follow, saying only, “And make them
good
men, Akillus—I don’t like the mood of that town …”

As he begins to turn his own horse round so that he can carry out his order, Akillus glances at Arnem, who is moving directly to the aid of the two scouts in Esleben. And, as he watches his commander, Akillus smiles—a full, heartfelt smile, one that reveals clearly why Arnem’s men love him so: their commander will forgive a blasphemy that many officers might punish with a thrashing, and at the next moment rush off into danger before support troops have even started for the trouble.

“
He’s
mad, himself,” the scout murmurs, in great respect. Observing for a last time how Arnem expertly handles his horse, riding so low that his body seems merely another muscle in the Ox’s back, Akillus quietly adds, “But it’s a madness that we would gladly share—eh, Niksar?”

Before Niksar can again upbraid him again, Akillus is away, his own horse’s pace almost matching that of the Ox in the opposite direction.

As Arnem draws close enough to discern the townspeople’s outraged expressions, he can also see the large mills and granaries at the center of the town, which are surrounded by a circular cart path fed by the four roads that approach the town from the four cardinal directions. Within the dusty circle stands a large platform with pillory and gibbet, a fair-sized temple to Kafra, and the terminus of the long stone aqueduct, which brings its turbulent waters along a gently sloping stone channel several miles in length. The concentrated flow from this channel is directed to the outer wheels of the grinding stones housed in the millhouses, the relentless engines of which pulverize prodigious amounts of the grain that is brought from the fields surrounding Esleben, as well as from distant farmsteads—

Yet on this warm spring day, the water from the pool does not flow, and the great mill wheels do not turn …

Upon entering the square, Arnem offers the crowd of what he would guess to be some eighty people no sign at all that he is preparing to slow his charge into their midst. On the contrary, when he is sure the crowd can see both his face and the silver claws on his shoulders, he unsheathes his cavalry sword.
†
Holding this deceptively elegant weapon calmly but purposefully along his leg—where it can be easily used to cut a few throats—the sentek charges toward the townspeople who appear most ready to confront his wild advance; but as the moment of collision nears, the crowd’s determination breaks, and they dash in every direction, leaving the two scouts alone near the gibbet.

As the townspeople disperse, Arnem sees what Akillus has described in more than a few of their faces.
In truth, it is something beyond rage,
he determines;
something that bears a disturbing resemblance to lunacy …

Both of the scouts, like Arnem, have their riding blades drawn, but have yet to make any truly menacing move; and, although their horses had earlier been frightened into turning tight circles in the midst of the crowd, once free of the mass of humans the animals quickly regain composure. Arnem rides directly to the soldiers, without acknowledging the retreating mob. Both men salute bravely, and as they do, Arnem can hear Niksar behind him, using his own mount to ensure that the crowd stays back. “Brekt—Ehrn,” Arnem says, again calling each of the scouts by name. “It seems you’ve stumbled into some sort of commotion.” The sentek keeps the tone of his voice almost merry, as if the threatening scene is nothing more than a mildly amusing spectacle. “Are there any details that I need be concerned with?”

Both scouts laugh, relieved as much as amused, and the older man, Brekt, replies: “We don’t yet know, Sentek—we haven’t been able to speak to any of the garrison. All we
do
know is that this lot”—he indicates the now-splintering crowd—“say that they’ve had eleven of the men penned up in their own stockade for days, if not weeks—”

“Eleven?” Arnem asks, attempting not to betray the dread he feels. “And where is the twelfth?” For a town garrison to be short a man is ominous: such a loss would ordinarily be reported to Broken immediately, to allow a replacement to be sent out at once. But if the townspeople have laid siege to the garrison for so long, then the missing man means the elders in Esleben have deliberately kept the situation from their rulers.
An evil indication,
thinks Arnem, with another ominous twinge.

“We can’t get a reasonable answer,” says the second scout, Ehrn, a slight trembling in his voice. “Just screaming about a ‘crime’—”

With greater confidence, Brekt interrupts, “They claim that one of the garrison soldiers committed a terrible offense, but they won’t tell us
what.
”

“Where are they keeping the man?” Arnem asks severely.

The scouts shrug.
†
“They won’t tell us that, either, Sentek,” Ehrn declares.

“The lot of them simply refuse,” Brekt adds. “They want us to get out, nothing more or less. Not the garrison, however; they
will
say that we’re to leave them behind, as they’ve got further business with them—or, at least, with their commander.”