City of Masks (8 page)

The Red was on her back in the small training room, the same room where Garet had first met her. Back then, Tarix had been limited to a rolling chair, or on good days, crutches, due to a crooked leg broken by a Basher Demon and badly set. A new Banehall physician, Banerict, and the Mechanical Dasanat had worked together to reset the leg and brace it with an intricate iron support.

This stretching was part of Tarix’s daily routine, suggested by Banerict to keep the leg flexible so that she might return to her full duties as a Bane.

“A bit more,” she grunted, and Garet added another inch of pain.

When she was done, it was Garet’s turn, for Tarix found the leg-stretching invigorating and wished her apprentice to enjoy it as well.

“Not so far!” Garet said. “I’m not jointed that way.”

Tarix relented, a bit.

“Stink or not, it was good work with that Snake Demon last night,” she said, and switched to the other leg. “Salar was singing your praises to his Master this morning. He claimed you tried to strangle it with your bare hands before Salick pinned it. I wanted to ask you about that odd strategy, but you weren’t at breakfast. Too much wine at the Palace again?”

“No, too much food, but that wasn’t the problem this morning. Partly it was because I was getting another new uniform,” Garet said through gritted teeth. “And Marick told me that the odor kept him awake all night and would put a pig off its feed, so I stayed upstairs and scrubbed some more.”

Tarix laughed and extended a hand. After more stretching of back and arm muscles, they moved to sparring with staff and stick. Tarix claimed it sped up his reflexes, and she never hit him hard. Well, not very hard.

“Just as a matter of interest—”
smack
“—did you or any of your adventurous friends go out hunting more demons last night?”

Smack, smack, swish
.

Garet dodged and countered with a backhand that drove Tarix back a step.

“More demons? No, Master, I found the one quite enough for my taste.”
Swish
. “And smell.”

Now it was he who was driven back as Tarix’s staff tested his guard. Each strike was as precise and swift as a bird’s wing.

“Stiffen your wrist or you’ll lose your weapon,” she said, and quickly demonstrated how that might be done.

Garet held up a hand for truce and picked up his stick.

“Was there another demon, Master?”

Instead of answering, Tarix feinted high and then swept his feet out from under him. At least he landed well, stick out to guard against further attack. The Red smiled and motioned him up. She leaned her staff against the wall and dipped a ladle into the water jar standing in the corner.

“Ah, that is good! Yes, in the Seventh Ward, a Catcher Demon. Think of a Basher with longer arms and hooked claws.”

Garet would have preferred not to think of such a thing. A Basher was one of the most dangerous demons, large enough and strong enough to batter down a small house or punch a hole through a courtyard wall. He had never met a Catcher Demon, and was not upset to have missed the opportunity.

“Who got it, Master Forlinect?” Garet asked. He remembered the Red had been listed for patrols on the board lining one wall of the dining hall.

“That is the hitch in the rope, as we used to say in the Sixteenth Ward. No one knows who killed it or will admit it if they did. All the Hall knows is that the carcass of the beast is still there, or was there, if my dear husband has moved himself smartly to shoo away the gawkers and dispose of it.”

Garet stared at her. Every Master kept track of their kills—and the kills of their apprentices. It meant praise in the Hall and was a sign that you were worthy of your sash.

“Gawkers? If people are nearby, that means the jewel is gone!”

Tarix nodded and handed him the ladle. She stretched her arms above her head as he drank.

“Ahhh, nothing like a morning training session to set you up for the day! Yes, the jewel was gone, chopped out of the demon’s head and spirited away.”

“But Master, you know you can’t just ‘spirit’ a jewel away. They must have had . . .”

“. . . a silkstone box, yes? Here, give me that ladle and let’s get back to it. It seems the Banes, or whoever they were, had a box to hide the jewel away. Otherwise we’d feel it still, or some patrolling Bane would have found it.”

She picked up her trident. Once she had favoured the shield spear, but this weapon gave her extra stability when her leg tired.

“Garet, where’s your rope hammer?”

The younger Bane blushed. “I’m afraid it still hasn’t . . . recovered from its trip into the sewers. I washed and soaked it last night, but now it must dry and then be stretched again.”

Tarix laughed, a sound of pure delight in the gloom of the training hall. A pair of Golds who had just come in turned to look at her before smiling and picking up weighted clubs to lift and roll about their shoulders. There were few Masters in the Hall as well liked as Tarix.

“Well, I’m glad you left it behind. Poor Garet, sent down into that stench to defend the city! Take one of those claw-ended batons and try to rush me.”

That Garet managed to touch Tarix once with the training weapon, leaving a small scratch on the back of her hand, was a sign of his improvement since becoming a Green. The Red trained him relentlessly, but Garet doubted he would have survived wrestling the Snake Demon the night before without the increase in speed and strength Tarix had brought about.

Marick was waiting for him in the front hall after lunch.

“Come on,” he said, looking left and right to see if anyone in authority could hear him.

Garet resisted the pull on his sleeve.

“Marick, I’ve got Black Sashes to train with Forlinect in a few minutes. Can’t this wait until evening?”

Since they shared a room with Dorict, any secrets, or more likely plots if Marick was involved, could be shared then.

By wiry strength and determination, Marick maneuvered him down the hall and into a cubbyhole under the stairs. He shooed out two youngsters hiding there and settled himself on a wooden box.

“I see you’ve furnished the place since I was last dragged in here,” Garet said. He chose a box for himself, dusting it off to avoid dirtying his new uniform, the second in two days as the Stores Bane had reminded him.

“I hold meetings here for Black Sashes who show promise,” Marick said.

“Promise in what? Thievery? Pranks and rebellion?”

The boy grinned. “Good friends know each other so well, don’t they? And I know that you’ll want to hear this. I talked with someone who talked with someone else, who heard something someone had passed on in the Palace Market this morning.”

Garet rolled his eyes but signaled the Blue to continue.

“It seems that Catcher Demon, and Heaven’s Shield what a great monster it was! I went out early to see it for myself after I heard this. But anyway, it seems the beast was not killed by Banes at all, but by a dozen strangers covered in black and wearing ferocious masks. According to my source . . .”

“You mean your source’s source’s source’s source—if I count it right.”

“Yes, yes! You’ll be as picky as Salick soon. According to my source, the masks shot out tongues of fire, and Heaven struck the beast with lightning and fierce winds before they killed it.”

He spread his hands out. “Now, what do you think of that?”

“I think I’ll be late, and Forlinect won’t be happy. Tell me the rest tonight, Marick, when I have a moment of my own time to listen!”

He left his friend fuming in the dusty alcove and ran off to reach his duties in time. Once he would have happily helped Marick follow whatever wild rumour he was chasing, but that was before he had so many duties as a Green. Now he wondered when his immature friend intended to grow up. Garet sighed as he came into the empty training room. If only Marick could be more like Dorict, then he could worry about one less thing.

He was sorting the last of the old and splintered staffs when the Black Sashes came dribbling in. It was a better session than the day before. The initiate Banes were working harder, swinging their staffs with a will and shouting things like, “Take that, Basher Demon,” and “There, got you Rat!” Even Allifur yelped as her weapon struck the bag. Corfin was the most enthusiastic, and Garet had to restrain that energy lest he reduce the number of his classmates and increase the number of patients in Banerict’s infirmary.

“Less waving and more attention to your stance, Bane,” Garet told him, and the title softened the criticism enough for it to take hold. The Black Sashes nearest Corfin looked happier.

Forlinect brought out the new short sticks and handed them out. Allifur took one and looked at it with obvious relief.

“Now, a Bane may choose from any of a number of weapons when they become Blues,” Forlinect lectured and, for once, he had their full attention.

“Some are long, like the spear—which is a very effective weapon against most demons—and some are short, like the axe, the hammer, the shield, and the short club.”

He laid out each of the weapons he had mentioned and picked up the spear first to demonstrate its use. He was the best Garet had ever seen. When he thrust out at full strength, the point never wavered, but stopped precisely where he aimed it. He swung the butt end around like a staff to trip an imaginary demon, then leaped up and brought the head down in a swishing strike that would have stunned a Basher.

The Blacks applauded, fingers of one hand on the back of another, except for Allifur, who tried to creep into the crowd. Corfin stopped her by reaching over and using his hand to strike the back of hers. She actually smiled at him.

“Now Garet will demonstrate these others,” Forlinect said, and stepped away to give the Green room.

“Oh, of course,” Garet said, though his thoughts were less enthusiastic. Tarix had made him practice with every weapon the Banes used, but he was no expert with them. He had even questioned the necessity of practicing with weapons he never intended to use.

Tarix had been firm.

“Sometimes in a big fight, Banes get knocked down, they lose their weapons, and must grab what they can. If you lose that rope hammer of yours—say a Horned Demon goes running off with it wrapped around its neck—and you find a dropped axe, what will you do?” she had asked him.

Since then he had spent part of every training session using the unfamiliar weapons. The only one he liked working with was the sharpened shield, since it had been Master Mandarack’s weapon of choice.

Garet picked up the axe and began to strike out at an imaginary creature. He let the memory of Tarix’s voice guide him.

“Let the weight of the head do the work. You’re just the pivot point. Start at your feet, good stance, and twist the hips with the swing.”

He stopped as soon as he could and picked up the club, showing the strikes and thrusts, and finishing with a daring jump and twist that he barely pulled off.

The hammer was a much larger version of the one on the end of his own weapon, and he acquitted himself better with that than with the first two.

The shield was last. He put his arm through the double straps and gripped the metal handle bolted on the inner side. An oval of steel, sharpened along the sides and drawing to a point, covered his arm from elbow to a foot below his knuckles. Taking a guarding stance he had learned from Tarix, he swept and thrust the shield with some confidence, earning almost as much applause as Forlinect had received.

Corfin had his hand up as soon as the noise died down.

“Why don’t you, I mean we, use a sword, like the ones the guards have?”

Garet smiled. “Because an axe blade or a spear point gets through a demon’s hide much more easily. Their skin is very thick, and a sword might just bounce off.”

Forlinect spoke up. “I went to Solantor once with the traders. Lots of Banes there use a type of sword, well, more like a long meat cleaver to chop with. The handle is very long too, so I suppose it is more like an axe than a sword.”

Allifur’s one hand was raised. A good sign, thought Garet.

“Why don’t we use bows and arrows?” she whispered.

Forlinect shook his head. “It takes a steady aim, Allifur, and if the fear is running over your arms, you’ll likely miss and hit another Bane, like Corfin almost did with his staff!”

The others laughed, and Corfin joined them.

Forlinect waited for them to stop before continuing.

“When the demons first attacked the South, the soldiers with their swords and armor were killed right away, except for those who ran, of course. That left only the common people, ones like you and me. Remember that our first Hallmaster, Banfreat, was a baker! And he killed his first demon with his baker’s paddle, and that turned in to the long club you see on the wall there. The flat end is smaller now, and bound in iron, but it’s still Banfreat’s paddle, passed down to us like so many other common tools that became weapons. Can you think of any?”

A boy put up his hand. “The hammer? My mom’s a blacksmith, and she uses one too.”

His neighbour chimed in, “The tridents, aren’t they used for the fish ponds?”