THE PALACE GUARDS saw them off with an air of satisfaction and returned to their duties of standing and looking fierce. Since Garet knew such courage would collapse at the first touch of a demon’s fear, he ignored their splendour.
He couldn’t ignore this latest tongue-lashing from the Hallmaster. He fumed as he walked.
“I thought him fair when he was just a Master,” Garet said to Salick. They trailed him at a safe distance, or at least safe enough for quiet conversation in the empty plaza.
“Just a Master?” Salick said and rolled her eyes. As a Gold, her efforts were almost wholly directed to proving she could one day be “just” a Master.
“You know what I mean! He fought beside Master Mandarack against Adrix, and he was a popular choice to follow him as Hallmaster. So why is he so . . . angry all the time?”
Salick didn’t answer for several steps. She was never one to criticize the Banehall if it could be avoided. It had been her life and salvation, and her instinct was to defend it like a mother bear defends her cubs.
“He has near three-hundred Banes to worry about, Garet! And remember, he was never . . . an easy man to begin with, though he is one of the bravest Banes of his generation, or so others say, even Tarix.”
If she hoped to quiet him by conjuring his Master to support her point, Salick was disappointed.
“What does that matter?” Garet asked. “Even that tyrant, Adrix, patrolled and killed demons, which made him brave enough, I suppose, but it didn’t make him a good Hallmaster. No, there’s a worry or a hatred eating at him. Is something else going on, something that so bothers him that he must take it out on us?”
He looked closely at Salick. Though they had a deep affection for each other, Garet knew that she would not hesitate to keep secrets from him for the good of the Banehall.
“Nothing that I know of. Stop staring at me! It’s the truth. But you’re right that something may be amiss. Master Relict has just returned from Solantor. He’s obviously downcast, yet says nothing of the journey nor what happened in the Overking’s city. Even my own Master is as closed-mouth as a wood-turner’s clamp,” Salick said. “Which is a big change for her!”
Garet smiled. He knew Salick missed the taciturn Mandarack, a man she had regarded as both a mentor and a substitute father. Her new Master, Bandat, was as skilled as she was talkative, but she was no Mandarack.
Salick raised her eyes to the moon skimming the top of the city wall. That and the torches near the bridge were the only illumination on this side of the plaza.
“I had hoped we were done with shadows and plots,” she said.
Turning suddenly, she put a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you know what’s going on? What are you thinking in that wise head of yours?”
“I’m thinking something is wrong,” Garet replied, stretching up to look past the Hallmaster towards the bridge gates.
“Yes,” Salick snapped. “We both agree on that, but what?”
“We’ll know in a moment,” Garet said. He pointed towards the bridges, directing Salick’s attention to a Gold Sash Bane running towards them, lantern in hand and a trident similar to Salick’s bouncing on his shoulder. The two Banes started running to catch up with Branet.
“Hallmaster! Hallmaster!” the Gold shouted. The ring of light around him bounced and quivered as he ran.
They reached the Hallmaster the same moment the Gold skidded to a stop in front of him.
“Snake Demon, Hallmaster. It got away from us . . . and went into the sewers!” he gasped out.
Branet grabbed the young man by the shoulder.
“Kitoroth, you let it get into the sewers? Fool! It could go anywhere. Where did it go in?”
The Bane struggled for breath but answered. “River end . . . beneath the centre bridge.”
Branet let him go. He turned to the two Banes standing close behind him.
“Salick, we have to block off this end of the sewers as quickly as possible. Find the nearest grate and open it.”
Garet went with her. In the poor light it took a little time to find the iron grating set flush in the stone of the plaza. Garet knew these grates were to be found in several parts of the Plazas, and also throughout the Wards. This was where the excess water went when it rained. His nose wrinkled when he remembered that the sewers emptied all the privies of the city as well.
They used the pick end of his rope-hammer to pry it open, then Salick inserted the butt of her trident in the gap. With both of them struggling, they levered the grate far enough aside for entry into the deeper darkness below.
The Hallmaster was behind them now. Kitoroth was gone, but he had left his lantern. Branet handed it to Salick.
“Go down into the tunnel and make your way towards the Bridge outlet. Check each side pipe for any sign of the beast. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous they are, do I?”
“No, Hallmaster,” Salick replied. She took the lantern and lowered it into the hole. The drop would be a good ten feet.
“Your weapon,” Salick said, and took one end of the rope hammer while Garet eased her down. After he handed down her trident, the Hallmaster did the same for him and dropped the end of his rope-hammer to clatter beside them.
No going back that way. At least he didn’t replace the grate.
He looked around. The lantern illuminated several yards of a stone-lined tunnel, arched at the top and flat at the bottom. Luckily for them, the days had been dry of late, so there was only a thin layer of scum and mud covering the floor.
He desperately hoped it was mud, but his nose disagreed.
The ceiling was high, but the walls were close enough to touch with extended arms. Garet realized he had no room to swing his weapon effectively. After a moment’s thought, he wrapped the loose coils around his chest, layering them over his new sash.
So much for these clothes. I hope the stores Bane won’t blame me for the state of them when we get back.
If we get back, he added to himself, for there was a demon somewhere under the Plaza, and that never meant a sure homecoming.
They heard Branet move off, calling to Kitoreth. Salick looked at how Garet was arranging his weapon: the spiked weight with a bit of slack in one hand, and the short-handled hammer and pick in the other.
“Have you invented a new sash?” Salick asked. Her voice sounded odd, a high-pitched echo in this confined space. He felt twitchy himself, a dependable sign that a demon was about.
“I suppose I have,” he said. “What rank would this be, Green Sewer Bane?”
“Red at least,” she said, and chuckled nervously. “I’ll go first, Master Sewer Bane. You keep the light high and behind us so that we’re not blinded. If we meet the beast, watch my trident, so mind me if I say get down!”
Garet nodded. He had to admit that Salick’s weapon would be more effective than his own. He just hoped that he could be of some use if the Snake Demon came their way.
As they walked down the narrow tunnel, splashing in puddles of water and filth, Garet tried to ignore his nose and remember what he could about this particular type of demon. The beasts came in many forms, and each had their own dangers, from the tiny Rat Demons to the massive Bashers.
He considered what he already knew. Snake Demons were rare, thankfully. No other had appeared in Shirath in the many months Garet had been in the Hall. From his studies, he knew they had tiny legs and arms, and a long body befitting their name. Moret’s Demonary said they could grow to the length of a tall tree, but Garet hoped this was one of those times when the old book was more fanciful than accurate. He stopped to hold the light near a side tunnel, but saw nothing within. Hadn’t Moret said something about their bite as well?
“Listen,” Salick commanded.
Fear jumped in Garet’s chest. The demon’s effect was growing.
From a far distance, if the number of echoes were any guide, voices came, quick shouts back and forth, and over all a dry rasping sound, as if someone dragged an uncured hide over rough stone.
The rasping sounded closer than the shouts.
“Claws!” Salick said. “I can see a light far off. They’re driving it this way. Set the lantern as high as you can and get ready.”
Garet propped it just within a head-high opening and prepared his sadly hobbled weapon. He would use the pick-hammer end on the demon if Salick could pin it down with her trident.
The rasping grew louder. So did the shouts. Splashing feet followed, then a scream. The confines of the tunnel echoed the cry terribly, then the rasping was everywhere and the demon appeared in the light of their lantern.
It was a thick cable of muscle and malice. Its head looked large in proportion to the rest of its body, the usual horn-like ridges of the skull sweeping back into serrated blades. Its beak gaped and the split tongue waved from a fringe of needle-sharp teeth. Two of the teeth were proper fangs and longer than Garet had ever seen in a demon’s mouth.
It swayed for a moment, regarding them with small, black eyes.
“Ware the teeth!” Salick shouted, and stabbed at the thing with her trident.
The Snake Demon clamped its jaws down on the tines of her weapon and shook it—and her—like a toy. The Gold was thrashed repeatedly against the tunnel walls, but she held on to the shaft.
“Salick!” Garet cried and rushed forward, only to be battered to one side by a flick of the demon’s beak. He bounced off a mossy wall and fell directly below the creature’s head.
Luckily, the other Banes, lanterns and weapons in hand, ran up behind the beast and the Gold in the lead brought down a spiked club upon the demon’s tail.
Unluckily, this caused the demon to release the trident—sending Salick flying up the tunnel—and brought its attention to the morsel lying at its underdeveloped feet.
That was Garet.
With no time to recover the ends of his weapon dangling in the mud, the Bane scrambled up and wrapped his arms around the Snake Demon’s long neck, just below the head, hugging it tightly so that its beak could not twist around and set its fangs in him. In snatches, he could see the Gold still pummeling its tail and back, to little effect except to make the beast angrier, it seemed. At last, unable to devour Garet, and perhaps beginning to resent the continuous attack on its rear parts, the demon slithered away, knocking aside the lantern and sliding its head into the side pipe.
“Don’t let it get in there,” the Gold yelled. “Heaven knows where that pipe goes!”
To a very large privy, Garet guessed, for he was in an excellent position to smell where it might lead. He still hung from the demon’s neck, more from desperation than strategy. Now the Snake Demon could not move forward and escape unless it dislodged him. The tail thrashed, knocking over the Gold with the club, and sending Garet swinging like one of Lord Andarack’s pendulums.
“Get down!”
Garet let go, dropping to the slimy floor. Salick’s trident pierced the Snake Demon just behind its head. This was both a demonstration of her strength, for demon hide was notoriously thick, and her cleverness, for the beast could go no farther and had not the wit to pull back.
She held it there while Garet and another Bane wrestled with its body, avoiding the small, sharp claws while the Gold with the club set himself and proceeded to kill it with blunt force.
After twenty or so blows, he stopped and wiped his brow.
“Thank you, Salick. That’s so much easier when it isn’t moving!”
Salick pulled the trident free, bracing one booted foot against the demon’s head.
“Don’t mention it,” she said, rubbing her back where she had hit the floor of the tunnel. She took her hand away and looked in dismay at the filth on it. “Yes, please don’t mention it ever again!”
Garet laughed, as did the others. It came out a bit hysterically, but that was to be expected when a demon’s jewel was so near.
He leaned against the slick wall and caught his breath while the other Banes stretched the creature out to its full length. Not for the first time he wondered why the fear cast by a jewel outlasted the demon that bore it. After six hundred years, there was still much they didn’t know about these terrors.
Another Gold and a Green stood behind the demon’s killer, a young man named Salar, if Garet remembered correctly.
“Look at that! Seven yards or I’m a Black Sash,” Salick said. “But honestly, Salar, how did you let this get by you and into the sewers?”
Salar held out a hand, just as filthy as Salick’s, Garet saw. His face was also caked with slime, as if he had fallen at least once in his pursuit of the beast. Garet’s dinner threatened to reappear.
All of us will need an hour in the washing rooms before we get any sleep tonight.
“Not our fault, really. We were coming across the Bridge to relieve the Palace Plaza patrol when we heard splashing in the river. We tied our sashes together and lowered a lantern to see the tail of this misbegotten thing disappearing into the outlet pipe. The grate was rusted—something the Palace should look to—and besides, who ever heard of a Snake Demon swimming anyway? Nobody, that’s who!”
Salick nodded. “Branet will have to hear of this right away. He’s in the Palace Plaza. Garet and I will return that way if you would take care of . . .”
She didn’t have to finish the question. Salar nodded. He would cut out the demon’s jewel from where it sat above the small black eyes and take it to the repository in the hills north of the city. There it would be cast into a deep pit, where its penetrating fear would be a danger to no one. The body would be cast there as well, unless Lord Andarack wanted it for his investigations into the nature of demons.
Salar borrowed the Green’s axe and told them to go back up the tunnel.
“Find Chetorth and bring him directly to the Physician. Tell Banerict he was cut in the sewers so he knows how dirty the wound could be.”
“Is he badly hurt?” Salick asked.
Salar laughed. “More scared than hurt. The clawed beast came out of a side tunnel where it had been waiting to ambush us. It raked Chetorth with these ridges,” he said, and tapped the saw-toothed skull protrusions with his borrowed axe. “Gave him a good cut, and a good scar to brag about when it heals, that’s all.”
Garet smiled. He had enough scars now that he had stopped bragging months ago.
Salick touched the sword scar she bore on one cheek.
“Tell him not to boast too much. It’s bad luck.”
They bid the others farewell and walked back the way they had come. The echo of axe blows followed them as Salar chopped out the demon’s jewel. This put Garet in mind of Dorict’s request that he speak to Lord Andarack, something he had failed to do as the other guests had left so quickly. He looked at Salick.
“Has Lord Andarack called for any more jewels or dead demons?” Garet asked.
Salick shrugged. “Not that I have heard. Perhaps he’s onto some other project now,” the Gold said and smiled. They both knew the Ward Lord’s scientific investigations were at times erratic.
“You sat beside him. Did he speak to you at dinner?”
Salick was busy wiping her hands over and over again on her ruined tunic.
“A few polite words,” she said. “I tried to ask him about the silkstone experiments for Dorict’s sake, but he seemed deaf to such questions.”
Why, he wondered. In Garet’s opinion, these experiments were incredibly important, not just to Dorict and the rest of the Banes, but to the entire city. So far Andarack had found that silkstone was the only substance that blocked the fear radiating from a demon’s jewel. Lord Andarack had discovered this last winter, and the suit of silkstone armour he fashioned had saved both Garet and Salick in the final battle with the Caller Demon. Unfortunately, the stone was rare in the city, and by now Garet had expected to hear of some trading mission to get more. Such stone suits might be clumsy, but they were also the first real chance to end the six-hundred year curse of the demons, not just here in Shirath, but throughout the South and the Midlands.
Branet was nowhere in sight when they came to the space below the open grate. Calling brought no answer or help, so Garet hoisted Salick onto his shoulders, staining the last clear patch of his vest. Once up, she caught one end of the rope-hammer and hauled him up after her. It took both their efforts to push the grate into place.
“Perhaps we should swim across the river rather than use the bridge,” Garet said. He stripped off his ruined sash and vest, balling them up and tucking them under one arm.
Salick shook her head. “You forget that’s where the outlet pipes are. We’d have to go upstream to get clean water.”
Garet sighed and followed her towards the bridge gates. She was right. Shirath’s drinking water came in by clean tunnels from the east. The sewers emptied here and flowed west towards the distant sea. Garet hoped that by the time the river Ar reached the cities of Solantor, Illick, and Akalit, its disgusting contents had been washed away.
At the bridge gates, the two guards stood back as they passed, both holding a hand over their noses.
“Claws, Banes,” said one, a young man in gleaming cuirass and helmet. “What have you been doing?”
“Hunting in the sewers,” Garet said. “I won’t say for what.”
The man nodded, glad the evil word had been left unsaid. His companion, a middle-aged woman, bravely lowered her hand and stepped forward to open the gate wider for the Banes.
“Thank you for your service to the city, Banes. We felt what you hunted.”
While such praise did not lessen the smell that followed them to the hall, it made the endless scrubbing and re-scrubbing easier to bear.