The Legend of Broken (85 page)

They find the old man sitting atop his mare on the edge of the broad area in which the men and women from the Wood are raising their ever-greater dust cloud. Next to Visimar is that same small woman whom both birds last encountered in the treetops just above their meeting with Caliphestros in Davon Wood. These two—Visimar and the small woman—seem to be attempting to command the activity of the others before them; but it is clear that actual authority rests with a man far more fitted, in appearance, for the job: a filthy little man that the birds would consider to be stricken by one of the diseases that, were he one of their kind, lead to pecking and tearing at one’s own feathers, as well as to speaking in nonsense chatter.

More remarkable yet, this small man on a small horse has strangely sharpened teeth plainly visible; and yet, for all his mad peculiarities, this atrocious-smelling human never fails to get the most active behavior from his fellows, and so makes the authoritative tasks of both Visimar and the woman next to him almost unnecessary. Thus, Little Mischief feels no compunction about alighting upon the top of Visimar’s head; while Visimar, for his part, merrily calls out the starling’s name, then quickly extends his arm, seeming to know that the small bird’s companion, the enormous (and enormously proud) queen of the night, Nerthus, will soon be swooping in to clutch his wrist and fist, which, along with his other hand and forearm, Visimar has thankfully thought to encase in a pair of leather gauntlets. These leather coverings offer some relief from the talons of the great owl—even if that relief is less than complete.

“Viz-ee-mah!”
the starling atop the old cripple’s head blurts out, punctuating the name with those clicks and crackles that can often make the starling such an annoying bird, especially in the early morning hours.

“My lord!” Keera says, half-delighted and half-mystified. “These are the same birds with whom I observed his lordship having most extraordinary congress during our march to Okot.”

“They have been the messengers between Lord Caliphestros and myself for years, since long before this undertaking,” Visimar answers, “although never was their service more vital than in recent weeks.” Still holding the great owl, he indicates to Keera that she should extend a pair of fingers. “All right, Little Mischief,” he says. “Leap upon the fingers of a new friend:
Keera
.”

The bird’s head swivels and bobs upon his ever-active body, and he soon leaps down upon Keera’s hand, his small feet creating a trembling, vital sensation throughout the forager’s hand and body. That sensation is as nothing, however, to when the starling looks up at the Bane woman with his black eyes and declares,
“Kee-rah!”

“My lord—!” the tracker exclaims softly.

“Oh, it’s nothing to do with me,” Visimar replies. “One of the many successful experiments, based on previous years of the study of bird as well as other animal life besides our own, that my master conducted in the Wood and elsewhere. Little Mischief—for such is the name Lord Caliphestros gave him—will now know you forever. I cannot pretend to understand how or why; but I do know that it can be of great use …” Visimar’s eyes fix on the starling’s intently for a moment, and he says, “Little Mischief—you go with
Kee-rah
—just to the top of the hill. See what the men on the walls of
Boh-ken
are about, and in what numbers.” Visimar looks up. “Keera?”

Keera is too entranced by the magic of the moment to think of hesitating at the order. “Aye, Lord Visimar!” she replies, turning her pony to the east, and making for the crest behind which her fellow Bane have been so hard at work to create their illusion. The trip of woman and bird is a short one, however; in just a few minutes Keera races back to Visimar, enthusiasm in her features. “They do just as we hoped, my lord!” she calls. “Men line the walls between the guardhouses, and bring heavy
ballistae
up to assist them.”

Visimar nods knowingly. “Oxmontrot was wise, to make his walls wide enough to support such engines of war,” he says. “Although, in this case—as in so many—his descendants will, it appears, make a weakness of his wisdom.” Attempting to stare once again into the eyes of the starling that perches upon Keera’s fingers, Visimar is forced to purse his lips and whistle sharply; for the bird is still entranced by Keera’s features, just as he was in the treetops of Davon Wood.

“Hear me, now, Little Mischief!” Visimar says, with urgency; for the sound of his whistling has finally attracted the starling. “Go to
Kaw-ee-fess-tross,
and say this:” He uses words that Little Mischief—who richly deserves his name, Keera has decided—understands:
“So-jers. So-jers, so-jers, so-jers, Boh-ken, eees!”

The repetition of the first word, Keera supposes, is intended to indicate that there are
many
soldiers; the last, that these soldiers have gathered at the East Gate. When she sees Visimar detect a gleam, if not of comprehension, then at least of correct memorization, in the starling’s black eyes, Keera watches the old man pull a bit of parchment from his robe, and, with his free right hand, place it upon his thigh and print a strange symbol upon it with charcoal.

Catching sight of her interested expression, Visimar explains, “It is merely a coded method that my master and I had of relating meeting places and enemy movements, when he was in the Wood and I in the city, before our communication was severed by my
Denep-stahla
 …” Having completed the brief scratch of charcoal, Visimar holds it up to his Bane friend; but Keera must ask, “Are they wholly of your own invention, then? For they are not the same as those that appear on the ancient rocks we use for mapping trails.”

“Not wholly our own,” Visimar explains. “But this is also a runic way of writing, although one not quite dead: merely borrowed by my master from tribes to the north, so that there was little chance that the Kafran, who take little interest in those kingdoms and nations about them, would comprehend them.”

Folding the parchment carefully, Visimar produces a string, with which he clearly means to tie the simple message to the talons of the waiting Nerthus; but the great owl takes this as something of an insult, in one motion batting the string away and then using the same talon to clutch the parchment tight, as if to tell Visimar that she no more needs binding to achieve an important assignment than does the starling that is her constant source of irritating (if often affectionate) company and competition. A somewhat chastised Visimar takes the owl’s meaning perfectly:

“Very well, then, Nerthus, carry your message to Caliphestros freely, just as Little Mischief does—but hurry, great and beautiful lady. For time now presses, as the storm approaches the city …”

And so, with Heldo-Bah, Veloc, and their detachment of Bane warriors continuing to delightedly raise as much dust and noise as they can about the eastern road to Broken, the two birds take flight. Watching them go with a smile, Keera asks a final question: “One point still puzzles me, Visimar: why does Lord Caliphestros wait for the rain to begin before our main assault?”

“Because the rain will
spark
the fire
automatos
,” Visimar replies. “The most fiercely burning flame known, even in the mightiest kingdoms—and all our subsequent plans depend on that ancient fire.”

Keera grows bewildered. “
Water
will spark
fire
, my lord?”

Visimar shakes his head. “Again, I do not pretend to understand it, Keera, any more than I understand the Riddle of Water, Fire, and Stone. I can only tell you this: that my master’s science has never failed, to my knowledge. And so, yes, when the great storm begins, I will wager that we shall see a most remarkable and shocking sight …”

5.

Not many moments later, at the crest of the trail that connects a patch of ground south of Broken’s walls with the larger, lower plain upon which Sentek Arnem and Yantek Ashkatar’s allied force received its final training and orders, loud sounds of amazement—some amused, some awed, but by now, all accepting—can be heard emerging from the sentek’s newly reconstructed tent. Arnem has established his main headquarters for the attack upon the city at the terminus of this trail, so that his tent, like the rest of his camp, is at least partially protected from the eyes of the sentries upon the southern walls of the city by the few stands of firs that have withstood the rocky ground and centuries of wind upon the summit of the mountain. But the sounds of consternation within that tent are not sparked by the plans for deployment of the main part of the allied force, but by the silhouettes of the two birds that can be seen flying away from just outside the shelter, to seek safety among the nearby trees. For these birds—Little Mischief and Nerthus—have brought to Lord Caliphestros what he claims is positive assurance that the deception being supervised by Visimar and Keera below the East Gate of Broken has been a wholehearted success; and that, therefore, the second stage of the allied action must commence immediately.

After handing that assurance over to Sentek Arnem, Lord Caliphestros chose to move atop Stasi to a point nearby the commander’s tent, so that his presence would not unduly influence any reactions to the idea of intelligence coming from such a source as birds. And now, as the various commanders emerge from their latest council and move off to prepare for the second and third phases of the attack, Caliphestros remains at that nearby, shadowy spot, keeping his companion—who senses the coming climaxes, both in human affairs and in the weather atop the mountain—calm; and it is here that Arnem finds the pair, gazing almost wistfully off toward the great shadow that is the South Gate of Broken.

“I shall say this, my lord,” Sixt Arnem announces, as he watches his trusted commanders move off toward their various tasks, then joins the legless old man. “Your years in the Wood have taught you endurance, but they have also made you forget how remarkable many things that you have come to take for granted must appear to men from either Okot
or
Broken. New realities or notions are not so easy to accept; and the facility with which you have brought myself, Yantek Ashkatar, and our respective officers to accept and appreciate the new realities with which you have acquainted us is to be commended—with no little awe, I might add.”

“The sentek speaks truly, Lord Caliphestros,” Ashkatar says, his characteristic laugh rolling up from his powerful chest as he follows Arnem. “No one shares your hatred for the men who rule in Broken more than we Bane; yet there were times when, even as I believed that you offered us hope, I could not understand—and, I will admit, even doubted the sense of—your orders and actions: the endless digging on our march home to Okot, after our initial meeting, or the very identity of your companion, the white panther, one of the great legends of our people … Once explained, of course all doubt was put away; but every day, every hour, every moment, it has seemed that not only our officers but our men have been asked to accept strange or incredible notions—yet they do so now as if they were the most common of commands. And here the sentek and I stand, by way of profound example, prepared to gamble the timing of the stages of our attack on communications brought by messengers who have feathers rather than feet!”

“This all may be true,” Caliphestros says at length. “But had I not happened upon men and women prepared to believe in all I have learned, any ‘new realities’ of my own would have been explained in vain. And now—but one more ‘new reality’ left to prove …” Straightening up, he searches the officers who move away from the tent. “Are Linnets Crupp and Bal-deric here?”

“We are, my lord,” Crupp answers, as he and Bal-deric step forward.

“And our various
ballistae
ready to take up their positions?” Caliphestros then indicates the roiling clouds that continue to darken the light of early morning. “For we
must
be ready when this storm strikes.”

“And we shall be, my lord. Please do not doubt that.” It is Bal-deric who now speaks. “The first group of machines reached their positions before this council dispersed. As for the others—” Bal-deric indicates the trail up from the training ground, alongside which sit not only Arnem’s command tent, but the second collection of Caliphestros’s
ballistae
. “We await only word from the Southwestern Gate, as well as any movement by the Guardsmen themselves, at which time we shall wheel them into both place—and action.”

“You must not make your actions too dependent upon such messages and signs,” Caliphestros replies, with more urgency than any officer present has seen him exhibit before. “The
rain,
gentlemen!” The old man leans forward to take up a nearby piece of fir branch and then waving it before Stasi’s jaws, at which the white panther begins to playfully yet fearsomely gnaw at the section of wood and needles. “When the rain strikes, the South Gate must be coated—” He points the branch toward the
ballistae
’s carts and their beds full of clay containers, each ready for launching. “And if indeed it is, you shall see something never before witnessed upon this mountain.” At last allowing Stasi to take the fir branch from him, that she may continue gnawing upon it, Caliphestros adds only: “I have said enough, I’m certain you will agree. Sentek Arnem—I leave the rest to you …”

While Caliphestros proceeds, as he has so often done on this march, to seek solace in the company of the white panther alone, Sixt Arnem declares, “Well, then, Bal-deric—finish the installation of your
ballistae
at the Southwestern Gate, and begin your bombardments. And with luck—we shall soon know you have completed the job properly by the cries of terror among Lord Baster-kin’s Guard!”