Despite the superiority of the allied force’s battle plan in Caliphestros’s mind, he is, by his own admission, no commander of men in the field; and it is thus for Sentek Arnem and Yantek Ashkatar to ensure the resolve of the warriors under their command once true battle has been joined. So far as the Bane fighters are concerned, Ashkatar knows that he need not concern himself with the contingent at the East Gate of the city: his men upon ponies had been tasked with but one responsibility — the creation and maintaining of so much mayhem that to those within Broken it would appear a fearsome company of horses and men were moving into position to attack. Such was and remains an assignment perfectly suited to the talents of Heldo-Bah, Ashkatar long ago determined: Visimar and Keera might have overseen its proper initiation, to ensure that it did not descend into the kind of ecstasy of madness on Heldo-Bah’s part of which the file-toothed Bane is more than capable — and this they have indeed managed to do, with the somewhat less effective help of Veloc, whose soul remains perilously balanced between the glistening heights of philosophy and the tempting depths of depravity. Yet the true rallying and spurring on of the eastern deceivers has been the work, above all, of the irrepressible and constantly screaming Heldo-Bah.
Back where the work of truly preparing an assault is being done, both Ashkatar’s and Sixt Arnem’s styles of inspiring and motivating their troops are once again on display, just as we have observed them so before in these pages. Ashkatar’s remains that strange combination of affectionate encouragement and harsh warning, punctuated by hard cracks of his ever-reliable whip, which keeps the men and women who form his ranks in motion. Yet, with the greater portion of the Bane horsemen at work to the east, what exactly are the rest of the Bane warriors responsible for, as the tasks of Sentek Arnem’s ballistae do the main work of the battle’s opening phase? We shall come to such matters soon enough: suffice to say now that Bane axes (new axes, forged for them by Caliphestros from the steel that the tribesmen believe comes from the stars and is gift from the Moon) can be heard within the mountain’s highest stands of trees, resounding as they strike the trunks of the mighty, lonely fir giants. It is not surprising, given all this activity, that Ashkatar’s already thunderous voice, made even more terrifying by the manner in which it resonates up from just below the peak of the mountain, is full of oaths both profane and affectionate — so affectionate, that the occasional Bane warrior takes no offense to seemingly insulting references to such things as his or her parentage:
“You, there!” he might bellow at a member of a felling crew. “I will not see such fainthearted effort from a whelp of mine!” And then the whip will crack, making a sound as harsh as the first cracks of the tree’s felling; and, finally, the commander’s voice sounds again: “Oh, you are no offspring of mine? Wipe that look from your face, soldier, there’s many a Bane on this mountain today to whom I am more than Yantek! Ha! Swing that axe as I would, you lazy pup!”
And the wonder is that the warriors under his command actually take heart from such perhaps absurd but nonetheless endearing berating. Ashkatar’s treatment of the female fighters of the Bane tribe, meanwhile, is not tempered by any belief that women possess more fragile souls than do men: if they did, he is quick to remind them, they would have done well to have stayed home. Far from being no less demanding of his women, Ashkatar’s whip sometimes cracks more often in their company; and when, as Arnem and Caliphestros have predicted, the thunderous pounding upon the Southwest Gate caused by Bal-deric’s ballistae cause a sudden panic upon the eastern walls, and Lord Baster-kin is heard to shout his own commands (equally loud, but far less endearing) that more than half his artillery be shifted to the Southwest Gate, it is the women archers of the Bane who are ordered forward to harass the movement, under cover of stout blinds assembled by all the bowmen of each people’s contingent, as well as under the great shields of Taankret’s Wildfehngen.
But it is the insults and derision thrown at the men of the Guard as they pass from the East to Southwest Gate by the Bane women warriors that are especially disheartening to Baster-kin’s inferior soldiers. For to take an arrow, to such men, is terrifying or deadly enough — to take it to the loud sounds of women in a seeming constant state of uncontrolled laughter, is quite another. Yet when one linnet of the Guard has the temerity to suggest to Lord Baster-kin that some of the Guard’s few bowmen be moved to address the problem, words are heard raining down from the Southwest Gate (for it is to this position that Baster-kin has himself moved, to supervise the re-construction of many of the ballistae that he had only just succeeded in getting his men to fully assemble on either side of the East Gate) that are as something more than music to Bal-deric’s ears:
“Silence, you idiot! These unnatural women are only meant to make your legs weak and your minds confused — as indeed they are doing! I have told you: one of these two actions, that at the East or that at the Southwest Gate, is intended as a ruse: but what good is a ruse, when see how even the most weighty rocks make little or no dent in the oak and iron of the Southwest! By Kafra, if this is all the traitor Arnem has to offer us, then we can have every expectation of success — provided sniveling cowards such as yourself find their manhood, and are not shaken by a collection of mad but harmless hags in armor!”
Word of this remark is immediately sent by runner to “the traitor Arnem”; who knows that now, he must exhort his own main force to prepare for the truly critical assault, the unique attack that will follow the work of Caliphestros’s ballistae at the South Gate. For it is not simply that the legless old philosopher has pledged the destruction of that gate at the commencement of what increasingly resembles a tempest; that is merely the third deception that composes his plan. There is a fourth deception that completes the great design; and it is that deception for which Arnem’s men, especially his horsemen, must be prepared to move quickly and decisively.
And so, just as the first of Caliphestros’s strange and comparatively few war machines — the construction of which was made possible only by the experience and comprehension of Linnet Crupp — is finally rolled into position on the small open space before the South Gate, Sentek Arnem begins to ride up and down every position that his men hold, preparing them for an act that seems far less natural than it does to his allies: an assault upon the city that is the heart of their own kingdom.
Preparatory appeals such as this, whatever legend may tell us, are seldom effective if they have not been preceded by years of experience, respect, and near-constant reminders that a commander has never asked his men to go into action without attending to every necessary preparation to ensure their success, as well as complete willingness to share their danger. Arnem’s words now are therefore few: