Trax poured some wine and handed him the cup.
“True it is, Hallmaster. I wish I could say that it was not. We have sent letters over the Wall calling for peace and forgiveness if they surrender.”
Branet sipped carefully, wincing when the liquid touched a cut on his lip. “Claws! Well, you may send another letter, if you wish, telling them that no Bane will enter their Wards until they surrender. That ought to rattle them. Some may think the demons are gone, but most will not trust in such luck.”
Trax raised his eyebrows. “This is a very . . . useful gesture, Hallmaster. I thank you for it, but can you, in good conscience, leave off your duties to those Wards?”
The Hallmaster shrugged. “If the gates are closed, we cannot perform those duties anyway, so you might as well tell them we won’t and end their folly.”
The King nodded at the sense of telling a small lie born of a greater truth. “Thank you. Your cooperation is most welcome!”
Branet rose. He looked to where Relict stood just outside the pavilion. “Don’t bother thanking me. I’ve had no end of people preaching cooperation to me since, well, since I became Hallmaster. It must be sinking in at last.”
Trax stood and held out his hand. Branet took it.
“There’s still much we disagree on, Trax,” Branet said.
“Only because we are both so disagreeable,” the King replied.
Branet smiled then winced again. “Claws, that brute was worse than a Basher! Come on, Relict, let’s have a look at Andarack’s latest toy.”
The other Banes followed. Garet searched their faces, but Salick was not among them.
FALOR LEANED AGAINST
Cernot and looked up at the sky. The sun would soon be down.
“Master, are we there?” she asked, as she had with regularity throughout the day.
Corix didn’t bother answering. She pointed ahead of them. The brush growing in from each side, almost smothering the old road, ended. Within but a dozen yards, they saw trees planted in straight lines. The Red shifted her grip on the front of the litter and pulled Cernot, who held the back, into motion.
“The last race,” she said. Her bladed gauntlets lay across Shirin’s legs. Both were bloody to the metal wrists. The injured woman stared up into the blue sky, her eyes empty of intelligence.
Falor grabbed one of the poles from Corix’s hand. The Red shook her head.
“You’re wounded in the side, Green, and you’re exhausted,” she told her. “Stay behind us and look for any that still follow.”
Falor kept her grip. “You’re exhausted too, Master, and so is Cernot! If this is the last race, we should all run it together.”
Cernot raised his eyebrows at such impudence, but Corix only grunted.
“Hmm. Run then,” she said. “The city Walls are our only hope.”
They ran, and the litter swayed between them, carrying its staring, bleeding burden.
IT WAS DUSK
when the gates of the Thirteenth Ward opened. A cart came out with two figures on the bench seat, one a squat woman in armor holding the reins, the other a heavily pregnant woman in fine dress and waving a silk fan.
The gate stayed open behind them.
Bixa looked at the King, ready to have her guards run forward to secure the gate, but Trax shook his head. He left the pavilion to meet the wagon halfway. Garet, Bixa, and Relict, who had stayed when Branet returned to the Hall, went with him.
“Kaela!” Trax said, putting a hand on the horses’ harness and smiling up at the young woman.
Cruster reined in the animals and set the brake. She bore no weapon other than her expression, which could have struck birds from the sky.
“Greetings, Your Majesty. I am so happy to see you,” Kaela said. “Oh Cruster, don’t frown so! The King means us no harm. He is a gentleman and will treat us kindly, or so his letter said. Besides, when he sees the gift we bring, I’m sure he’ll know where our Ward’s loyalties lie.”
“A gift?” Trax said. “Really, Kaella, you are full of surprises. Here, let me help you down. Captain, will you look after her escort?”
Bixa waited until Cruster stepped down then signaled two guards to flank the woman, swords drawn.
Kaela said nothing. She looked at Garet and Relict and smiled again.
Garet put a hand to his sword.
“Peace, Bane, or ex-Bane, I should say,” Kaela told him. “Come and help me unwrap my present, and you will have no more doubts.”
He stepped forward and looked into the bed of the wagon. A form wriggled under a tarp. Garet pulled back the covering with one hand and held his drawn sword with the other, for his doubts had not yet been belayed.
What he saw, however, made him sheathe the blade again and look searchingly at Kaela.
“Well, well,” Trax said, peering over his shoulder. “It’s what I always wanted, a Gost of my very own! And I know just where to put him.”
He signaled Bixa. The bound and gagged man was lifted thrashing from the cart and carried off between a squad of guards towards the Bridge Gates, Bixa in the lead.
“Kaela,” Trax began, leading the woman towards his pavilion, “this might be an indelicate question, but does your husband know what you’ve done?”
Kaela’s laughter was a silver trill. “Of course he does, Your Majesty. My uncle’s plots and plans only recently became clear to us, to him, I mean. Since he is a loyal Lord, he arrested Gost and sends him to you. If he were not hard at work calming the citizens of his Ward, I have no doubt he would have brought the man out himself.”
“Kaela, you are a wonder!” Trax said. “No diplomat could match your tongue, and no soldier your tactics. I thank you for this gift, and, if you will stay here a moment, I’ll have my own carriage take you back to your oh-so-fortunate husband.”
“Thank you, my Gracious King,” she said. She sat on a padded chair and began to pick among the delicacies set beside her by a steward. “Please give my regards to Lysere. Tell her I how much I admire your handling of this . . . unpleasantness. She is a very lucky woman! Perhaps I should have pursued you more vigorously when I had the chance all those years ago.”
Trax bowed and signaled Garet to follow him out from under the canvas. When they were some distance away, he shuddered.
“Claws, that woman terrifies me! I’m glad she didn’t chase me back then, or I would have had to give up the throne and move to Solantor. Garet, when Bixa returns tell her not to enter the Thirteenth Ward in force. She can go in with Shula, Cheza, and a few others to see what’s happening. Tell her to keep that gate open and find out about Kirel. If he is ready to surrender, have him turn over any of Gost’s friends. I hope the other conspirators are still alive, but with Kaela, well, you never know. I’m back to the Palace. Join me there after you’ve talked to the Captain.”
He left Garet to wait for Kaela’s carriage. The King’s Agent stood awkwardly across from her while she ate bits of pastry.
“It might be of interest to you, Bane . . . ah, sorry again, ex-Bane, that your old Hallmaster, Adrix, has been part of this Mask business. It seems he bears a grudge against you for laming him,” she said, bestowing a sweet smile upon Garet. “I’m sure when you see him brought out in chains it will chase that scowl off your face.”
Garet wondered if it would indeed make him happy to see it. Once it might have, for Adrix had humiliated him when he first came to the Banehall and almost destroyed the Banes with his scheming. Now those memories had faded, scarred over by the terrors of the present day.
He was composing an answer that would be both polite and dismissive when Bixa came riding back, clattering at full speed over the paving stones of the plaza.
“Garet! The King needs you at the Bridge Gates. There’s a commotion. Something about a group of Banes from Old Torrick, beasts chasing them, and . . . they’ve brought Shirin back.”
“What?” Garet said.
Kaela stopped her fanning to listen. Garet ignored her.
“Shirin, she’s back, but badly wounded,” the Captain said. She dismounted from her laboring horse.
Garet looked to the pavilion. Kaela was deep in conversation with Cruster.
“Captain, the King says you are to secure the gates and take a small party to look inside the Ward,” he said, and began to run towards the Bridge Gates.
“What am I looking for?” Bixa shouted after him.
Garet stopped and turned, unwilling to spend even a heartbeat on anything but what was happening at the Bridge Gates.
“Anyone who seems to be in charge. Kirel and any conspirators! Oh, and silkstone! Yes, take any silkstone Masks to the Hall and any other stone to . . . Andarack, I suppose!”
He legged it then, leaping over the small hedges of the gardens, scattering foraging birds and wandering citizens.
There was a crowd at the eastern-most Gate, and Garet ran directly there. Pushing through the onlookers, he found the King and a small group of Banes kneeling around a litter placed on the ground. Trax saw him and waved him closer. Garet took a deep breath and approached.
Shirin lay on the litter. Her arm was splinted, and her clothes were soaked in blood. Rough bandages covered what must have been many wounds. Her eyes opened, blinked, and focused on Garet. She tried to speak.
He knelt by her side and took one of her cold hands in his.
“Shirin, hang on! We’ll get you to Banerict in the Hall. He’s the best physician in the city.”
The wounded woman shook her head. She tried again to speak and managed a whisper. “Warning,” she said.
Garet leaned closer. He felt her uncertain breath on the side of his face as she spoke again.
“Warning, Garet. From the north, demons, fifty or more. Attack,” she managed to whisper, and then her eyes closed again.
A strong hand pulled him back, and he looked into the face of Corix, the Hallmaster of Old Torrick. He had met her only briefly last year, but no one could forget a woman of such uncompromising will.
“She needs the physician,” Corix said, and volunteers from the crowd picked up the litter and took it as gently and swiftly as possible to the Hall.
Trax wiped blood from his fingers. His hands were shaking. “If she said to you what she said to me, Garet, then Gost can wait for a less frightening time. Come. We are both going to the Hall.”
Garet paused before following the King. He had seen many Banes come running from the Banehall, including two familiar Blues who had crept up close enough behind him to hear Shirin’s words.
He caught Marick and Dorict’s attention, and then glanced to the North. The two nodded and ran off over the bridge.
Garet bit his lip. He was putting them in mortal danger, but keeping them in the city wouldn’t lessen that peril, not if Shirin was telling the truth. He took a deep breath and ran to catch up with the King.
“I CAN DO
nothing but ease her pain,” Banerict said. He had re-bandaged her wounds, and Garet had been sickened to see the clawing she had suffered.
He turned to where Corix was deep in conversation with Branet, Tarix, and Relict.
“You tell me these stone masks allow anyone to kill a demon?” the Old Torrick Bane said. “Yet we found no such mask near her. She was half in a stream, wounded as you see. There was a dead Shrieker under her with her knife in its throat.”
“And no mask? What can that mean?” Tarix said. Both she and Relict moved aside so that Garet could join them.
“It means she was a Bane, at the very end,” Garet said. He did not look at Branet as he said this, for he feared he might strike the Hallmaster to let out a measure of the grief and anger that threatened to burn him up from the inside.
“Agreed,” Corix said, ignoring the Hallmaster’s discomfiture. “Do you have these masks now?”
“We will,” Garet said. “The Captain of the King’s Guard is searching for them as we speak. I told her to bring them here.”
“Thank you,” Branet mumbled. He was saved from further embarrassment by the physician, who signaled them to approach the bed.
“The end is coming fast, I fear. If you would have words with her, now is the time,” he said.
Trax pulled a chair up to her bed. “Shirin, I am truly sorry that you were sent into the wilds. For my city, I apologize to you with all my heart.”
“Luck,” the woman whispered. “My luck . . .”
Garet came up upon the other side of the bed and took her hand again. “Bad luck for me too, for I would have had us friends, Shirin,” he said.
“Fool,” she whispered. “I’d have killed you . . . someday.”
“Perhaps, but I still wish to part friends. Please tell us what happened.”
She struggled to breathe for a moment. Garet put an arm around her shoulders and lifted her slightly so that she could breathe again. After coughing up fresh blood onto the old stains, she spoke.
“Went towards Old Torrick . . . new life . . . like you said. Saw them . . . demons driven from the north. Fifty or more . . . then they found . . . my scent. Fled. Shrieker caught me.”