City of Masks (11 page)

At this range, even with the beast’s head moving, Garet could not miss. Three whirls of the missile end above his head to build up speed, then a whipping throw. The studded metal ball hit the left eye of the demon . . . and got no more reaction than Ratal’s staff.

That eye isn’t just white, it’s covered with the same armor as the rest of its head!

After a moment’s pause, the thing shook itself and returned to its task of tearing down Lord Sacourat’s house. Tarix pushed herself up and ran at it with her trident. She bounced off, again with no reaction. A scream sounded from a tenement somewhere down the passageway, and the demon redoubled its efforts to widen the entrance.

Tarix waved the others over and spoke softly to them as they huddled near.

“Well, this is something new! I’ve never met a demon with such a thick hide. It seems to be blind and noises attract it, so we’ll use that until Forlinect gets here. Ratal, you run off to the left there and yell at it. I’ll do the same on the right. Kesla, you and Garet have the worst part of this plan. You have to get Garet’s rope hammer around its back legs. Then we’ll all pull. If we’re lucky, the thing will topple and give us a chance to find a softer spot. Go on, you two. Don’t worry about being seen, just make sure you’re not heard!”

She limped off to the wall surrounding the Maze and waited for Ratal to start distracting the demon.

“Hey! You, you big ugly beast! Over here!” Ratal yelled. In a burst of uncommon resourcefulness, he picked up two fallen bricks and drummed them together until the beast paused and turned its head.

At that point, Tarix struck the wall with the head of her trident, and the two alternated in distracting the demon, forcing it to face one way and then the other, while Kesla and Garet crept up on it from behind.

The Gold motioned to Garet, and he gave her the hammer end, but it was obvious that it would have to be he who slipped under the hanging belly to make a loop around the legs. Shivering at his closeness to the demon, for the fear it cast was made worse by its touch, he crawled on his belly until he could hand off the missile end of the rope to Kesla. She, however, was not satisfied with a single loop, and had Garet do it all again while the big, blunt head swung back and forth, confused about whom to kill first.

Kesla tied a quick knot in one end, threaded the other end through, and waved at Tarix and Ratal. Those two stopped their noise and came over as quietly as possible. The demon shook itself and turned back to the passageway. It was almost large enough to admit the monstrous beast.

Holding up her fingers, Tarix counted down from three and when the last finger folded into her fist, they all pulled on the rope. At first, there was no reaction, just as with the other attacks. Then the beast moved forward, and Kesla’s knot tightened, drawing the back legs together. The Banes redoubled their efforts, and with a surprised grunt, the demon fell upon its belly.

It pushed up on its front legs and turned to sniff at the rope. The door lamps of the house shone full upon it from this angle and gave the Banes their first clear look at the entirety of their foe.

The face and beak were indeed covered in thick, curled plates, encrusting its head and shoulders. Beside the hollows of the useless eyes, two holes were visible, cupped in ringed ridges. It was these it pointed at the rope, then at where the Banes stood. Unsatisfied, it raised its head and sniffed, the air whistling in and out of its beak. The light showed that, from needle-toothed mouth to broad chest, its skin was splashed with blood.

Finished with its investigation, it opened its beak and bit down upon the line. Garet’s rope hammer, despite the wire woven into the leather strands, parted like a piece of string, sending the Banes falling in an unfortunate clatter.

Garet saw the abomination bearing down on them, but could not disentangle himself from Ratal’s flailing limbs. Kesla rose first and struck at it with her flail, a terrible weapon with a five foot hardwood handle ending in a short chain and spiked iron ball, but she was shouldered aside to land ten feet away.

Garet pushed Ratal off him and looked up at his doom. A foot as broad as a tree stump and armed with sword-like claws hung above him, blocking out the stars. The creature bellowed, shaking the dust from its shoulders, and the foot came down, onto the points of Tarix’s trident.

The shaft bent like a bow, but held, and the creature fell away, its hoarse call transforming into a hooting, spiraling shriek.

Tarix pulled him up. Garet swept up Kesla’s flail and stood shoulder to shoulder with his Master. Ratal got groggily to his feet, looked at his empty hands, and stumbled over to help Kesla. The demon bit at its foot, then reared again, throwing its head back and forth as if it would batter the night senseless.

Garet raised his borrowed weapon with little hope it would save him. They were beaten, and if help did not come soon, half the Ward would be torn down, and their own bodies, not the demon’s, would lie beneath the growing piles of rubble.

There was a cry behind the demon, not one of fear, but of rage.

“Is it help at last?” Ratal asked stumbling over to them. Kesla hung over one of his shoulders, though the Gold looked like he could barely stand. “Has Forlinect come?”

Tarix peered into the shadows and shook her head. “It’s help, I think. But it’s not Forlinect—or any other Bane.”

Black figures appeared atop the low walls of the Maze bearing lanterns and torches which they set down before descending. More came through alleys and lanes all around the beast, bearing more light until the demon was bathed in it.

A bowstring twanged, and an arrow with a needle point buried itself to the fletching in the demon’s back. It roared and snapped, but others followed. Several of the attackers chopped at its back legs with axes and great swords. A slim figure danced before it with a spear, as fast as firelight, darting in again and again to pierce the monster’s throat, just below its armored beak.

The demon bit at them, charged, and swept out its long claws, but hit nothing. A last, desperate rush brought down one man, rolling him over and over until he lay unmoving in the street. One other went to help him and froze as soon as his masked face turned from the demon. Two others forced him back around, their own eye slits always towards the weakening beast.

It could not charge now, for its back legs were cut to bits. Its throat and chest were now painted with its own blood, and its bellows faded until it sank to the ground to suffer the final blows of its attackers. The black figures gathered in a circle around it, while the large man with the axe chopped its head open, needing many blows to cut through the plate armor. At last he knelt over it, and the fear vanished.

All this time Garet, Tarix, Ratal, had stayed where they were, guarding Kesla and watching the battle.

They have a silkstone box. Those masks must be silkstone as well, but who are they?

The black-clad slayers turned to the Banes: Tarix with her trident, Garet with a flail, and Ratal with no weapons at all, only Kesla in his arms. They came closer, forming a semi-circle around the four. Each masked figure bore a weapon, and those weapons were not lowered.

Tarix eyed them. She stepped forward and held her arms wide.

“Well killed . . . my friends, and I thank you on behalf of the people of this Ward. May I ask who you are?”

The big man laughed. He tapped the flat blade of his axe against his leg.

The woman with the spear still stood by the dead demon, stabbing it again and again. She stopped her attack and whistled. The others swiftly retreated, some going over the Maze wall and others disappearing down the Ward’s alleys and lanes. They took the wounded man with them.

The spear-woman stayed and came nearer. Her mask was expressionless: two rectanglular slits for the eyes, a slightly downturned mouth, and an oval under the nose for breathing. The gold thread that held the pieces of silkstone together glinted in the flicker of lamps and torches. There was something in the way she moved that was familiar to Garet. The gliding of her feet, the animation of her arms, but he could not remember where he had seen this before.

The black figure stopped in front of Garet and dropped the spear’s point until it pointed directly at his heart. There was a tension in the figure now, as if she were consumed by a desire held barely in check. The spear point trembled, and Garet tensed, ready to jump aside if she attacked.

Tarix caught the spear point between her trident’s tines and twisted, locking both weapons in place.

“I thank you for your help tonight,” the Red said, “but I will not allow you to hurt this Bane.”

Her tone was as cold as the night, and her face as much a mask as that which confronted them.

Ratal stood, mouth open, looking from one to the other.

The woman laughed, a strange sound amid all the blood and destruction surrounding them.

“And will you stop me, cripple?” she asked. “Do you think any Bane can stop us? We are the future of this city. You, Master of a dying Hall, you are the past, and one that shall soon be buried.”

The two women faced each other for a moment, wills as well as weapons locked against each other. With a quick twist, the woman in black freed her spear and backed away from them, pausing only to stab the corpse of the demon once more before following her companions into the shadows.

Now that the jewel was blocked by silkstone and taken away, the people of the Ward came out to see what had happened. The door of the Lord’s house opened, and Sacourat stood there, blinking at what used to be the corner of her magnificent house.

“Banes?” she called out to Tarix and the others. “How could you let this happen?” She walked towards them, shaking her tiny fist and berating them until she came upon the demon, which she had perhaps mistaken in the torchlight for another pile of rubble. When she saw it for what it was, she turned and ran back into the remnants of her home.

“Here’s Forlinect,” Ratal said.

The Red came running with three Golds behind him and stopped short at the sight of the biggest demon he had ever seen lying across the road.

Tarix harrumphed. “I’d say better late than never at all, but I don’t think it’s true this time. Garet, tell him what occurred and then report to the Hall. Forlinect can have this monster moved, though he might have to do it in sections! Ratal, fetch a cart for Kesla. We’ll take her to the infirmary, and perhaps I’ll ride with her.”

She walked forward a bit, using her trident as a support.

“Maybe Branet was right; perhaps I’m not ready, even for something as easy as a sweep!”

“
TELL ME THIS
story again, from the beginning,” Hallmaster Branet said. He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at where Garet sat on a chair in the records room.

Tarix rolled her eyes, but nodded for Garet to go ahead.

In this third telling, the near fatal adventures of the night were beginning to seem boring even to Garet, but he went through it again. The Hallmaster stared at him the entire time.

“His story isn’t going to change, Hallmaster,” Tarix said. “Nor is Kesla’s nor Ratal’s . . . nor mine for that matter. What happened happened, no matter how distasteful you find it.”

“Distasteful? You were attacked by these . . . amateurs. Men and women in black playing at being Banes and endangering the lives of real ones! I hope you find that ‘distasteful’ as well, Tarix.”

He turned back at Garet.

“Why did the woman with the spear attack you? She did attack you, didn’t she?”

“So it seemed to me,” Tarix replied. She was sitting as well, her bad leg propped up on a stool.

“But you don’t know why,” Branet said, and threw up his hands. “You don’t know anything. Go on, get out, both of you!”

Garet stood and helped Tarix to her feet. Her irritation with the Hallmaster was barely contained within the Red’s trembling body. He assisted her to the door, but turned back before opening it.

“I think, Hallmaster, that I might know why she hates me, because I might know who she is.”

“Well,” roared Branet, “speak then! Who is she?”

Garet kept his face blank and his voice neutral.

“Tarix is my Master, sir. I will tell her, and I’m sure she will inform you, Hallmaster.”

He helped Tarix into the corridor, not daring to look behind him to see Branet’s reaction.

When they had traveled a safe distance down the corridor, Tarix signaled him to stop.

“Garet! That was very . . . undiplomatic of you, and perhaps foolish to prod him so. What were you thinking?”

Garet smiled ruefully. “I was thinking that you are my Master, and he insulted you, if you must know. Let him wait on your pleasure for a change.”

The arm around his shoulders tightened for a moment.

“Hah! My students are always teaching me something. Well, at least you didn’t take Kesla’s approach and punch him for his rudeness. Take me to the infirmary, if you will, and I’ll let Banerict fuss over this knee while you tell me what you know.”