Free The Legend of Broken by Caleb Carr Page B

near this same gate, so that his gruff manner and eternal vigilance can be sensed by any soldier, no matter how humble. After passing through drilling courts where linnets bark orders at night patrols, keeping them moving and ready to respond to any sudden threat, Arnem and Niksar enter a wide, empty parade ground, at the end of which rises a log structure higher than the barracks around it. Making quickly for this building, the two officers bound onto its wooden stairs, Arnem’s doubts and concerns having transformed into the anticipation that he always feels with a new commission. The city
must
be in real danger, he allows himself to think; it is the only explanation that makes the list of worthies called to the Sacristy this night comprehensible. He shall get the “true” war he craves, a war that a professional soldier can be proud of, and one that will begin to finally purge the city of that mischievous idleness, the effects of which he himself witnessed only moments ago.
    At the top of the stairs, a sentry must move with great agility to bring his right fist to his chest while using his left hand to get a nearby door open in time for the bustling Arnem and Niksar to pass through it without incident. Both officers return the salute without breaking stride; and once inside, they find Korsar’s enormous frame seated at a broad table, his weathered face and full white beard suspended over a parchment map of the kingdom: an encouraging sign, Arnem thinks—
    But when Korsar looks up, the sentek needs only a brief glance to realize that Niksar’s earlier assessment was disturbingly accurate: although the oldest and most experienced commander in Broken, Korsar’s deep blue eyes—the right bent by an ancient scar across his brow—bear an unmistakable sense of doom, augmented by resignation.
    “You’ve precious little to be excited about, Arnem,” the yantek says, standing and rolling his map. “It looks as if it’s the Bane, after all.”
    As he lifts his fist to his chest in salute, Arnem notices that Yantek Korsar has donned his finest armor, meticulously worked leather embellished with elaborate silver embroidery. “But why all the secrecy, Yantek?” Arnem asks. “And at this hour? We saw torches in the Wood not long ago, and heard screaming—have Outragers gotten into the city?”
    “So it seems,” Korsar replies, as a pair of aides fix to his shoulders a deep blue cloak edged with the fur of a Davon wolf, one that the yantek himself killed during a foray into the Wood many years ago. “And they’re growing extraordinarily audacious—to say nothing of powerful!”
    “Yantek? What are you saying?”
    “Only that they’ve tried to murder the God-King, Arnem. Or so say the Layzin and Baster-kin.”
    Korsar’s flippancy is as unsettling as what he relates, and Arnem feels his own confidence draining still more. “The God-King? But how?”
    “How
does
one murder a god?” Yantek Korsar picks up the foot-long wood and brass baton—topped by a small, sculpted image of Kafra with the body of a panther and the wings of an eagle—that is the emblem of his rank and office, † and taps Arnem’s shoulder with it. “Sorcery, my boy,” Korsar goes on, smiling for the first time; but the smile quickly transforms into a frown of skeptical distaste.
“Sorcery …”
    With a startling flood of nerves such as he has rarely experienced in battle, Arnem suddenly recalls the identity of the mad old man in the street.
But it can’t be,
he thinks;
I myself saw him die …
    “What in the name of all that’s unholy is wrong with you?” Korsar has paused to study Arnem; and what he finds is not much to his liking.
    Arnem quickly attempts to recover his wits. “Only the activity we observed in the Wood, Yantek,” he says swiftly. “Just before your orders arrived: should we not suspect some connection to all of this?”
    “I doubt it.” Korsar says, still unsatisfied with the sentek’s explanation of his