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the attackers, four of them in all, kept their faces towards the demon.
    The spear-wielder attacked again, barely missing one of the beast’s small, black eyes. By form and size, she was a woman, while the others seemed to be men. One of them, a giant of a man, chopped down with an axe as the demon reached for the spear-woman. There was a cracking sound and a spray of blood. The fourth drew his bow and put an arrow in the creature’s back, then another in its good leg. Now they all came at it, shooting, chopping, and thrusting until the demon collapsed under their assault and howled out its pain on the stone-paved ground. The braying call was cut short by a spear that pierced its throat and an axe that split open the massive skull right between the horned ridges.
    The attackers backed away. The axe man reached behind him without turning his head and took a small object from the woman. One-handed, he chopped at the massive head again, and again. Leaning his axe against the carcass, he reached into the hole he had made. The watching girl was suddenly sick, her stomach’s contents spilling out on the ground beside her head. Before she had stopped retching, she felt a blessed relief from the fear, as if the demon’s power had been shut behind a door.
    The girl stood unsteadily, wiping her mouth and grabbing onto the open gate for support.
    ‘Thank you, thank you,” she said and reached out a hand to the four in black. At last they turned their backs on the demon to face her, and the girl dropped her hand.
    “Your faces!” she said. “You’re not Banes! What are you?”
    The woman shifted her bloody spear and raised a finger to stone lips. She nodded at the others and slipped away. Within ten heartbeats, all passed into the shadows of the stockyards and disappeared.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 6 Rumour and Research
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “ BETTER YOU THAN me,” Tarix said, and grunted as Garet pushed her leg farther into the stretch. He had been telling her about the fight with the Snake Demon and the trouble he had cleaning up afterwards. He had not expected much sympathy, considering the injuries Tarix had suffered at the claws of demons.
    The Red was on her back in the small training room, the same room where Garet had first met her. Back then, Tarix had been limited to a rolling chair, or on good days, crutches, due to a crooked leg broken by a Basher Demon and badly set. A new Banehall physician, Banerict, and the Mechanical Dasanat had worked together to reset the leg and brace it with an intricate iron support.
    This stretching was part of Tarix’s daily routine, suggested by Banerict to keep the leg flexible so that she might return to her full duties as a Bane.
    “A bit more,” she grunted, and Garet added another inch of pain.
    When she was done, it was Garet’s turn, for Tarix found the leg-stretching invigorating and wished her apprentice to enjoy it as well.
    “Not so far!” Garet said. “I’m not jointed that way.”
    Tarix relented, a bit.
    “Stink or not, it was good work with that Snake Demon last night,” she said, and switched to the other leg. “Salar was singing your praises to his Master this morning. He claimed you tried to strangle it with your bare hands before Salick pinned it. I wanted to ask you about that odd strategy, but you weren’t at breakfast. Too much wine at the Palace again?”
    “No, too much food, but that wasn’t the problem this morning. Partly it was because I was getting another new uniform,” Garet said through gritted teeth. “And Marick told me that the odor kept him awake all night and would put a pig off its feed, so I stayed upstairs and scrubbed some more.”
    Tarix laughed and extended a hand. After more stretching of back and arm muscles, they moved to sparring with staff and stick. Tarix claimed it sped up his reflexes, and she never hit him hard. Well, not very hard.
    “Just as a matter of interest—” smack “—did you