“There is little more that I can tell you, Talons,” he calls, still an impressive figure, after so many days spent primarily in the saddle, atop the great grey stallion named for the Mad King. “Little more, save that of which I have attempted, until now, not to speak; but speak of it now I must. We all stand to see our families beyond these walls, if we indeed have any, at the very least shunned, likely censured and perhaps far, far worse for our part in today’s action. Your loyalty in refusing to allow this to weaken your dedication, even once, speaks for itself; and if it did not, what should I say that would make up the lack? But I have withheld one fact from you, because I did not wish that same steady dedication that you have shown to revert into undisciplined zealotry: Lord Baster-kin will see me punished, should we fail, with as much injustice and cruelty as he once levied against Lord Caliphestros, who courageously returns to this city with us to see his former enemy chastised. But it is not any venom that the Merchant Lord may direct toward me that chills my soul. No, rather it is the sickened desire, tainted by anger, that he directs toward Lady Arnem — toward my wife—that has so frightened me that I have not been able to speak of it, until today: for the Merchant Lord has — for many years, it seems—coveted Lady Arnem!” Murmurs of astonishment that rapidly become the beginnings of rage spread through the Talons. “Nor is that all!” their commander continues. “In order to make possible his sickened fancy, he has knowingly ordered not only myself, but all of our khotor into parts of the kingdom he knew to be diseased! If we lived through this ordeal, supposed his lordship, we would but die in the Wood, with either result suiting his purpose — but if neither eventuality came about, this would suit his design, as well, for, besides declaring us traitors to the Grand Layzin and hence the God-King, the Merchant Lord has, these many months, been poisoning his own diseasèd wife, under the guise of treating her, in order that he may be free to take my lady to his side, and produce new sons for the clan Baster-kin — sons more fit for leadership than his own scion, whose death his lordship has been mad enough, only recently, to oversee in the Stadium!”
And this news, as the sentek had hoped, brings the full anger and determination of the Talons to the fore. Despite their always strong loyalty to their commander, more than a few have been confused, in the most shielded parts of their souls, by much of what they have seen and been ordered to do, on this strangest of marches. But even an intimation of harm to — and worse than harm to, violation of — Isadora, the woman who Arnem has rightly claimed is more the beating heart of their ranks than he is himself, is simply too much for the men to bear. Combined with their deep worries for the fates of their own kin, this revelation causes protestations to erupt from every direction, and every kind of pledge and oath is declared: there will be no further need for the sentek to urge the men to find their mettle.
All that is left for him to do is demonstrate to the Talons, and to all the army, that access to the Fifth District, and the city beyond, is possible. For this is, in fact, the final deception embodied in the allied plan: not to bring the citizens of the Fifth District out of Broken, but to take possession of that district, and use it as a base of operations from which to destroy Lord Baster-kin’s Guard. And so, with his men still roaring their angry defiance of the Merchant Lord, as well as their passionate defense of the Lady Arnem, to say nothing of their long-standing hatred of the Guardsmen, Arnem gallops to the position that Caliphestros and Crupp have taken up before the South Gate.
“Well, Sentek,” Caliphestros announces, “it seems improbable to me that the moment will ever be more propitious.”
“Indeed, my lord,” Arnem replies; and Caliphestros can see that the sentek’s passion has been no mere performance designed to exhort his troops; now that he has spoken of it publicly, Arnem’s fear for his wife and his son has risen to the surface, and he is impatient for what is to come.
“Tell me, my lord — what in the world are those things?” Arnem questions, as Crupp commands the men who crew the ballistae to load the first of the clay containers that contain the old man’s devilishly foul substance into the cradles that sit at the back ends of lengthy, greased ramps. The ramps themselves are secured through adjustable gears of elevation atop heavy wheeled frames, but the angle of flight they are meant to achieve is clearly higher than any device the men commanded by either Bal-deric or Crupp himself would usually be able to achieve; yet Crupp and his men are experienced with all such weapons, and unlikely to commit obvious errors. Rather, it is the ballistae themselves that appear, for all the world, less like the usual variety of torsion-driven battering machines, such as Linnet Bal-deric continues to use at the Southwest Gate, than they do enormous bows placed upon their sides.
“I first designed and experimented with such devices when I dwelt for a time in the land of the Mohammedans,” Caliphestros explains, “before they, too, declared my presence ‘offensive.’ But they soon decided — with apologies, Sentek, but just as you did — that the weapons could have but little use as devices for battering, and were therefore a mere folly. Having already encountered, in Alexandria, the formula for the fire automatos, I had been thinking from the first of how such machines could be adapted for the delivery of the substance: a longer span for the two bow wings, a gentler force of release, to be compensated for by a higher trajectory.” Turning to the western sky, Caliphestros, along with the rest of Arnem’s force, feels a new mist — this one very damp indeed — creeping up and over the mountain. “We have little time. Yantek Ashkatar has signaled that he is ready. Sentek, it is for you to give the order.”
“I do not think the order was ever truly mine to issue, Caliphestros,” Arnem replies. “But insofar as it may be, you have it.”
And with that, the great experiment begins …
6
With strong but careful blows of great wooden mallets, Linnet Crupp’s men release the restraining blocks on Caliphestros’s strange machines. The first of the clay vessels slide almost noiselessly (for they, too, have been greased, like the rails upon which they ride) up and into the sky, staying aloft for what seems an impossible period of time. Not a sound is heard from any member of the attacking force, although cries of sudden alarm do go up from those members of the Merchant Lord’s Guard positioned above the South Gate.
“My lord Baster-kin!” these men shout. “Still more ballistae, at the South Gate!” Within moments, Baster-kin has himself become visible, even before the first of the clay containers has reached the end of its flight.
“What in Kafra’s name …?” he blasphemes, his furious gaze watching the vessels sail to what must surely be spots short of the gate. But he has not reckoned on Linnet Crupp’s mastery of the art of such arcs; and although the vessels land on the lower half of the gate, land they do, smashing to bits and coating appreciable areas of the stout oak with a remarkably adhesive substance, the odor of which he cannot yet identify.
But when Crupp orders quick adjustments to the ballistae, raising both their bows and the ramps upon their frames, and then commands a second launch, the next flight of vessels find their way to the top of the gate with expert precision; and from here, it is impossible for any man upon the walls to mistake their strong stench.