The Introduction
This is the story of Demonsbane, the Half-Breed who eradicated all the
demons in the Nine Kingdoms. Half human, half demon, he was the last of
his kind in the days of King Zan III. After the Turning, when the demons
were thought to be permanently defeated, Half-breeds no longer bothered to
marry their own kind to keep the demon blood strong in case the demons
returned. They allowed their demon blood to dilute over the course of
thousands of years, leaving all the kingdoms defenseless when the demons
returned.
Luckily for us, Demonsbane has a few drops of demon blood in his veins.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is the story, nay, the history, of
Demonsbane.
The Beginning Kaz Seenkle, third son of the Duke of Cin Rianto, Tren Seenkle, was at the tender age of six when his happy world was turned upside down. The day had been sunny and warm, the breeze cool, and the sky sparkling. Kaz with his wavy black hair and his curly haired older brother Niz had been in the stable most of the day, trying to help the grooms. Cienbex, the oldest at ten, had been practicing to fight, while Riana, the only sister and her young features promised to mature into beauty, had read in the library all day, asking servants to get books down from the highest shelves. Bald, two-year old Lan had tottered around the second floor gurgling happily. Their parents, Tren and Aliyaa, had only smiled when the nurses, maids, and grooms had run to them to complain or exclaim that the children would ruin the manor. Bedtime came swiftly, and Tren and Aliyaa went from room to room to say goodnight to their children before retiring to their own chambers. The house fell asleep with them. It was after Moonset when the demons came. Demons in their own form resemble human shaped shadows with red flames where their eyes should be. Cin Rianto's grounds are covered with trees and statues that easily hid the six demons' wispy shapes. They flowed through cracks in walls and windows then moved silently through the paneled corridors, up the staircases, and into the family wing. That's when the bloodbath began. The murderers started with young Lan. They sucked out his soul and ripped his body apart while he was asleep. One of them took the young one's form. They did the same to Riana, Niz, Cienbex, Tren and Aliyaa. Kaz was left alive for the simple reason that demons hunt in packs of six, no more, no less. They looked in his room to make sure he was sleeping before they turned back to the rest of the corridor to clean up the blood. They had taken the places of Kaz's family by dawn. Kaz woke early, as children so often do, splashed water on his olive-toned face from the basin, used the chamber pot, and dressed hurriedly. He was going to ride his pony to the lake. He was about to creep out of his room when he noticed the smell in his doorway. To him it reeked of acrid smoke and poisoned blood. He stifled a sneeze and scampered out of his room to his parents chamber. He froze at the door. The smell was much stronger here, and something in his mind was telling him to leave now, before. something. Kaz cracked the door open to peer inside. He saw his parents in bed like they usually were. except. they didn't look like his parents. He blinked and the thing in his mind that had told him to leave was louder and demanding that he leave before the things in the bed got him. Kaz was about to obey the thing in his head and leave, when his father sat up straight and said, "What are you doing there?" Kaz trembled, his father never woke by himself, Mother always had to wake him up. And he never sounded like that. His voice was always smooth and booming, not quiet and hissing. A small light burned in black eyes that weren't his father's. Papa's eyes are blue. The thought flickered across his mind as fear seized the skinny boy and he stammered, "N-n-nothing. Just looking for-r-r Hilda." The thing that wasn't his father nodded and lay down again, and Kaz carefully shut the door and crept to Lan's room. The smell was strong there too, and he cracked the door open. Lan was standing silently in his crib and stared back at Kaz with burning black eyes. Not Lan. Kaz shut the door again and skulked to the other doors. The smell was outside them all but Kaz didn't open any more doors. He ran to the stables, avoiding any corridors that had the smell around them. He struggled to tack his pony, using a block to stand on. Kaz finally finished and rode out towards the woods. As soon as he got there he galloped and struggled to stay on his pony. He didn't know what had happened, but somehow he knew he was all alone, and he couldn't stay or else he would go where his family went, and the thing in his head told him that would be a very bad place to be.
Lost, Found, Lost Kaz arrived in the city of Miana two moondarks after his family was murdered. Miana is the greatest city in the wondrous country of Ronen'l, which shares a border with Kaz's former country of Jik'lan. This city is where Kaz met the Master Thief of the Thief and Assassin Guild, Logul Firenze, a Duke who took Kaz on as an apprentice when he found Kaz on the steps to the Guild Hall. Kaz proceeded to grow up in the city of Miana under his Master's tutelage, and as the years went by he read all of the books he could find for some mention of the Bad Things. In his fifteenth year, he finally found a reference to them, and discovered that they were known as Demons. For the next two years he worked diligently at his warrior and thief studies, while continuing to ferret out information about the Demons. In his sixteenth year, he began to see them in Miana. Slowly at first, but as their numbers gradually began to increase he finally told Logul about them. From that point forward, Kaz and his teacher searched for manuscripts that spoke of how one killed a demon. He found one.
Bursting into Logul's office, Kaz waved one hand in the air and held onto a thin leather-bound volume that reeked with age with the other. "I found it!" Logul looked up from his desk and nodded. "Let's see it then," he said in his melodious baritone voice. After clearing a space on his desk, Kaz carefully placed the fragile book down. He slowly opened the cover, and turned yellow and ragged pages until he found the passage he was looking for. "You have to cut off their heads. It says you have to use a blade of onyx or ruby or obsidian, and." "I can read, Kaz." Kaz stopped and restrained himself from continuing to prattle. He didn't fidget, a thief's training made sure of it. Fidgeting on a job could get you killed. Logul's shaggy blonde head was bent over the text as Kaz stood and focused on a point on the wall, willing his teacher to read faster. Logul finally sat back and tapped a quill on the desk. Kaz turned his gaze back to his teacher. "Well," Logul stopped short for a moment. Kaz's green eyes- very rare- always caused the feeling that Kaz was looking through a person. As if he saw something that normal people didn't. Which he does. He must have Half-Breed blood in him. Otherwise he wouldn't know about demons, and neither would I. "Well," he started again, bringing his mind back to the topic under discussion, "you did a good job. Where'd you get the book?" "Stole it from the Count of Rioli. Rumor has it that he's suddenly begun to collect ancient histories." "Demon?" A nod. "Did he have more books like this one?" Kaz shook his head. "No. As near as I can tell, he burned the other books that he's collected. This was the only one I could find. It was still wrapped when I nicked it." Logul nodded and tapped the quill on the desk again. "Hm. I'll have Niklas tell one of his birds to watch Rioli's house. Were there any other demons in the house?" "Butler, wife, child, housekeeper, and one of the maids. I didn't see any others." Logul nodded and continued to tap the desk with the quill. Kaz waited anxiously to see what Logul would say, although none of his feelings showed in his features. His teacher had told him multiple times that one had to know one's enemy before anything could be done about them. The better prepared you were, the higher the chance of your survival. Kaz, however, remembered his family and wanted justice and revenge. "We'll start training tomorrow morning. I'll have Deirdre inform her colleagues of the danger. The assassins should begin their own training and strategy by Sunhigh tomorrow." The quill stopped tapping and began to write as Logul pulled a piece of parchment to him. "You'll take this to Deirdre and explain anything she wants to know. Answer all of her questions." Kaz nodded, but he wanted to shout. Something was finally being done about the demon threat. It would still take time to plan, organize, and train the "army" that would attempt to eradicate the demons from their world. Kaz would have his justice. It was only a matter of time now.
Deirdre reminded Kaz of his mother; physically at least. She had the same shade of red hair, the same blue eyes, the fair skin, and the same grace to her movements. However, his mother hadn't been a trained assassin. Deirdre was the Chief Assassin in the Guild, which put her on equal standing with Kaz's master, Logul. Her official office was in the other side of the building on the fifth floor while Logul's was on the second. Not for the first time Kaz wished that the old stone building didn't have quite as many hallways, staircases, booby traps, and secret passages. It was almost impossible to get anywhere quickly in the building without injury. Kaz went through the maze of corridors as quickly as he could until he finally reached Deirdre's office. He knocked on the door, when no one answered he knocked again. Still no answer. He sniffed absentmindedly and looked around while he tried the door handle cautiously. It was locked. He sighed, she wasn't there. Wonderful. Where in the name of Dias is she? But Logul did tell me to deliver it to her office. He removed his set of picks from his pocket and began work on the door. He was careful to avoid the small pins inside covered with poison and had the door unlocked in under half a candlemark. His nose twitched when he began to open the door and he froze. A hint of acrid smoke and poisoned blood had settled in his nose. A flood of memories bombarded Kaz, until his training took over and he walled them away in a back corner of his mind once again. Panic was his first reaction, but he forced himself to calm down and think. This corridor was deserted except for Deirdre's office and the rest of the floor was storage for weapons and books for schooling. The nearest exit led upstairs to the living quarters. He would have to dodge two traps and use three passages to get downstairs and talk to Logul. That alone would take a quarter of a candlemark. He sniffed again, trying to pinpoint the demon's location. The smell was dispersing through the corridor, which made his task more difficult. Against all common sense, he opened the door a little wider- more demon-stench drifted out. That's not strong enough for there to have been a killing. So.why is a demon here? He peeked into the room- nothing moved. He slipped a knife out of its sheath with the tensing of an arm muscle and slipped into the room, just inside the door. He pressed the third stone in and tenth stone up- light flared into life. The room was bathed in pure white light- it was empty of everything except for the items that were always in Deirdre's office- desk, wardrobe, weapons rack, three wood chairs, an old rug, and a full bookcase. The demon isn't here now, but it's been here. Another sniff. For.half a moondark? Maybe a whole one. Why didn't I smell it before? He kept his knife out as he prowled around the room. He opened the wardrobe; it contained two sets of practice clothes, one set of everyday wear, a new pair of boots, and an old cloak of foreign design. The cloak had the reek of demon on it, but everything else smelled as it should. He continued to the bookcase and scanned it quickly- the books appeared to have been left alone for weeks. Dust was gathered on the top of each book. The bookcase smelled like Deirdre; he frowned and moved on. He bypassed the weapons rack and the chairs in front of the desk and inspected the one behind it. It smelled of demon also, but not as strongly as the cloak. It appeared trap-free so he moved it over and crouched in front of the desk. He opened the drawers carefully- you never knew what tricks Deirdre would put into her possessions- but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Fresh parchment, ink, quills, the new gadgets known as "pens", soft-leaded sticks called pencils, reports, and files. He closed them all before he pressed the hidden mechanism under the bottom left drawer near the desk leg. A drawer in the center back slid down and he removed it slowly. Knives and daggers with onyx and ruby blades mocked him in the drawer, as well as darts and other small weapons of obsidian. There was a list of people in the Guild near the bottom, and other papers written in a language that Kaz didn't know. He made his decision promptly and slipped the weapons into his clothes and rolled the papers before placing them in his boot. He replaced the drawer and inspected the weapons rack more closely. There were swords and dirks made of the stones that Kaz knew killed demons. He took them and strapped them on quickly before he erased all traces of his presence and turned off the light. The door snicked as it locked behind him. Kaz made sure he wasn't seen as he left the Guild building. His lived in the Guild Building as did almost all its members and trainees, but he had found a spot, years before, that had been deserted. After a candlemark of traversing back alleys and little used streets, he arrived at he ruined old building and snuck in one of the broken windows. The building would have been burned years before, but it was fashioned of stone. Kaz made his way upstairs and hid the swords, dirks, daggers, and all but two of the knives in different rooms under or behind loose stones. He removed two of his knives and replaced them with the demon killers. This done, he returned to the Guild in under half a candlemark using the main roads. He knocked on Logul's door and opened it when he heard "Enter," making an extra sniff as he entered. So far, so well. The cliché flashed through his mind as he sat in the chair closest to the door after he tossed the note Logul had written on the desk with a flick of his wrist. Logul raised his eyebrows- the only sign of surprise he ever showed. It was also a silent inquiry in this instance. Kaz tapped the side of his nose with one finger then made the thieves hand-sign for "small". Logul's eyebrow's rose higher. "Deirdre?" His voice was incredulous and he wasn't tapping a quill- bad signs. They meant Kaz's teacher wasn't in complete control. Kaz bobbed his head slowly and closed his eyes briefly. This would be more complicated than he had thought. Logul was shaking his head vaguely, causing his blonde hair to fan out from his head slightly. "I would know if-," Kaz shook his head, interrupting his teacher. "I know. A demon's been occupying her office for at least half a moondark. Maybe longer." He stared at a spot on the wall for a moment and stopped Logul from speaking by completely ignoring his presence. "I don't think she's dead though. The smell would have been stronger." his voice trailed off. Kaz had been contemplating the mystery of Deirdre's office for the duration of his journey to the ruins and back. He removed one of the knives from his sleeves and held it up so that Logul could see the blade clearly. In a quiet voice he said, "I found this in her office. Swords too." Silence reigned in the room as Logul struggled to comprehend his apprentice's news. "I think they took her. As the Chief Assassin she decides what jobs the assassins accept which must be why they decided to take her so quickly. And they would have to keep her alive if you think about it- how else would they know how to navigate this building or the special talents of her underlings." Logul just stared at him. Kaz sighed inwardly and rose to his feet before placing the ruby-bladed knife on his desk. "Use one of Niklas's birds to summon me when you're ready." Right before Kaz crossed the threshold Logul managed to call out, "Ready for what?" Kaz tossed his reply back before the door closed. "The war."
On we go And so my friends, began the second war of humans versus demons. Kaz Seenkle- with the aid of the Duke Logul Firenze and the Guild of Thieves and Assassins- began the war against the demons, and soon led the entire army that the humans could make up. He- and he alone- saved us humans from certain extinction. He found Deirdre, safe and sound, in one of the demons lairs about eight moondarks later. I've heard tell that she and Logul were married on the field of the final battle of the war. I've been told that they had twins- a boy and a girl. They named them Cienbex and Riana after Kaz's siblings. They would have named the boy "Kaz" if Demonsbane had let them, but he said it would be too confusing. Kaz is not yet married. He is still traveling the kingdoms, hunting for demons with a small band of humans. Demonsbane still rides to protect us, and he's allowed his tale to be told so that we all stay on guard against any lingering demons. Rumor has it that Kaz Seenkle, Demonsbane, the Guardian of the Kingdoms, and the Duke of Cin Rianto, will be looking for a wife once he's returned. Stay sharp ladies, he likes his women knowledgeable about what's going on in this lovely world of ours.
The Beginning Kaz Seenkle, third son of the Duke of Cin Rianto, Tren Seenkle, was at the tender age of six when his happy world was turned upside down. The day had been sunny and warm, the breeze cool, and the sky sparkling. Kaz with his wavy black hair and his curly haired older brother Niz had been in the stable most of the day, trying to help the grooms. Cienbex, the oldest at ten, had been practicing to fight, while Riana, the only sister and her young features promised to mature into beauty, had read in the library all day, asking servants to get books down from the highest shelves. Bald, two-year old Lan had tottered around the second floor gurgling happily. Their parents, Tren and Aliyaa, had only smiled when the nurses, maids, and grooms had run to them to complain or exclaim that the children would ruin the manor. Bedtime came swiftly, and Tren and Aliyaa went from room to room to say goodnight to their children before retiring to their own chambers. The house fell asleep with them. It was after Moonset when the demons came. Demons in their own form resemble human shaped shadows with red flames where their eyes should be. Cin Rianto's grounds are covered with trees and statues that easily hid the six demons' wispy shapes. They flowed through cracks in walls and windows then moved silently through the paneled corridors, up the staircases, and into the family wing. That's when the bloodbath began. The murderers started with young Lan. They sucked out his soul and ripped his body apart while he was asleep. One of them took the young one's form. They did the same to Riana, Niz, Cienbex, Tren and Aliyaa. Kaz was left alive for the simple reason that demons hunt in packs of six, no more, no less. They looked in his room to make sure he was sleeping before they turned back to the rest of the corridor to clean up the blood. They had taken the places of Kaz's family by dawn. Kaz woke early, as children so often do, splashed water on his olive-toned face from the basin, used the chamber pot, and dressed hurriedly. He was going to ride his pony to the lake. He was about to creep out of his room when he noticed the smell in his doorway. To him it reeked of acrid smoke and poisoned blood. He stifled a sneeze and scampered out of his room to his parents chamber. He froze at the door. The smell was much stronger here, and something in his mind was telling him to leave now, before. something. Kaz cracked the door open to peer inside. He saw his parents in bed like they usually were. except. they didn't look like his parents. He blinked and the thing in his mind that had told him to leave was louder and demanding that he leave before the things in the bed got him. Kaz was about to obey the thing in his head and leave, when his father sat up straight and said, "What are you doing there?" Kaz trembled, his father never woke by himself, Mother always had to wake him up. And he never sounded like that. His voice was always smooth and booming, not quiet and hissing. A small light burned in black eyes that weren't his father's. Papa's eyes are blue. The thought flickered across his mind as fear seized the skinny boy and he stammered, "N-n-nothing. Just looking for-r-r Hilda." The thing that wasn't his father nodded and lay down again, and Kaz carefully shut the door and crept to Lan's room. The smell was strong there too, and he cracked the door open. Lan was standing silently in his crib and stared back at Kaz with burning black eyes. Not Lan. Kaz shut the door again and skulked to the other doors. The smell was outside them all but Kaz didn't open any more doors. He ran to the stables, avoiding any corridors that had the smell around them. He struggled to tack his pony, using a block to stand on. Kaz finally finished and rode out towards the woods. As soon as he got there he galloped and struggled to stay on his pony. He didn't know what had happened, but somehow he knew he was all alone, and he couldn't stay or else he would go where his family went, and the thing in his head told him that would be a very bad place to be.
Lost, Found, Lost Kaz arrived in the city of Miana two moondarks after his family was murdered. Miana is the greatest city in the wondrous country of Ronen'l, which shares a border with Kaz's former country of Jik'lan. This city is where Kaz met the Master Thief of the Thief and Assassin Guild, Logul Firenze, a Duke who took Kaz on as an apprentice when he found Kaz on the steps to the Guild Hall. Kaz proceeded to grow up in the city of Miana under his Master's tutelage, and as the years went by he read all of the books he could find for some mention of the Bad Things. In his fifteenth year, he finally found a reference to them, and discovered that they were known as Demons. For the next two years he worked diligently at his warrior and thief studies, while continuing to ferret out information about the Demons. In his sixteenth year, he began to see them in Miana. Slowly at first, but as their numbers gradually began to increase he finally told Logul about them. From that point forward, Kaz and his teacher searched for manuscripts that spoke of how one killed a demon. He found one.
Bursting into Logul's office, Kaz waved one hand in the air and held onto a thin leather-bound volume that reeked with age with the other. "I found it!" Logul looked up from his desk and nodded. "Let's see it then," he said in his melodious baritone voice. After clearing a space on his desk, Kaz carefully placed the fragile book down. He slowly opened the cover, and turned yellow and ragged pages until he found the passage he was looking for. "You have to cut off their heads. It says you have to use a blade of onyx or ruby or obsidian, and." "I can read, Kaz." Kaz stopped and restrained himself from continuing to prattle. He didn't fidget, a thief's training made sure of it. Fidgeting on a job could get you killed. Logul's shaggy blonde head was bent over the text as Kaz stood and focused on a point on the wall, willing his teacher to read faster. Logul finally sat back and tapped a quill on the desk. Kaz turned his gaze back to his teacher. "Well," Logul stopped short for a moment. Kaz's green eyes- very rare- always caused the feeling that Kaz was looking through a person. As if he saw something that normal people didn't. Which he does. He must have Half-Breed blood in him. Otherwise he wouldn't know about demons, and neither would I. "Well," he started again, bringing his mind back to the topic under discussion, "you did a good job. Where'd you get the book?" "Stole it from the Count of Rioli. Rumor has it that he's suddenly begun to collect ancient histories." "Demon?" A nod. "Did he have more books like this one?" Kaz shook his head. "No. As near as I can tell, he burned the other books that he's collected. This was the only one I could find. It was still wrapped when I nicked it." Logul nodded and tapped the quill on the desk again. "Hm. I'll have Niklas tell one of his birds to watch Rioli's house. Were there any other demons in the house?" "Butler, wife, child, housekeeper, and one of the maids. I didn't see any others." Logul nodded and continued to tap the desk with the quill. Kaz waited anxiously to see what Logul would say, although none of his feelings showed in his features. His teacher had told him multiple times that one had to know one's enemy before anything could be done about them. The better prepared you were, the higher the chance of your survival. Kaz, however, remembered his family and wanted justice and revenge. "We'll start training tomorrow morning. I'll have Deirdre inform her colleagues of the danger. The assassins should begin their own training and strategy by Sunhigh tomorrow." The quill stopped tapping and began to write as Logul pulled a piece of parchment to him. "You'll take this to Deirdre and explain anything she wants to know. Answer all of her questions." Kaz nodded, but he wanted to shout. Something was finally being done about the demon threat. It would still take time to plan, organize, and train the "army" that would attempt to eradicate the demons from their world. Kaz would have his justice. It was only a matter of time now.
Deirdre reminded Kaz of his mother; physically at least. She had the same shade of red hair, the same blue eyes, the fair skin, and the same grace to her movements. However, his mother hadn't been a trained assassin. Deirdre was the Chief Assassin in the Guild, which put her on equal standing with Kaz's master, Logul. Her official office was in the other side of the building on the fifth floor while Logul's was on the second. Not for the first time Kaz wished that the old stone building didn't have quite as many hallways, staircases, booby traps, and secret passages. It was almost impossible to get anywhere quickly in the building without injury. Kaz went through the maze of corridors as quickly as he could until he finally reached Deirdre's office. He knocked on the door, when no one answered he knocked again. Still no answer. He sniffed absentmindedly and looked around while he tried the door handle cautiously. It was locked. He sighed, she wasn't there. Wonderful. Where in the name of Dias is she? But Logul did tell me to deliver it to her office. He removed his set of picks from his pocket and began work on the door. He was careful to avoid the small pins inside covered with poison and had the door unlocked in under half a candlemark. His nose twitched when he began to open the door and he froze. A hint of acrid smoke and poisoned blood had settled in his nose. A flood of memories bombarded Kaz, until his training took over and he walled them away in a back corner of his mind once again. Panic was his first reaction, but he forced himself to calm down and think. This corridor was deserted except for Deirdre's office and the rest of the floor was storage for weapons and books for schooling. The nearest exit led upstairs to the living quarters. He would have to dodge two traps and use three passages to get downstairs and talk to Logul. That alone would take a quarter of a candlemark. He sniffed again, trying to pinpoint the demon's location. The smell was dispersing through the corridor, which made his task more difficult. Against all common sense, he opened the door a little wider- more demon-stench drifted out. That's not strong enough for there to have been a killing. So.why is a demon here? He peeked into the room- nothing moved. He slipped a knife out of its sheath with the tensing of an arm muscle and slipped into the room, just inside the door. He pressed the third stone in and tenth stone up- light flared into life. The room was bathed in pure white light- it was empty of everything except for the items that were always in Deirdre's office- desk, wardrobe, weapons rack, three wood chairs, an old rug, and a full bookcase. The demon isn't here now, but it's been here. Another sniff. For.half a moondark? Maybe a whole one. Why didn't I smell it before? He kept his knife out as he prowled around the room. He opened the wardrobe; it contained two sets of practice clothes, one set of everyday wear, a new pair of boots, and an old cloak of foreign design. The cloak had the reek of demon on it, but everything else smelled as it should. He continued to the bookcase and scanned it quickly- the books appeared to have been left alone for weeks. Dust was gathered on the top of each book. The bookcase smelled like Deirdre; he frowned and moved on. He bypassed the weapons rack and the chairs in front of the desk and inspected the one behind it. It smelled of demon also, but not as strongly as the cloak. It appeared trap-free so he moved it over and crouched in front of the desk. He opened the drawers carefully- you never knew what tricks Deirdre would put into her possessions- but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Fresh parchment, ink, quills, the new gadgets known as "pens", soft-leaded sticks called pencils, reports, and files. He closed them all before he pressed the hidden mechanism under the bottom left drawer near the desk leg. A drawer in the center back slid down and he removed it slowly. Knives and daggers with onyx and ruby blades mocked him in the drawer, as well as darts and other small weapons of obsidian. There was a list of people in the Guild near the bottom, and other papers written in a language that Kaz didn't know. He made his decision promptly and slipped the weapons into his clothes and rolled the papers before placing them in his boot. He replaced the drawer and inspected the weapons rack more closely. There were swords and dirks made of the stones that Kaz knew killed demons. He took them and strapped them on quickly before he erased all traces of his presence and turned off the light. The door snicked as it locked behind him. Kaz made sure he wasn't seen as he left the Guild building. His lived in the Guild Building as did almost all its members and trainees, but he had found a spot, years before, that had been deserted. After a candlemark of traversing back alleys and little used streets, he arrived at he ruined old building and snuck in one of the broken windows. The building would have been burned years before, but it was fashioned of stone. Kaz made his way upstairs and hid the swords, dirks, daggers, and all but two of the knives in different rooms under or behind loose stones. He removed two of his knives and replaced them with the demon killers. This done, he returned to the Guild in under half a candlemark using the main roads. He knocked on Logul's door and opened it when he heard "Enter," making an extra sniff as he entered. So far, so well. The cliché flashed through his mind as he sat in the chair closest to the door after he tossed the note Logul had written on the desk with a flick of his wrist. Logul raised his eyebrows- the only sign of surprise he ever showed. It was also a silent inquiry in this instance. Kaz tapped the side of his nose with one finger then made the thieves hand-sign for "small". Logul's eyebrow's rose higher. "Deirdre?" His voice was incredulous and he wasn't tapping a quill- bad signs. They meant Kaz's teacher wasn't in complete control. Kaz bobbed his head slowly and closed his eyes briefly. This would be more complicated than he had thought. Logul was shaking his head vaguely, causing his blonde hair to fan out from his head slightly. "I would know if-," Kaz shook his head, interrupting his teacher. "I know. A demon's been occupying her office for at least half a moondark. Maybe longer." He stared at a spot on the wall for a moment and stopped Logul from speaking by completely ignoring his presence. "I don't think she's dead though. The smell would have been stronger." his voice trailed off. Kaz had been contemplating the mystery of Deirdre's office for the duration of his journey to the ruins and back. He removed one of the knives from his sleeves and held it up so that Logul could see the blade clearly. In a quiet voice he said, "I found this in her office. Swords too." Silence reigned in the room as Logul struggled to comprehend his apprentice's news. "I think they took her. As the Chief Assassin she decides what jobs the assassins accept which must be why they decided to take her so quickly. And they would have to keep her alive if you think about it- how else would they know how to navigate this building or the special talents of her underlings." Logul just stared at him. Kaz sighed inwardly and rose to his feet before placing the ruby-bladed knife on his desk. "Use one of Niklas's birds to summon me when you're ready." Right before Kaz crossed the threshold Logul managed to call out, "Ready for what?" Kaz tossed his reply back before the door closed. "The war."
On we go And so my friends, began the second war of humans versus demons. Kaz Seenkle- with the aid of the Duke Logul Firenze and the Guild of Thieves and Assassins- began the war against the demons, and soon led the entire army that the humans could make up. He- and he alone- saved us humans from certain extinction. He found Deirdre, safe and sound, in one of the demons lairs about eight moondarks later. I've heard tell that she and Logul were married on the field of the final battle of the war. I've been told that they had twins- a boy and a girl. They named them Cienbex and Riana after Kaz's siblings. They would have named the boy "Kaz" if Demonsbane had let them, but he said it would be too confusing. Kaz is not yet married. He is still traveling the kingdoms, hunting for demons with a small band of humans. Demonsbane still rides to protect us, and he's allowed his tale to be told so that we all stay on guard against any lingering demons. Rumor has it that Kaz Seenkle, Demonsbane, the Guardian of the Kingdoms, and the Duke of Cin Rianto, will be looking for a wife once he's returned. Stay sharp ladies, he likes his women knowledgeable about what's going on in this lovely world of ours.