by Caleb Carr
The overall task of the horsemen, in short, is to breed in the enemy from the start a constant sense of imbalance, unhappy surprise, and, in general, the confusion that destroys coherence of command and movement. As for those Bane who will remain afoot, they study how to integrate their own actions into the attack under the overall tutelage of Linnet Taankret: how to play a part in the Mad King Oxmontrot’s famed Krebkellen, which, like the movements of the cavalry, would seem to less imaginative commanders than Sixt Arnem to have no place in a siege; but, as Yantek Ashkatar is quick to see (much to the satisfaction of both Arnem and Taankret), it can, if its deployment is reimagined.
Nor is it only as students that the Bane have important contributions to make to the great enterprise they will undertake with their former enemies. For, as we have already seen in the annihilation of the First Khotor of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, the Bane have their own methods of confounding and deceiving an enemy, ways long considered deceitful and illegitimate by the soldiers of Broken, in that they did not rely on the direct confrontation of warrior against warrior, army against army. Yet they are far from such baseness, as Taankret, Bal-deric, Crupp, and even Arnem himself (to say nothing of the rest of the sentek’s officers and men) now learn, primarily—in this as in all such matters—through explanations offered by Caliphestros and Visimar. And once more, it is Akillus—ever willing to modify the tactics of his scouts, and in many ways the cleverest of Arnem’s contingent chiefs—who can see the one-legg acolyte and his legless master’s point that the khotor of Baster-kin’s Guard that holds the city against only half again as many besiegers may be vulnerable indeed, if any and all “tricks,” or more properly, deceptions, are employed against Baster-kin’s deceits. Such deceptions are not at all debasing to the attackers, the attacking force is taught, whereas deceit serves only to dishonor those who stoop to its use; in this case, the Merchant Lord’s willingness—even determination—to conceal the many troubles facing his kingdom, as well as his own desire to achieve dishonorable goals, personal and otherwise, under the guise of safeguarding the realm.
After all, Akillus argues during Arnem’s first dinner mess on the cavalry ground, one need only consider how many truly disreputable deceits Baster-kin has already employed during this campaign: for how “honorable” was it to send the Talons into an area he had every reason to believe stricken by at least one deadly disease, and then dispatch his own Guard’s First Khotor into what was thought a safe, perhaps the last safe, region of Broken’s southern province, to attack the Bane and steal any glory that Sentek Arnem and his Talons might have gained from their original task of attacking the Bane? These are not the actions of a truly honorable man, Akillus insists; and soon, all of Arnem’s staff are forced to agree. (And this is why I, your narrator and guide, have written here of the “Battle” of Broken, marking off the word battle in a manner that may seem mocking, but is meant only to warn: to state plainly that to expect, in what remains of my tale, the kind of blind and brutal clash of arms and men that most readers associate with the word battle, rather than an example of an employment of wits to cleverly remove the unjust from power, would be a grave mistake.)
Yet how, then, can Caliphestros, who has more reason to despise Lord Baster-kin than does anyone in the allied camp (with the possible exception of his companion, Stasi), call the Merchant Lord “the last good man in Broken”? Because, as he explains at this same meal, in a very real sense his lordship has been and remains just such: even his willingness to arrange the death of his own feckless son Adelwf, to say nothing of his plans to destroy the Fifth District and the Talons, as well as take Isadora Arnem to wife, have grown, in his lordship’s mind, out of a true belief in his own patriotism and desire to strengthen the kingdom by strengthening the clan Baster-kin: the two are one and the same, an assertion that, as matters stand, is hard to deny.
It is this realization that begins to eat into the deepest part of Sixt Arnem’s soul when, during the last hours of his own and Ashkatar’s combined forces’ time on the field below Broken, he listens to Caliphestros, Crupp, and Bal-deric explain the final stages of their construction of their unique group of ballistae. Some of these are fairly ordinary machines of war, easily built; but some are such devices as no Broken soldier has ever before seen, designed less to simply batter and destroy than to deliver, in a deceptively gentle manner, Caliphestros’s equally remarkable missiles: missiles made, not of stone, but of humble clay containers, which are now filled with that legendary ingredient that the ever-gloomy Heldo-Bah has declared both a myth and the future cause of the now-fully-coordinated allied force’s undoing: the fire automatos.
By this point, the greater part of the force is already moving northward, up the last stretch of mountain path and toward the walls of Broken, in the very dim light of approaching dawn: a dawn that is occasionally augmented by shards of lightning, which is accompanied, at shorter and shorter and shorter intervals, by loud claps of mountain thunder. And if it should seem strange that, even in the midst of all such activities and achievements, Arnem’s mind should be so preoccupied with thoughts of Lord Baster-kin’s apparent treachery, it needs be remembered that more than the lives of the sentek’s wife and eldest son are now threatened. So, too, is the principle that allowed the sentek to order his once-troubled life, and to make sense of all the fearsome violence that he has both engaged in and led during the years since he first joined the army of Broken: the soldier’s code of duty, no small part of which is the unquestioning faith that his superiors’ wisdom and morality need not only never be questioned, but must be worthy of trust.
However, the sentek soon does force himself to shake free, even of such confusing thoughts; and again fixes upon his goal: “There is no changing course, now,” he tells his assembled officers. “Nor am I unaware or ungrateful of all that each of you has sacrificed, both for this undertaking and for my wife and son, who, for all I know, may be in Baster-kin’s custody—or worse—even as we speak. Therefore, let us away to our men—or rather, to our men and women …” Taking on a more congenial tone as the two men depart the field, Arnem inquires of the former seneschal of the clan Baster-kin, “Have you noticed, Radelfer, the great ease with which certain of the Talons intermingle with the women warriors of the Bane?”
“I have noticed, Sentek,” Radelfer laughs, glad to see Arnem take heart. “Although I would scarce have believed it possible, had anyone merely told me. We are on the verge of strange and powerful changes to our world …”
4.
WE HAVE OBSERVED, then, that it has become Sentek Arnem’s firm intention, influenced by Caliphestros’s lectures in the history and weapons of warfare, to make the siege of Broken, not a drawn-out, dismal affair, but a quick and decisive struggle. Odds do not favor him, as we have also seen: Lord Baster-kin’s single khotor of Guard troops would have been no match for the sentek’s similar number of Talons and their Bane allies in the open field, but with the granite walls and iron-banded, foot-and-a-half-thick oak gates of Broken to protect them, the Guardsmen present a formidable challenge, a foe whose chief weaknesses—inexperience and the unprofessionalism that is ever its consequence—Arnem will have to exploit, not with the usual brute weapons of the siege, but with that most difficult type of operation to conduct, a grand deception: a deception that is based not simply on a single device, nor upon the actions of one unit in one phase or area of a battle, but a deception that is coordinated and conducted by an entire army in every part of the field, and is carried through without recourse to savage force.
We observers can best understand this strategy as it unfolds, not by attempting to comprehend every order given by those who have constructed it. Rather, by taking to the skies, once more, as we did at the outset of this tale, we shall make for the walls of Broken, where we will watch the great ruse unfold below us. Now, however, we fly in good and Natural company: that of Caliphestros’s two allies, the enormous owl he gave the name of Nerthus, and the small but daring starling he calls
Little Mischief. It is not difficult to find them, as both birds are in the air above the great city, scanning its streets for any sign of unusual trouble, trouble that they will quickly call to the attention of the remarkable man who is their unique friend. But we immediately see that we have taken flight during the first dismal light of day, which reveals storm clouds still moving on Broken from the horizon to the west. Their speed threatens the city with rain violent enough to match the thunder and lightning that has flashed and rumbled through the night: but will it be rain that serves Caliphestros’s strange purpose, the answer to the Riddle of Water, Fire, and Stone, and serves it in time?
The alarm horns of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard sound above the main gate of Broken, the East: the point at which any enemy concerned with capturing Broken’s richest districts would attack. And if we swoop down upon the streets of the First District of the city, along with our feathered guides, we soon see a tall figure emerging from the Kastelgerd Baster-kin, wrapped from neck to calves in a cloak of black velvet, with a cowl of the same luxurious material covering his shoulders, neck, and head. It is the lord of the Kastelgerd himself: and when he quickly enters a waiting litter, we hear his distinctive voice shout a command, telling its bearers to make for that same East Gate of the city. We follow the quick progress of the litter, and soon watch as the tall, black-clad man disappears into one of the two ingeniously engineered towers that guard the portal. No one of the city’s gates (all of a piece with the great granite walls, and therefore able to support entryways of a thickness and weight far more prodigious than any other city has ever been able to boast) is stronger than the East, simply because of the successive waves of marauders that have appeared from that direction over the centuries, only to be beaten back or convinced to bypass Broken. And so, Lord Baster-kin ascends the worn but seamless steps within the northernmost of these towers without fear; and if we, like Nerthus and Little Mischief, take a perch at the top of a wealthy merchant’s home nearby, we can easily observe the exchange of words that takes place between Baster-kin and the Guardsmen stationed at this crucial position.
“There, my lord!” cries a Guardsman, pointing to the spot where the eastern road takes a slight turn to descend the mountaintop, before disappearing from view. “Only see the dust—there must be thousands of them!”
A great cloud of dust such as would, indeed, ordinarily be raised by so large a number of approaching troops is rising from just under the last section of roadway that those on the wall can see; and yet Baster-kin’s answer is calm. “Quiet, you fool.” He pulls back the hood of his cowl, revealing the topmost portion of a coat of the finest chain mail. Then, looking up and down the wall to see that some thirty or forty men have gathered to observe the ghostly cloud that seems all too close to the gate, he calls out, in a voice now filled with anger: “All of you! Find your spines, and quickly! The traitor Arnem and his unholy Bane allies do not have so many as a thousand troops to bring against us—this dust is simply an indication of how dry the approaches to the city, like our own streets, have become in recent weeks. But look to the west and see the great storm that approaches! When it descends, this cloud of dust shall disappear like the deceitful apparition it is. However”—Baster-kin’s eyes narrow as he turns them to the eastern approach and the dust cloud once more—“this most certainly does indicate that Arnem has decided to make his first thrust against this gate, without question in the hope of seizing our most sacred centers and persons of power, and then forcing the release of his wife and the other rebels in the Fifth District. Well, we shall deal with Lady Arnem and her friends presently. For now, however, assemble our most powerful ballistae upon this wall and within this position, along with the main portion of our men. Do not abandon the other gates, but leave only small watches at each. Position men and machines in such a way that, if the sentek achieves what no marauder leader ever has, and somehow gains entrance through this mass of oak, iron, and stone, he and his followers will be cut down as soon as they enter the city. Move, all of you, we have little time!”
At which the men of the Guard are sent scurrying, their officers trying to call out coherent and coordinated orders—and Lord Baster-kin silently bemoaning the quality of the men with whom he has been left to defend the city. But his faith in its walls and gates, especially the mighty East, is absolute, for he has himself seen to its constant strengthening and restrengthening during his time as Merchant Lord. He has even ignored many of the great stone city’s other original yet less visible structures, and allowed them to fall into disrepair, beginning with the Fifth District …
Nerthus and Little Mischief may now return to the sky, having seen the great activity that has begun to take place on the walls beside and in the streets below the East Gate of Broken. The owl and the starling (and we ourselves) can see from the sky that the approaching force that lies just under the eastern line of sight from the walls of Broken is not, in fact, Caliphestros and Arnem’s main force. Rather, it is a detachment of the smaller humans from Davon Wood. And, as the birds arrive above this group, which is led by several of the small men on the strange little horses that the owl and the starling have recently seen added to the army moving up the mountain, we can all attest to the limited number of this group that has separated itself from Caliphestros and Arnem’s main force, apparently for the sole purpose of creating the enormous cloud of dust that now fills the sky above the eastern approach to the city.
Indeed, no more than fifty of the men and women from the Wood, riding their small horses, are at work on the road and in the large, dry patches of ground about it, dragging large limbs hacked and torn from nearby fir trees, the needles of which cut into the parched earth almost as violently as do the hooves of the horses, whose movements seem somehow more active, even more frenetic, than are those of their more familiar cousins, just as the smaller humans seem more lively, even wild, than do their larger relations. It is a strange sight, which both Nerthus and Little Mischief understand but little; however, the birds nevertheless follow their instructions to descend upon the familiar and ever-friendly figure of Visimar, and see what instruction he offers next.
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 mos
t 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.”