The little Bane stopped pacing to answer. “There are calls out from six Wards that demons have been seen moving through the streets without spreading fear,” he told her. “Dorict here,” he added, pointing a disdainful finger at his friend, “thinks that it’s just more false alarms.”
“Six different Wards?” Salick asked, getting to her feet.
“Six people seeing the tail of a stray dog or some such thing in six different Wards,” Dorict said. He shook his head. “I don’t know if the watch system the King set up is doing more harm or good.”
Marick nodded. “Every time some tipsy citizen sees shadows through the bottom of a wine bottle, half the Hall is turned out.”
“Practically the whole Hall tonight!” Dorict said.
“Except us!” Marick replied, scowling.
“We’re on special duty,” Dorict argued with his friend. “We can’t go running out to chase every shadow!”
“Special duty!” Marick sniffed. “That’s just the Master’s way of keeping us out of the action. Salick,” he said, turning towards her, “you’ve got to ask Master Mandarack to let us go out on patrol again! I’m going to die of boredom if I have to stay here every night waiting for messages to deliver.” He flopped face-down on his bed, grinding his face into the blankets.
Used to his dramatics, his friends ignored him. Garet looked up at Salick, who had replaced Marick in pacing across the room.
“Six different sightings? They must be like Dorict says, false alarms,” he told her.
Salick shook her head. “I suppose.” She turned to Dorict. “How long ago did the reports come in?”
“Over the last hour,” Dorict replied. He cocked his head. “You don’t think that many demons could be in the city at one time, do you?” he asked.
“We don’t know what’s possible or impossible these days,” she answered shortly.
Garet had been watching her pace, an absent expression on his face. He stood up. “Quickly, Dorict! Did the reports say what kind of demon was seen?”
“They were all sightings of Glider Demons,” he answered, looking wide-eyed at the two older Banes. “That’s why I thought they must be mistakes. Gliders are so rare!”
“Gliders,” Salick muttered. “Well, they can be easy to lose, especially if there’s no fear to track.”
“Could one Glider cover that much space in an hour?” Marick asked. He looked at Garet. “You’ve seen one fly.”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. Absently fingering the edge of his new green sash, Garet looked over at Salick again as the Gold resumed her pacing. “They only sail like falling leaves or a sheet blown off the wash line.”
Salick shook her head and continued walking. For a long moment, no one spoke.
Dorict broke the silence. “In any case, the Wards that reported are on both sides of the river. How could even a Glider pass over the bridges without being tracked and killed?” he demanded, his usual calm replaced by a nervous energy that pulled him off his bed to put his hand on the training staff leaning against the wall.
Salick stopped dead and whirled to face the others. “There’s something wrong with this!” she said. “It may be some new trick of this Caller Demon, or the King may be planning something and is trying to distract us for some reason.” She strode to the door, pulling it open. “I knew we couldn’t trust him! Quickly, arm yourselves and follow me. Master Mandarack must be told.” She waited impatiently while Marick and Garet grabbed their weapons.
The upper Hall was quiet. Those Blues and Blacks who were not out serving as extra eyes for the patrols were asleep in their beds, exhausted by the stress of the increased efforts of the Hall. Salick hesitated, looking at the closed doors of potential allies.
Marick grabbed her sleeve and pulled her down the stairs. “No time, Salick,” he told her. “Besides, if something really is wrong, we can sound the alarm after we see the Master.”
Salick allowed herself to be pulled quickly down the stairs, and they soon reached the main floor. Garet was last, still limping slightly. Salick led them through the maze of small hallways until she reached her own room. In a moment, she emerged with the baton she had used against the Crawler Demon in the stockyards. “Vinir’s gone,” she told them.
Garet stared at the three claw blades curving out from the weapon in Salick’s hand and asked, “Your trident?”
Salick moved across the hall and knocked on the nearest door. “Too long to use in these passageways if the King’s Guard attacks.” she explained as she moved to the next door and banged again.
Dorict, Marick, and Garet did likewise, trying each door along the hallway. No one answered their calls. The floor boards squeaked harshly in the unnatural silence of the normally busy corridors. The four moved with increasing speed and anxiety down the hallway. At the far end, Salick gathered them together.
“There’s not a Gold or a Green left in their rooms.” she said, one hand pushing back a strand of bright hair that had slipped in front of her eyes. “They must have all been called out for these supposed sightings. We’ll go to the Masters’ rooms now.”
They walked past the entrance of the dining hall. That cavernous room was dark, a single lamp burning within the kitchen and casting a narrow slip of light over the empty tables and chairs. Salick paused to peer within.
“We should check to see if the evening cooks are still there,” she said. “Garet, go with Marick to take a look in the kitchens. If the cooks are there, find out what they’ve heard and tell them to go home, even if they haven’t finished cleaning up.” She waved at Dorict to follow her down the front gallery to the rooms reserved for the Reds.
Garet walked into the dining hall, Marick following close behind. They followed the sliver of light on the polished floor to the kitchen entrance at the back of the hall, near where the Blacks traditionally sat. The gloom and silence daunted the two Banes and they slowed a bit to avoid any clatter of knocked-over chairs or squeak of scraped table legs.
The kitchen entrance had no door, and Marick peeked around the corner.
“No one here,” he told Garet.
Looking inside the room, Garet couldn’t see anyone working at the small mountains of dishes piled in their wooden tubs. Cleavers and ladles lay scattered about the slate table tops. The lamp that had attracted their attention was fixed to the far wall beside the entrance to the kitchen yard. That door was slightly open, a chill breeze seeping in to raise goose bumps on the backs of their arms.
Garet tugged down his tunic sleeves and turned to go, but a flash of brightness on the floor stopped him. Something lay between the hearth and the unwashed tubs of dishes. He signalled Marick to stay where he was and crept in to investigate. A copper pot, used for heating water in the hearth, was overturned, the water flooding the fireplace and making a slurry of ash and charcoal that dripped down over the lip of bricks to the floor below. Raising his head from this small disaster, he saw two still forms lying, out of sight of the doors, underneath one of the large preparation tables. He started to move and then froze. Looking around, he saw no demon or waiting human attacker. He crawled quietly until he was beside them. The two men, kitchen apprentices of the Hall, had been tied hand and foot to the thick legs of the table. They were breathing but unconscious, the hair on the back of their heads matted with blood.
No demon, not even one as odd as the Caller, would tie up its prey. Garet took a sharp knife from the wash tubs and cut the bonds holding the two. He rolled them to a more comfortable position, but they did not stir. Banerict would have to be called. Garet edged out from under the table and slipped the knife into his belt.
Like Salick, he wanted a weapon he could use in tight quarters.
“Marick!” he hissed. He skirted the puddle of wet ashes and called softly again, “Marick!” but there was no answer. The doorway to the dining hall was empty. Where is he? Marick’s frivolous behaviour was well-known to him, but the small Bane was usually dependable in a dangerous situation. Shif
ting the haft of the hammer end of his weapon to his right hand, he let out two coils of rope and walked slowly to the door where he had left his friend.
With the light from the lantern behind him, he could see that Marick was nowhere near the door. He cast around, trying to hear movement. He stood for a long moment, but instead of a sound, a dreadful impression grew in his mind. The room felt dead. Not the feeling of an empty room but the awful sense of life extinguished. He had felt this strange emptiness twice now: the first time at the ruined Temple, and then in the stable yards of the Ninth Ward. The Caller Demon is in the Hall, and maybe others too, he thought. Marick’s absence now took on a sinister aspect that sent him running through the hall to the far entrance, knocking over chairs and careening off the edges of tables in his haste.
He had floundered half-way across the dark room when a hand stopped him short by grabbing his collar and yanking him backwards. He struggled, but stilled himself when cold steel pricked the side of his neck, just below the jaw line. The hand that held his collar dragged him towards the front of the hall, and he stumbled with his captor, the blade forcing his cooperation. As they neared the Masters’ raised table, the lights of the main gallery cast a dim illumination and let him see a pair of people waiting near the door. One of them was very short.
A black-wrapped figure held Marick tight. As they came close, Garet saw that it was a woman who held his friend captive, a Duelist’s sword held in her raised arm so that the needle point, like the one at his own throat, held the small Bane motionless.
“Now we will settle all accounts, Midlander,” a harsh voice whispered in his ear.
A chill of recognition ran through him. The voice belonged to Draneck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE CALLER’S CLAWS
The point of Draneck’s sword dug into the skin of Garet’s neck and the voice snarled. “Did you think that you and my precious cousin had defeated us? Even the King will pay for his crimes!”
Garet’s eyes ran up the length of the sword pressed to his throat. The hand that held it was wrapped in a blood-encrusted bandage. Bits of straw stuck to the bandage, giving him a hint as to how Draneck had avoided the King’s patrols after his obvious escape. That hand trembled a bit and the movement travelled along the blade to force Garet’s head back against his captor’s shoulder.
“Drop that clawed rope,” the voice ordered. Garet let it slip from his hands to pile in a jumble at his feet.
“Kill him!” whispered the woman who held Marick. No older than Garet, she was clad in a grimy cloak. Bits of dirty, blond hair stuck out from the edges of her hood. A long scratch ran from her forehead to her cheek, adding to her wild look. She glared at him, eyes filled with a desperate hate.
“Draneck,” Garet said, swallowing against the pressure on his throat, “there’s a demon in the Hall. If you kill us, it will take the both of you.” The hand on his collar shook him, but he continued, “Your swords won’t help you. You know that!”
“If there’s a demon,” Draneck asked, hauling Garet up on his toes, “why don’t we feel it? Or is it one of your imaginary demons that can’t be sensed?” He shook Garet again, the point of the sword waving dangerously in front of his face before settling again below his jaw. “Such tales might frighten the King, but I know better.”
The woman spoke again, more urgently. “Kill the Midlander and make this one tell us where the Hallmaster is.” She twitched her sword and a thin trickle of blood dripped down Marick’s neck to stain the purple of his tunic. “He’ll tell us where the Hallmaster is hiding!”
But she found out that Marick was never easy to control. The young Bane’s lips tightened in determination and, with a lightning quick twist and stomp, he wriggled out of the woman’s grasp and darted away to crawl under the high table. He pulled himself up on the other side, one hand pressed to the price of his freedom: a long, freely bleeding gash in the skin of his neck and shoulder.
“Claw you!” she screamed, forgetting caution and half-falling over her bruised foot. She raised her sword to slash across the table at the boy as Marick ducked behind a Master’s chair to escape out of the hall.
Garet pulled against the hand on his collar to try and stop that blade from reaching his friend, but his leg, still weak from his injury, gave way and he almost fell. He was yanked down to his knees, and Draneck shifted the rapier from his neck to a point on his back just below the left shoulder blade.
“Don’t worry about your friend, Midlander,” he said. “He’s in good hands.”
The tip of the sword parted the fabric of his tunic as the pressure on his back increased. He arched his spine away from it but, on his knees and with no way to twist away like Marick, he could only wait for the point to penetrate his skin and work its way to his heart.
“Don’t bother crying for help,” Draneck told him. “It was pathetically easy to send your patrols chasing shadows. We still have friends and allies in Shirath!” The voice drew near and Garet could feel the Duelist’s hot breath on his cheek. “This is where your meddling ends. Farewell, crow!”
Garet threw a desperate hand backwards to try and grasp the blade, but just as he attempted this impossible strategy, the floor bucked and split beneath them. Draneck tumbled backwards as slate tiles and the wooden beams beneath cracked and fell back into a dark pit that opened under the Duelist’s feet. With a sharp cry of surprise, he dropped his sword and disappeared from Garet’s sight.
Garet rolled back from the crumbling edge of the hole. Sharp fragments of tile dug into his hands and knees as he pushed himself up and backed away.
Moans rose from the pit. Garet looked at the young woman, her sword forgotten in her hand. Marick had already disappeared into the main gallery of the Hall. The woman’s eyes were fixed on Draneck’s sword, rocking slightly back and forth on its bell-shaped guard on the ground between her and the pit.
They both flinched at a snapping sound from the dark hole. Draneck’s moans transformed into high-pitched screams, screams that were abruptly cut off and replaced by a low, inhuman whistling of breath.
Garet’s back hit the Masters’ table before he knew he was backing away from that hollow, hooting voice. The Duelist stood rooted in her tracks, only a few feet from the cracked lip of the pit. Only the tip of her sword moved, jerking back and forth.
A long, heavily muscled arm, its colour indistinct in the gloom, rose out of the hole and felt along the floor. It swept aside the sword, and the woman, as if released from a spell, stumbled back onto the Masters’ dais, to stand side-by-side with Garet. A second arm joined the first, the claws on the end of the stubby hands each as thick as a wine bottle’s neck. The weight of the arms collapsed more of the floor into the pit and the demon had to scramble to pull itself up onto the floor.
Even more heavily muscled than a Basher, the demon’s thick arms were fixed to a barrel of a torso that tapered to a flat tail still dangling down into the pit. Back legs no bigger than a child’s were pressed tight to its flanks. Its head was as round as a water cask; its crests mere nubs against the thick plates of skin over its skull. Weak eyes peered about the room, and seeing them, it opened its short, blunt beak to reveal rows of bloodstained, needle teeth.
The woman beside Garet swore and raised her sword. Without the demon’s usual, paralyzing fear, now deadened to her, she seemed ready to attack the beast as it slithered towards them. With a cry, she launched herself at the demon, her sword lancing towards its eyes.
“No!” cried Garet, for he had studied these demons and knew what they could do. But she ignored him.
With a lightning twist of its body, the demon turned, switching ends and lashing out with its flat tail. The woman’s sword merely skidded over the plates on the thing’s back, and she was thrown to the floor by the slap of its tail against her ribs. She slid for several yards and lay gasping for breath, barely conscious as the demon pulled itself quickly after her.
Garet reached to his waist for the rope hammer but fe
lt nothing but the hook hanging from his sash. Where was it? Scanning the dark floor in front of him, he could not see it and realized with a sharp drop in the pit of his stomach that it must have fallen into the hole with Draneck.
The thing was almost on top of the woman now. She had revived just enough to realize her danger. One hand on her ribs, she was trying to crawl away, pulling herself along with her other arm and kicking with her feet. But it was no contest. The demon moved over the floor with the fluid grace of a snake, using its tail as well as its arms to propel it towards its victim. She kicked at the beast’s massive head, but it barely paused. One stubby hand came down on the Duelist’s leg, pinning her, and the mouth opened.
Garet leaped onto the demon’s back, praying to Heaven that he was right about what he was fighting. At first, the beast seemed to ignore him, but then it reared and hooted in pain as Garet plunged the small knife he had taken from the kitchen into the thing’s eye, stabbing down over and over until his sleeve was splattered in its blood.
The arms tried to reach back for him, but seemed unable to bend that far. Garet felt triumphant; he had been right about this thing. It was a Digger, a demon built for attacking its prey from beneath the soil. Its arms, like its whole body, were formed to move forward in the dirt, sweeping tunnelled material back and down, but not up over its back. It swam through the earth, sensing its prey walking above before it attacked. Moret had been right for once, Garet realized gratefully, hanging on to the demon’s shoulders with one hand and transferring his knife to the other eye for a renewed attack.
But the demon had a trick Moret had not mentioned. It twisted itself over on its back, pinning Garet beneath it and crushing him as beneath a large stone. The breath wheezed out of him. The small knife dropped to the floor. With a hissing cry, the demon flipped back upright beside him, leaving him winded on the ground. It lifted itself off the floor with one arm and raised the other above Garet’s head, ready to slam his skull to jelly against the stone tiles of the dining hall floor.
Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels Page 136
