“I WONDER HOW long we have,” Branet said. He moved aside as a heavy wagon rumbled out of the Fourth Ward Gates behind him. Around the Hallmaster and his companion, every available worker in the city was digging, moving stone, or cutting timber.
“A day or two more, I would guess,” Trax replied. “Herding demons can’t be as easy as herding cows, after all.”
Branet snorted. “And what would you know about either, Your Majesty?”
Trax shrugged. Another wagon went by, and the King grabbed the lead horse’s bit strap when it reared at the noise of hundreds of hammers and saws. He pulled it down, and then led it on until they reached a stone bridge. When he gave control back over to the driver, she nervously mumbled her thanks.
Brushing the dust off his golden sleeves, he turned to Branet, who had followed him.
“My father was a man of practicalities, Hallmaster,” he said. “When I was a child, he sent me out to work in each Ward for a moon. I learned cow-herding, horse-wrangling, even pottery and baking, though I’ll admit the last two tasted about the same.”
Branet smiled in spite of himself. “Well, Shirath’s first Bane was a baker, so I’ll hope you’re right. I, too, think that herding demons must have some difficulties, fatal ones, I hope!”
“HOW MUCH BLOOD was there?” Tarix asked. She and the Old Torrick Master were moving down the line of Black Sashes, adjusting the height of their cut-down spears.
“Step forward and thrust low!” Corix shouted. They watched as the line stepped, pierced an imaginary and very small enemy.
“Faster, Rat Demons are quick. Now toss!” Tarix said, and the spears flipped up as the imaginary threat flew away to an invisible fate.
“A single person’s stock of blood, or so I judged. No more, but no less, so it wasn’t Shirin’s—or at least not all of it. After we found her, I backtracked a bit to see where she’d come from. I found the blood, broken and spent arrows, and several demons sniffing about in the woods. But none of them seemed badly wounded.”
“So you think the blood came from one of these . . . drivers of demons?” Tarix asked. “I wonder if Shirin killed him . . . or her . . . or it?”
“With what,” Corix asked, “just a knife? And this driver surrounded by his, her, or its demons?”
Tarix stretched out her braced leg. “Having faced her once, spear to trident, I don’t think the odds would have stopped her, though too much fear might have. You know what this means. Garet was right. The demons are a weapon in someone’s hand, not a curse droppen on us by Heaven.”
The line reached the wall and stopped. Before Tarix had a chance to call out, a shrill voice yelled, “Turn!”
“Thank you, Allifur. Will you continue ten more times please?” Tarix said.
The girl nodded, her hair tied back in a messy ponytail, possibly by Corfin, who stood beside her. When the girl took a step forward and raised her shield to lead, Tarix saw that her friend was the only Black Sash to possess a cut-down trident, rather than a spear. The Red decided she would fail to notice this.
“All right, but if the blood came from one of the drivers, and say Shirin didn’t kill . . . him. Why would the demons do so?”
Corix shrugged. “People get killed herding cows sometimes, and demons would be more contrary, I suppose.”
Her expression hardened, and she called out, “You there! Pick up your feet!”
Tarix glanced sideways at the Torrick Bane. She knew the two of them looked much alike. They were of a similar height. Both were lean and muscular. Even their hair was the same length, though Tarix had less grey. The Shirath Red watched as Corix walked along behind the line, frightening the Black Sashes by her very presence. Only Allifur seemed unaware, yipping out commands and jabbing down with her shield, again and again, at the same imagined demon.
Tarix shuddered. When she got to Corix’s age, she hoped she would still have some sense of humor left, at least for her husband’s sake. A sudden image of Relict and Corix as an aged, mismatched couple was too much, and she burst out in a chuckle. When the Old Torrick Bane looked at her with a face that could have frozen fire, Tarix held up an apologetic hand and said, “Herding cows! Very funny, Master Corix.”
MARICK CHUCKLED AS he and Dorict looked over the volunteers. Most were Blues, but there were a few younger Greens mixed in the group. They were trying to look nonchalant, as if they were out on a picnic, not preparing to face death. All of them sat outside on the Banehall stairs, drinking tea the cooks brought out and sharing buns delivered by the basketful from the merchants of the Palace Plaza.
“These are good, Dorict,” Marick said. “The world should end more often if it means such generosity.”
His friend swallowed and stood up. “Listen, everyone,” he shouted, and the young Banes all fell still.
“You volunteered for this, so I don’t have to explain much. Teams of three so at least one gets close enough to the city to fire off a signal arrow. Flame arrow at night. Smoke arrow in the day. Understood?”
The others nodded and looked at the bows they held. They were new-made, small, and not meant to last beyond the desperate need of the day that was dawning around them. There were two bows and a set of arrows for each group.
“Make sure there’s pitch and a spark striker too,” Marick added. “If you come across our friends, run back until you can see the Walls, then fire up, not at the demons, not at the Wall. Where do you fire?”
Forty-seven index fingers, including Marick’s and Dorict’s, pointed at the sky.
Sacks of food and skins of water were handed out to each team before they left for the fields and forests beyond their assigned Ward. Dorict ticked off the last team save one on the scroll he held.
“I see you’ve kept the most dangerous one for us,” he said. There might have been the hint of a smile on his lips.
Marick clapped him on the shoulder. “Dorict, I think you are actually beginning to enjoy adventure! Think of the glory we’ll have if we alert the city to the demons’ approach.”
“I think there must be very little glory in a Basher’s belly,” his friend said. “Who’s our third?”
“When have we ever needed more than the two of us to save the city?” Marick asked. “Now let’s get to the Fourth Ward and out into this fine day.”
“A FINE DAY to die, you mean,” Maroster said. The big man sat uncomfortably against a stone pillar in the Pallace cellar. He bore more chains than any three other Masks, and at least as many bruises as Branet.
“No,” Garet replied. “As I said, this is a fine day to reconsider your loyalties.”
He looked around him. Over twenty men and women lay on the stone floor, all chained, and all ignoring him. He tried again.
“We don’t intend to die, but to win! If you fight against the demons that approach, the King will grant you an amnesty. The Hall has already agreed to this—if you put on your masks and fight.”
A small woman chained near his feet laughed out loud. “So, the Great King will send us out to the slaughter while he hides in his Palace and counts his coins?”
“Quiet you!” Captain Bixa said, and moved forward, her hand on her sword.
The chained woman glared up at her, then spit on the floor. “We want freedom, but not as a gift that can be snatched away,” she said, and many others shouted in agreement. “When we’re done, it’s back to the chains for us, isn’t it?”
“If you hate chains, then fight the beasts who imprison us all!” Garet shouted. Into the silence that followed, he spoke in a lower, but still passionate voice. “Some of you want to leave this city for a new life. Others want to change the way the Hall and the Palace control everything, but you forget why they do that! They must because the demons have molded Shirath as a potter molds the clay. For six centuries! It is those beasts and whoever controls them that have forced us into the form you detest. Fight them, if you want to change the world!”
There was some arguing and some agreeing around the candle-lit room.
“That’s like what Shirin talked about near the end,” the woman said. She sat up straighter, rattling her iron chain. “All right, there’s truth in that, Midlander, and we could be allies for this, and this alone,” she said then spit again. “But I still hate the King.”
Garet shrugged. “Despise all of us if you wish, just hate the demons more. Now I count about twenty of you that seem fit enough to fight, twenty-one if Maroster here can manage.”
The big man growled and shook his copious restraints. “I can manage, crow!” he said. “If I have my mask.”
Bixa looked at Garet.
“We have twenty-five masks here,” the Captain said, “delivered by the Hallmaster. That leaves four masks free.”
“One is already spoken for,” a cheerful voice called from the stairs.
Garet turned to see Trax coming down. He was dressed in padded training clothes and held a glass of wine in one hand.
“Sorry I’m late. I was counting coins upstairs. Now, do we have an agreement? Will we fight together?”
The woman sitting on the ground stared at him for many heartbeats before speaking. “Is this a trick?” she asked.
Trax smiled and drained off his wine. He leaned over to place the glass upon the plinth of the pillar that held her chains. “If it is, it’s a bad one,” he said, wobbling a bit as he stood. “Last drink for a while or for ever, I suppose! Now, that leaves three masks free for similar idiots.”
“Two,” Bixa said, “I’m for one. Now we just need two more idiots.”
“Can you find them?” Garet asked. He looked from one to the other. They could have no idea of what they would face. It was probably just as well.
“In the King’s Guard?” Bixa asked, looking slightly stunned at the turn of events. “I’ll have to fight them off with my sword when they hear about this insanity.”
“Your keys, Captain,” Trax said, and then knelt to unlock the woman who had spoken before. He then tossed the keys to Maroster and extended a hand to the woman, who ignored it and rolled upright like an angry cat.
“Do you think you can just put on a mask and be one of us?” she spat.
“I was rather hoping that was the case . . . but no, I suppose not,” Trax said. He smiled at the angry woman glaring at him. “I guess I will have to rely on your instructions, Master,” he said.
“Madness,” Bixa said and shook her head. All around her, the freed prisoners were shedding their chains and standing up to stretch and stare curiously at the King.
Trax could have been at a royal dinner, for all the charm and manners he was extending to the woman who stood before him. It seemed ridiculous in the circumstances, and to be fair, it was really having no effect.
“So, you wish to fight as my apprentice?” she asked. The scorn in her voice caused a rush of nervous laughter from her fellows.
Trax stood straighter. The good cheer vanished from his eyes, and he raised his voice to include all in his reply. “Mask, do not doubt me! I will fight with you and for you. I will stand before our Walls amid flame and blood and measure my life in the strokes of my sword. I will neither retreat nor surrender. If the citizens of Shirath are all to die, I will be the first,” he shouted, and a reluctant cheer went up from some of the others.
He dropped his shoulders and smiled again. “And if you wish, my good Lady Mask, you can be the second.”
The woman went over to talk to the others, leaving out Maroster, who glowered at everyone in the room without any particular favourites. When she came back, the Masks arranged themselves in rough ranks behind her.
“We’ll fight, Trax, as we told the Midlander, but with our own weapons and not in your colours.”
“Your weapons are being brought, and as for colours, ah! There you are, Barick. Just like old times, eh, finding things lost in the storerooms?”
The Historian was puffing down the stairs, his arms full of purple cloth. He stopped, alarmed, at the bottom of the flight when he saw the Masks freed and staring at his burden.
“Yes, Your Majesty. They were still where I put them. Should I . . .” he said, and stopped when the woman came forward and took a purple sash from the pile in his arms.
“I didn’t think . . . ,” she said, and turned to show it to the others. “I threw mine away when I fled to Gost’s Ward.”
“So did I,” said a man. He reached out to stroke the silk fabric, tracing the red line that ran beside the purple.
Several others agreed.
“They are yours again,” Trax said. “Some we found, and some were taken from your fellow rebels last winter. You see, I really don’t care if you think of yourselves as Masks or Duelists, as long as you fight for our city.”
The woman slipped the sash over her dusty, black clothes. There were tears in the corners of her eyes. “You fool,” she said quietly, and waved the rest to come and retrieve their sashes. “That is all we ever wanted.”
“Your Majesty,” Barick said. He gave the last Mask all the sashes that remained and approached the King. “The Captain says you intend to fight the beasts! Please reconsider. After the battle, we will need your wisdom more than ever,” he said, hands clasped under his wobbly jowels. “Your royal line will die out! What would your Father have said?”
“Hah!” said the King. “That would have been a scorcher of a talk! Don’t worry, Barick. Think of it as more fodder for your history of the city. A true scandal to report: ‘The King Who Escaped His Duty by Being Eaten Alive.’ And as for my royal line, no line of kings lasts long in Shirath. So be of good cheer. Whoever is left alive on the Council of Lords will choose a suitable replacement.”
He stopped to examine the sweating man before him. After a moment, he clasped Barick’s broad shoulders and smiled. “Why, you yourself would make an excellent king, though they might have to widen the throne for you. Yes, you’re a man of ponderous dignity and wisdom, so I hope they choose you. No one knows the mistakes of past kings better.”
He let the startled man go.
“Now, Garet, shall we marshal our troops and put on our armour? We leave for the Fourth Ward as soon as possible.”
Garet put a hand on his arm. “Barick makes some sense, Your Majesty. Your decision was very sudden. I had not expected . . .”
“Such nobility?” Trax asked, then laughed. “Well, circumstances and your wretched example have left me little choice. No, I’m not crazed, Garet, nor as drunk as I’d like to be. I know this is going to be . . . unpleasant, but I really can’t ask others to die for me when wearing one of those stone faces makes it possible for me to fight beside them. Now, let’s go get that armour on. If Lysere finds out what I’m up to, it will take more than a mask to protect me from my intended’s wrath!”