City of Masks (39 page)

Garet smiled when he saw them. The Palace Master of Mechanicals had sent a legion of stewards from house to house in every Ward, taking knives from any family that had more than one. Not even the King’s household had been spared. The argument with the Palace cook had been loud and profane, but the King’s Butler had come out of it with a very red face and an armful of blades.

Now those knives were set in mortar, ready to cut any demon who tried to crawl over the wall and escape the trap. To help in this, sharpened wooden stakes pointed downward from the inner face of the barrier. Between those stakes, holes pierced the stone to allow long pikes to poke through and bloody any too-eager beast.

That it had taken but a day and two nights to build it all seemed impossible. The Mechanicals of every Ward had participated, save those of the Eighth Ward where Andarack was rumored to be working on something special for the city’s defense. What that might be, Garet had no idea. But if it came to nothing, this trap was their only hope.

The plan of it had been born after Shirin’s death and the meeting in the dining hall. Branet, Corix, Garet, Bixa, and Trax had taken over the Shouting Room to think up an effective defense against fifty demons. Garet had pushed for a confrontation in the fields outside the Walls, while Branet and Corix had argued for letting the demons into a single Ward before attacking them.

“We could burn them out,” Branet suggested. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

“And we would lose half the city,” Trax said. He signaled his butler to pour them all a fresh cup of tea.

“Could we use fire outside the Walls?” Bixa asked.

“We could,” Garet said. “If we could build a barrier to keep them going towards a particular point, then we could use fire once they were contained. It would also narrow the area where we must fight and keep them from surrounding us. With luck, the demons might also get in each others’ way. At least it would make it harder for the big ones to charge.”

“There’s another reason to keep them in front of us,” Branet said.

The others looked at him, too tired to follow his thoughts.

“The Masks,” Branet said. He stood up to stretch. “Oh, I need rest! We have the silkstone masks at the Hall, and you have people chained below us who know how to use them, Trax. I fear we will need every bit of help, whether it’s placed within the city or out of it.”

“Outside or we’ll lose the city in saving it,” Trax said. “And I’ll talk to my guests.”

Corix nodded. “Put the trap outside then. Build what walls you can before they attack and pray to Heaven they hold.”

The Master Mechanical was called and told what was needed. To his credit, he made no protest, but went straight from the room with Garet’s rough sketches. Construction began before the risen moon had shifted more than an arm’s length in the sky.

“Placing it there makes it faces north,” Bixa said. She swept paper off the table top map, putting a fingertip on the Outer Gate of the Fourth Ward.

“But what if the beasts come from a different direction?” the Captain asked.

Branet grimaced. “We do not have to trust to luck or even Shirin’s words for this. Fast-running Banes now range in a circle around the city. The ones who sense the demons first will signal the city and lead them towards our trap.”

Bixa had the decency to shudder.

NOW GARET STOOD
there, in the morning of a fine spring day, waiting to see if it would be his friends running for their lives.

“Sir?” said a voice behind him.

At first Garet wondered who the man was speaking to, then realized it must be him. He turned to see the Master Mechanical of the Palace holding out his sword.

“The mechanical who sharpened it is a good lass. She’s made it sharp enough to cut dropped silk, sir.”

Garet took it and fixed it to his belt. “Thank you for bringing it to me. Your walls are magnificent! We should name it after you, Master Forlor.”

The Mechanical smile stretched to its usual extent, meaning the mere suggestion of a curve. He looked at the line of stone and spikes stretching out one hundred yards on either side.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said. “The whole thing is unstable, as we had no time to dig a foundation. Any deep frost will overturn it. Besides, those who laboured on it these past two nights have named it already.”

Garet laughed. “What do they call it then?” he asked.

The Mechanical ran his eyes along the wooden stakes, the pikes sticking out of their embrasures, and the knives bristling along the top.

“They call it the Clawed Wall.”

“
HOW DO I
look?” the King asked. He turned around so that his gold-washed cuirass and assorted pieces of armor—all set off by the puffy, purple silk of his tunic and trousers—could be admired.

The little woman squatting beside him snorted. She went back to sharpening the point of a pike she held steady over one knee. “You look like you’re on parade. Keep the gauntlets, greaves, and cuirass, but discard all else. If you don’t, you’ll faint ten minutes into the battle. I’m surprised you didn’t wear your crown.”

Trax peered down at her. “I left it with Barick, in case you turn out to be a poor teacher.”

The woman went on sharpening the pike, the whetstone in her hand making long, rhythmic passes along the top spike. When she spoke again, her voice was no more gentle than the stone’s. “Listen then, child! When it’s time to put on the masks, you’ll start to feel the fear. It creeps up on you until you dare not move. Mostly, you feel it here,” she said, pausing to point the whetstone at her forehead. “That’s why the masks work. They shield the worst, but you have to trust in it. When I first feel a demon, I turn my head back and forth, just a little bit so it doesn’t seep in around the edges. That makes the fear . . . wobble.”

“Wobble?” the King asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, Your Clawed Majesty, wobble,” she snapped. “Like the trill in a bird’s song or a baby’s cry. When you sense that, will yourself to believe the fear is coming from outside the mask. If you can believe that it’s not part of you, then you can breathe and maybe fight.”

Trax nodded at the sense of this. He knelt to put his head on a level with the squatting woman. “Dear teacher, if I live today, it will be by your lessons! What is your name and Ward?”

She spat onto the stones that paved the surface of the bridge. “Why, do you think you’ve heard of me? What a joke that would be! Did we meet at some fancy ball or state occasion? Don’t fool yourself, Trax. You don’t know me.”

“Perhaps not, but I was thinking you might be descended from a certain vegetable seller I read about.”

She paused in her work to look at him again. Her expression was one of disgust. “If a glib tongue could slay demons, the rest of us could go home. I give you some credit that you’re here, but I still hate you, Trax.”

“
CAN WE FIRE
. . . the arrow yet?” Dorict gasped. They paused by a first stand of cherry trees, trying to catch their breaths. The Blue looked behind them, staring into the wood lots north of the orchards.

“Claws!” Marick said. He held one hand to the wound on his leg. On the lucky side, the stitches were holding. On the unlucky side, they still had a long way to run. “Not yet, Dorict. They might not see it from here. Let’s get nearer the city first.”

His friend pushed himself off the trunk and checked the quiver on his back. “We might not make it that far,” he said.

A howl sounded far behind them, then another in a different timbre.

Marick shivered. “Don’t worry. If you fall into that Racer’s mouth, I’ll carry on for you.”

“Many thanks,” Dorict muttered and started running again.

“
STOP MOVING AROUND
!” Vinir said. She reached up and pulled Salick down to a well rim that served as her chair.

“Let go!” Salick said, and jumped up again. She looked to where Branet stood just inside the Outer Gate of the Fourth Ward. He was speaking to Captain Bixa, who nodded and disappeared from sight.

Salick wished she could go with her.

“Why must we be the reserves?” she asked Vinir.

Her friend pretended she had not answered this a dozen times already. “Because the trap may not work, and the narrowness of the bridge limits the number of Banes and Masks who can stand together against them.”

“But why us?”

Vinir sighed. She too wished to be outside, standing with Master Relict and the others on the bridge. She feared what was coming, but even more she feared that those she cared for would face it without her help.

“Heaven alone can answer that. Perhaps you should ask those priests.”

Salick snorted. The priests had been silent participants in the preparations, carrying water and food to the workers. Now they chanted their ancient songs of hope and victory.

“I’m going to talk to the Hallmaster,” Salick said.

Vinir sighed louder and longer than before and stood to follow.

“Because the first three times he said no might have been a mistake,” she muttered.

“Now?” asked Dorict. They had reached the last trees of the orchard. He had the smoke arrow in one hand and the bow in the other.

Marick struck steel to flint and the pitch rag caught.

There were rustles uncomfortably nearby.

Dorict shot the arrow straight up into the air.

“
THE SIGNAL!” TARIX
shouted. She turned to look at the Banes hiding behind the trap’s wall.

“Keep down, everyone. We don’t want to attract the demons over here by giving them another target. Don’t use the pikes unless one of them tries to come over, and keep your weapons near in case one makes it.”

She crouched down, just behind the last, tumbled section of the barrier. Ratal and Kesla were beside her. Fifty more Reds, Golds, and Greens waited nervously beyond them.

There was a tingling, then a sharp pain in the Red’s knee. She grimaced. Ever since that Basher ran her over, she felt a demon’s fear first in her old injury.

“
FIX YOUR MASKS
!” the woman with the pike called out. She tied hers on first then checked the King’s.

“Remember what I taught you,” she said, her voice hollowed by the stone mouth.

“I will, Teacher. But I have to say these masks feel very rough on the face,” the King replied. “Did you never think of padding them with silk?”

His teacher cursed.

“
CLAWS NO,” SAID
the Hallmaster. “This is the plan we agreed on. If they call for help, then we go. If they fall, then we are the last defense of the city. You will stay here.”

Salick ground her teeth. She had never agreed to this. After a deep breath, she spoke again. “Hallmaster, you know I am a loyal Bane, but Garet is out there, and we may never . . . I mean, there are things I have to say to him. I beg you, please let me join him on the bridge.”

Vinir stood back, arms folded, and watched the Hallmaster shake his head.

“I would rather be out there too, Salick, but a Bane serves more than a single man. She serves the whole city. Now tell me, are you a Bane?”

Vinir’s mouth dropped as Salick stripped off her sash and hung it on the bar of the Gate.

“Not today, Hallmaster. If we get through this, you can ask me again tomorrow,” she said, and slipped out through the crack.

Vinir grabbed the gold cloth from where it hung and followed, pausing only to say to the Hallmaster, “Don’t worry, I’ll get her back, though it may take a while!”

Branet growled and pushed the door nearly shut. Few could have slipped out, but two small ones did as he turned to scowl at any other Banes who might have wanted to defy orders.

“
WE’LL GET IN
trouble,” Corfin said. He clutched his shortened trident nervously.

Allifur hit him with the flat side of her shield. “We can help,” she whispered, and dragged him over to the base of a hastily erected archer’s tower.

They crawled underneath the beams and watched some of the defenders put on their silkstone masks while others looked to where the signal arrow had appeared, tracing a line of smoke against the blue sky.

“Dangerous,” Corfin said, and the two smiled at each other.

TRAX FELT SOMETHING
brush by him and barely kept himself from turning his masked face to look. He would have to be careful about that. He watched Salick run through the line and out to where Garet stood in the middle of the trap, looking beyond the fields.

“Pardon her, Your Majesty,” Vinir said, stopping beside the King.

“Does she bear a message from Branet?” Trax asked. His neck was getting stiff, but he didn’t dare turn to speak to the Bane. Every man or woman wearing a mask looked straight ahead.

Vinir coughed. “Well,” the Gold said, “she does bear a message.”

Garet heard running steps behind him and turned to see Salick crossing the bridge and sprinting out into the jaws of the trap. He felt joy, then fear at her being in such a dangerous place, then confusion. Something was different about her, but it wasn’t until she came to a stop by his side that he realized what had changed.