Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels

by Daniel Arenson

  Garet slid the knife back into his belt and crept into the room. Lifting the corner of the map, he grasped the hilt of the heavy broadsword. Trax’s voice froze him in place.

  “Those are horribly hard to use,” the King said, standing in the doorway and holding a Duelist’s rapier in his hands. “Takes years of practice just to keep from cutting off your own limbs. You’d do better with one of these.”

  He walked across the room towards Garet, whose hand was still on the hilt of the sword beneath the map. Trax moved confidently, making little swishes with the rapier’s tip.

  “You couldn’t have brought Birat’s necklace with you tonight, my young friend. So I suppose this comes down to steel.” He kept advancing, and Garet retreated, the broadsword held up awkwardly in his hand.

  “Lower it,” the King commanded. His voice was sure.

  Garet obeyed. He had no illusions that he could use the heavy weapon he held, or his knife for that matter, to disarm the King and overwhelm him before he could call for help. Where is Salick, he desperately wondered. His back hit one of the carved posts of the bed. The King’s blade hovered a few inches from his face.

  “Now, let’s see who you are under that cap,” Trax said. He pushed it off Garet’s head with the point of the blade, revealing the black hair the cap had hidden so far that night.

  “Ah! You must be the ‘skinny Midland crow’ Shoronict is always harping about,” Trax said. “It was wise of you to use a disguise to try to see me. But for what purpose, hmm?” The blade floated down to settle at the base of Garet’s throat. “Why did you want to see me?” Trax asked, his eyes suddenly hard and bright. “To kill me?” he demanded. He drew his arm back slightly, but stopped in mid-motion. Salick’s knife was across his throat.

  She stood behind the King, one slim hand tangled in his blond hair, the other holding the knife, its serrations pressed into the skin of his neck.

  “While murder sounds so satisfying, your Majesty, we really just wanted to have a word with you,” she told him, pulling back on his collar to move him away from Garet. “Get his sword,” she commanded.

  Garet did so, dropping the larger sword on the bed and making a wide circle so as to stay away from the hovering point of the dueling sword. This blade felt like a toy in his hand after the broadsword, but he already knew how dangerous it could be in the hands of a trained fighter.

  Salick pulled Trax backwards into the chair he had recently vacated. She moved around to the front, the knife ready in her hand. Garet stood beside her, the point of the rapier an inch from the King’s chest.

  “Salick!” he said. “Is that you?” He made to get up, but stopped when the sword point touched his shirt. “What do you mean by this?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?” His eyes flashed dangerously, undaunted by his disadvantage.

  “I told you, your Majesty,” Salick replied, dumping the clothes and sheath off the other chair and pulling it up to face the King. “We came to talk to you.”

  “As I recall, Salick,” Trax said, leaning back into his chair and ignoring Garet and his sword, “you told me you never wanted to speak to me again.” He smiled. “And I believe it was in this very room.”

  “I remember it perfectly,” Salick said, her tone icy.

  Garet glanced at her, but she kept her eyes on the King. “That match was my father’s idea,” she continued. “Not mine. The fact that you went along with it against my will and against the laws of this city should be to your shame, Trax!” After several deep breaths, she continued. “And I was already a Bane.”

  “Yes,” Trax replied. “Though it was an impolitic move on your part to join the Banehall. Your father was drinking himself to death quite quickly, and you could have traded that piece of green cloth for a whole Ward, or a city.” He ran his hand through his hair, careless of the sword at his chest. “My father beat me for my part in it, you know,” he said, and seeing her surprise, added, “He was furious. He told me if I couldn’t convince a girl to love me without force, I was not fit to be a King of Shirath.” He grinned ruefully. “He said that love might come in spite of the parents, but never in spite of the girl.”

  “Trax, you must know that you can’t win against the Banehall,” Salick said.

  “Oh, I don’t really know that,” he replied airily. “Shoronict has all sorts of clever plans to make life difficult for you.” He looked up at Garet for the first time. “How much food do your Masters have squirrelled away, lad?” he asked. When no answer was forthcoming, he continued. “What would happen if your well was poisoned in the night? Eh? Or your patrols ambushed from afar by archers. We still have a few archers in the guards you know, though they practice mainly for competition and tradition’s sake.” He waited politely for an answer.

  “Very good plans, your Majesty,” Garet replied calmly, “but if you succeed, what then?” He lifted the sword to rest the blade against his own shoulder. Salick held her breath, but Trax did not bother to move. “Will you use the clever Shoronict against the demons?”

  Unlike his guards, Trax did not blanch at the word. He merely continued looking at Garet.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “we will no longer need the Banes, if Lord Andarack’s new devices work.” He crossed his ankles and waited for a response.

  “All the silkstone in Shirath barely made one suit of armour, your Majesty,” Garet reminded him. “And you have twelve Wards to guard, not to mention two rather large plazas and miles of fields and woods. Whoever wears that armour will be very busy.”

  Trax grinned at him and stood up. He waved a hand at Salick to calm her nervous reaction. “No, cousin, don’t worry, I like this conversation,” he told her. “Even if so far, we have only proven that we all know what we already know.” He took a bottle of wine from a sideboard and gathered long-stemmed glasses between his fingers. “But let us continue this talk in a more civilized manner,” he suggested.

  He led them into the next room, a large sitting room, well-lit and appointed. Garet kept the sword, pointed diplomatically downwards, and Salick placed her knife back in her belt. Trax put the wine and glasses on a round marble table and waved them to the chairs around it.

  “My advisers pester me here daily,” he explained. “So there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do the same.” He poured the wine and took the first sip. “There, you see, not poisoned. Rather good, in fact. From Solantor.”

  Garet had no taste for expensive vintages; it was just wine to him, but Salick raised her eyebrows at her first sip and said, “I see that you still know how to impress—especially if it helps your plans, your Majesty.”

  “Call me Trax, Salick. You too, Midlander,” Trax said, smiling. “A king should always have one or two people in the city who can freely express their disgust with him.” He took another sip and looked over the silvered rim of the glass at Salick.

  “Now tell me what Mandarack thinks I should do,” he said.

  “How did you know that Adrix was…” Salick began, but Garet cut her off.

  “The cooks,” he said, and Trax nodded.

  “So you see, I know things that you didn’t think I knew.” He smiled at Garet. “I wonder if there’s anything you know that I don’t expect.”

  “You’re afraid of the Duelists,” Garet told him, and smiled when the King’s face went stiff with surprise. “You need them to fight the Hall, because your guards aren’t enough, but you fear that one of them, Shoronict probably, plans to take over, to make himself King when you finish with the Hall. And from what we heard on the way here, you’re right.” He raised his glass to the King. “Did I hit the mark?”

  “Yes,” Trax replied, regaining his composure quickly. “But I hear you’re very good at hitting a target.”

  “Enough games, Trax,” Salick broke in. She leaned forward, pushing the wine glass to the side. “Master Mandarack said that if you had all the information we had, you would make an intelligent decision, and I, Heaven shield me, agreed with him.” She folded her hands on the
marble table top. “So I am now going to tell you everything.”

  For over half an hour, she spoke, with little interruption from the King, just a question now and then about Banehall procedures, or the nature of demons. Garet watched and sipped lightly at his wine, not used to the taste, but wanting to be occupied while Salick told Trax of the Caller Demon’s threat.

  “And these jewels, which I assume replace the traditional demon hearts on that necklace Adrix threatened me with, can truly be blocked or shielded by Andarack’s armour?” the King asked.

  Salick nodded.

  “Is it possible this new demon is using something like it?” he asked.

  “No, the demons we kill who are blocked are not armoured, or changed in any way we know. Master Andarack believes it is a property of this new demon’s jewel to be able to hide the fear, to cover it with a dead feeling, or some other strong emotion,” she explained.

  Trax ran his hand through his hair again. “I can see how dangerous this is, Salick. I’m no fool,” he said. “But things have gone very far already. Adrix’s greed and the Hall’s failure to protect…” He held up his hand to stop her protest. “I know. You tell me that failure was unavoidable, but in the eyes of the people, those deaths were the fault of the Banehall. Now the Duelists are treating those deaths like the first casualties in some war out of the dynastic records!” He stood up to pour more wine. “They are hard to control. They want this war to prove themselves, and they will take violent offense to any attempt to make peace.”

  “Yes, I believe we would, your Majesty,” a sardonic voice said behind the King. Shoronict stood in the door to the bed chamber, sword in hand. Behind him was Draneck, grinning at the shocked look on their faces.

  “So the Beauty’s Way is not just a servant’s joke,” Shoronict observed, stepping languidly into the room. “When the guards told me that old Barick was screaming about someone attacking him in his bath, I went to see,” he said, waving his rapier languidly. “For the diversion. Your Majesty’s butler is always amusing when he’s in a fit, but I did wonder why anyone would simply dump his clothes on the floor rather than, say drain out the tub, or pour in ice cold water, if they wanted to play a joke on the poor wretch.”

  Draneck stepped in lightly behind him. “A wet boot print on the closet floor led us to this traitorous meeting!”

  The two men stopped a few feet within the room. Salick had moved behind the king and stood beside Garet. Knife in hand, she now reached over to take the knife from Garet’s belt as well. He held the King’s rapier in his hand, the point fixed on Shoronict’s movements.

  “Oh, please, Trax,” the Duelist continued. “Don’t think I’m angry with you. In fact, you’ve made us very happy. All of you have! Isn’t that so, Draneck?”

  The young man beside him whipped out his own blade and smiled. “Very happy. I’m sorry to say, Salick, that you and this crow are about to be killed for assassinating the King.”

  “That is a lie, Draneck,” Trax said, his voice tight. “They are here to talk. I gave them my bond.” His fingers were tight around the neck of the wine bottle.

  “The bond of a dead man is worthless, Trax,” Shoronict replied. “For, you see, they succeeded in killing you, perhaps with one of those pathetic knives Salick is holding. We followed them, but only came in time to avenge your death.” The point of his blade was suddenly alive, trained on the King. “No one, not even those craven Lords of your Council will need any more proof of the Banehall’s treachery.” The point of the sword seemed tied by an invisible thread to Trax’s throat. “I will defeat the Banes, despite their cowardly use of those clawed jewels, and then there will be no difficulty in being chosen as the next King of Shirath.” He smiled and dropped into a fencer’s crouch. “Let us do this quickly, your Majesty.”

  “Lad,” Trax said to Garet, “give me that sword, unless you fence as well as you throw.”

  Garet tossed him the sword and kicked his chair at Shoronict, who leaped to the side to avoid it. With a howl of rage, Trax flung the wine bottle at the Duelist, barely missing Shoronict’s skull, and rolled over the table to confront him, blade to blade.

  Garet looked wildly across the room at Salick and Draneck. The young man, his face frozen in a mask of hate, was jabbing over and over again at Salick’s face and chest, trying to break through the guard of her two knives. She was slowly being backed into the wall next to a hearth. Garet ran to join her. Behind Garet, the rapid clash of swords told him that Trax was holding his own against the man who wanted to replace him.

  Scooping up Trax’s chair from where it had tumbled to the floor, he flung it at Draneck, but the Duelist ducked and jabbed at Salick’s legs. She barely leaped back in time, but too far, coming up against the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of her.

  Draneck swept his sword around to slash at Garet’s face as he grabbed for the Duelist, causing the Bane to twist to one side and fall into the iron grate of the hearth. The tools stacked beside the fireplace fell over him. Brushing aside the bellows and tongs, he grabbed a poker, shorter than the one that, on a summer night so long ago, had set him on the road to this even deadlier night. Short it may have been, but the iron rod was heavy and comforting in his hand. With a howl of fury, he rushed the Duelist again before he could close in on Salick for the kill.

  The first blow of Garet’s weapon knocked aside Draneck’s blade as it flashed towards his cousin’s heart. The next drove Draneck back as he jumped to avoid a crushed skull from Garet’s desperate back-handed swing.

  Recovering his stance, Draneck screamed at him, “You clawed crow! Ever since that night on the bridge, I knew that I would kill you with my sword!”

  “You lost your sword!” Garet yelled back. “You threw it away and ran like a whipped dog!” He drew the poker back for another attack.

  But Draneck lunged forward, his arm a perfect line from the shoulder to the tip of his blade, and drove the point into Garet’s thigh.

  The pain burned through him like a lightning strike. He dropped the poker as Draneck moved forward, pushing the blade deeper into the muscles of his leg.

  “Can you stand that, Bane?” the Duelist hissed. “Or is the courage of your lot overrated?” The hilt was almost touching Garet’s leg before he stopped. “And now for my dear cousin.”

  He started to withdraw the blade, but Garet grabbed the rapier’s bell-shaped guard with both hands. Draneck cursed and twisted the blade. Garet screamed, but held on.

  The Duelist drew back his left hand to strike him, but screamed himself when Salick raked the saw-like edge of her baker’s knife over the hand that still held the sword. Draneck fell back, both hands pressed to his body, trying to staunch the blood. Before he could look up, Salick smashed the hilt of her knife down on the back of his neck, dropping him like a polled ox.

  “Good night, dear cousin,” she hissed, and then knelt by Garet.

  The sword was still in his leg, and he could not stand. Propped up on one hand, he reassured Salick.

  “I’m all right,” he gasped, then grimaced as the lightning ran up his leg again. “Or at least I’m not dying. Help the King.”

  The King did need help. Trax had fought well early in his battle against Shoronict, but his lack of training was beginning to tell. Unlike the Duelist, he had neither had the time nor inclination to devote his entire life to fencing. A trickle of blood from his left shoulder and a clean cut on the shirt above his stomach showed that the match would soon end.

  Salick looked desperately at the sword still stuck through Garet’s leg. He gritted his teeth and tried to pull it out, but she grabbed the poker instead and leaped over him.

  “No!” he cried after her. “Take the sword!” But she was already racing towards the King.

  It was too late for her help. Shoronict disarmed Trax with a flick of his wrist, sending the King’s sword cart wheeling across the room. He smiled slightly and drew back his arm for the killing blow.

  Trax stood, desperate but u
nmoving in the face of his death. But the blow never fell. Shoronict gave a small start, and the smile faded from his face to be replaced by a look of wonder. The Duelist fell forward, revealing the King’s broadsword sticking out of his back and a fat, terrified man in wet clothes shaking behind him.

  “You…your Majesty,” the man stuttered, his grey hair raining drops of water on the floor as he trembled, “I, I came up those stairs to see if you needed me. I found your sword—you left it on the bed again.” He pointed a shaking finger at the body of the Duelist lying on the floor. “Then I saw this man attacking you, and…” He stopped speaking and started to weep, great tears curving down his round face.

  “Excellent timing,” Trax told him, holding his wounded shoulder and gasping for air. He leaned back against the table and turned his head to the two Banes, Salick caught half-way to the King, poker still raised above her head. “May I introduce my butler, Master Barick.”

  From his position on the floor, blood flowing around his fingers where the sword stuck out of his thigh, Garet looked at the wet clothes on the poor man and said to the King, “Your Majesty, I think we have already met.” The last thing he heard before fainting was Salick’s near-hysterical laughter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SWORDS IN THE BANEHALL

  Garet half-woke several times before coming to full consciousness in the Banehall’s infirmary. His earlier rousings were a jumble of voices and images. In one, the hawk-faced Guard who had stopped him outside the Palace held him, pinning his arms against his chest. She looked down at him angrily and said, “I knew something was wrong about you,” before the lightning went off again in his leg, and he dropped back into unconsciousness. Another fragment was the voice of the King saying, “I don’t care how many of you it takes, Captain. Disarm all of them and send them back to their homes.” And then an image of a red dawn swinging overhead and the sound of wheels on stone.

  Banerict was bending over his throbbing leg when he came fully awake. The physician was dabbing a stinging liquid on the wound and cleaning away the blood. Garet’s pants had disappeared.