Free City of Masks by Kevin Harkness

and using his hand to strike the back of hers. She actually smiled at him.
    “Now Garet will demonstrate these others,” Forlinect said, and stepped away to give the Green room.
    “Oh, of course,” Garet said, though his thoughts were less enthusiastic. Tarix had made him practice with every weapon the Banes used, but he was no expert with them. He had even questioned the necessity of practicing with weapons he never intended to use.
    Tarix had been firm.
    “Sometimes in a big fight, Banes get knocked down, they lose their weapons, and must grab what they can. If you lose that rope hammer of yours—say a Horned Demon goes running off with it wrapped around its neck—and you find a dropped axe, what will you do?” she had asked him.
    Since then he had spent part of every training session using the unfamiliar weapons. The only one he liked working with was the sharpened shield, since it had been Master Mandarack’s weapon of choice.
    Garet picked up the axe and began to strike out at an imaginary creature. He let the memory of Tarix’s voice guide him.
    “Let the weight of the head do the work. You’re just the pivot point. Start at your feet, good stance, and twist the hips with the swing.”
    He stopped as soon as he could and picked up the club, showing the strikes and thrusts, and finishing with a daring jump and twist that he barely pulled off.
    The hammer was a much larger version of the one on the end of his own weapon, and he acquitted himself better with that than with the first two.
    The shield was last. He put his arm through the double straps and gripped the metal handle bolted on the inner side. An oval of steel, sharpened along the sides and drawing to a point, covered his arm from elbow to a foot below his knuckles. Taking a guarding stance he had learned from Tarix, he swept and thrust the shield with some confidence, earning almost as much applause as Forlinect had received.
    Corfin had his hand up as soon as the noise died down.
    “Why don’t you, I mean we, use a sword, like the ones the guards have?”
    Garet smiled. “Because an axe blade or a spear point gets through a demon’s hide much more easily. Their skin is very thick, and a sword might just bounce off.”
    Forlinect spoke up. “I went to Solantor once with the traders. Lots of Banes there use a type of sword, well, more like a long meat cleaver to chop with. The handle is very long too, so I suppose it is more like an axe than a sword.”
    Allifur’s one hand was raised. A good sign, thought Garet.
    “Why don’t we use bows and arrows?” she whispered.
    Forlinect shook his head. “It takes a steady aim, Allifur, and if the fear is running over your arms, you’ll likely miss and hit another Bane, like Corfin almost did with his staff!”
    The others laughed, and Corfin joined them.
    Forlinect waited for them to stop before continuing.
    “When the demons first attacked the South, the soldiers with their swords and armor were killed right away, except for those who ran, of course. That left only the common people, ones like you and me. Remember that our first Hallmaster, Banfreat, was a baker! And he killed his first demon with his baker’s paddle, and that turned in to the long club you see on the wall there. The flat end is smaller now, and bound in iron, but it’s still Banfreat’s paddle, passed down to us like so many other common tools that became weapons. Can you think of any?”
    A boy put up his hand. “The hammer? My mom’s a blacksmith, and she uses one too.”
    His neighbour chimed in, “The tridents, aren’t they used for the fish ponds?”
    “Both right!” Forlinect said. “So you see, the weapons we used were the weapons we had then, and since they worked, we’ve kept them ever since, though different cities might use different weapons.”
    “Garet,” Corfin said, “what do they use in the Midlands Banehall?”
    Garet did not quite know how to answer.
    “Corfin, I left before there was a Banehall in