City of Demons by Kevin Harkness Read Free Book Online

the hatchet from Garet’s hand. For once the cheerful apprentice looked serious. Dorict plucked a wide-bladed knife from a saddlebag. All three Banes scrambled after Mandarack, leaving Garet to follow empty-handed. At the top of the cut, he pried a fist-sized rock out of the dirt and ran after the Banes before the deepening night could hide them from his sight.
    They ran, making surprising speed for such a disparate group. Garet’s sore muscles warmed and loosened as he followed. Clouds danced across the moon’s face. In moonlight and shadow they sped along the top of the river cliff until they arrived at the source of smoke. It was a homestead much like the farm he had seen across the river: a sod cabin with a thatched roof, a mud and stick chimney, a beehive shaped bread oven near the door, and a corral beside the house. But this chimney still produced its thread of smoke, and the corral was not empty, though it contained nothing alive. As Garet took in the clawed and chewed remains of four cows and their calves lying in pools of their own blood, the fear that had been growing as they neared the farm threatened to come pouring out of his stomach and onto the ground at his feet. Salick noted his distress, and although she was green-faced herself, sternly signalled him to cover his mouth to keep from vomiting.
    Mandarack held out his right arm, the left hanging limply at his side. Salick opened the case she carried and brought out a length of metal, bright in the moonlight. Oval at one end and sharply pointed at the other, it looked like a narrow shield. Mandarack slipped his arm through a loop at the blunt end and gripped a smaller loop nearer the point. His forearm was now covered in gleaming steel from his elbow to a foot below his knuckles.
    Salick put out her hands to Dorict. The boy thrust the knife into his belt and nervously untied the bag at the end of the pole he carried. He handed her a queer, three-pronged spear. With a thrill of recognition, Garet thought, I’ve heard of this in the songs of the Sea Lords. A trident! The shaft with its barbed tines was taller than Salick as she held it nervously before her. Garet glanced at Dorict and Marick. Each bore a weapon now, Dorict a knife and Marick the hatchet. Garet hefted the stone he had dug from the dirt; it had a comforting weight. He looked up to see Mandarack staring at the rock in his hand. After a slight hesitation, the old man nodded, but then waved the three boys back with his shielded arm. The moon peeped through a rift in the bank of clouds. There was no sound; even the crickets had left off their chirping. The world seemed to be holding its breath as the Master and his apprentice approached the closed door. At a nod from Mandarack, Salick poked it open with the prongs of the trident.
    The night exploded.
    Salick and Mandarack jumped back as the door slammed closed. The frame did not stop it, and the planks continued to bow outwards from some hideous pressure within. Now the frame itself broke and brought the sod wall with it. Beams cracked, and the turf roof fell in. Something immense pushed its way through the debris and out of the ruined farmhouse.
    The demon was huge. It towered above the five humans ranged against it. Garet could easily have walked under it without brushing the distended belly with his head. Its breath reeked of fresh blood, and drops of it slid off the hooked claws at the end of each spindly leg. The demon’s head was small in proportion to the mass of its chest and stomach but it was still eerily familiar to Garet. The black eyes were smaller and set under larger ridges, these rising up into wickedly sharp horns; the beak was shorter and stronger, and yet it was kin to what Garet had slain. Shaking itself free of the roof beams, it battered through the remains of the wall and attacked.
    Mandarack waved them all farther back and engaged the demon. Moving with a grace and economy of motion that would have been