“Pray the Deeps you never need us.”
Gustav looked around at the team, his gaze taking in Marsh’s return. “Let’s head back. We can’t use this.”
He indicated where it ran back to the wall and presumably under it. “Not if there’s a community relying on it on the other side.”
Henri sighed. “So, we have to pray whatever defenses they cook up for the Surface hold?”
“Oui.”
“Great.”
Gustav didn’t grace that with a reply but led them back to the path. Before the pool was completely behind them, the voice spoke one more time. “They are taking your people to the Devassstation. If you are ssswift, you can ssstop them.”
The Protector captain had frozen at the sound of its sibilant tones, but now he scanned the cavern before him. “Marsh!”
“Oui, Captain.” Her tone made it clear she knew exactly what he wanted, and she jogged up the column to stand beside him, all too aware of leaving Aisha and Tamlin standing forlornly beside Roeglin.
It made her feel sad, but she had no answers, nothing she could do to make it different and nothing she could say to make it better. To give them credit, not a single one of them complained, not even in her head where only she would hear it. It was something she could be grateful for.
Gustav waited until she reached him and murmured softly, “Report straight into my head, please.”
“Oui.”
She followed his gaze out into the cavern, trying to discern what the voice had seen, but seeing nothing. She listened, but couldn’t hear anything, either. Closing her eyes, Marsh tweaked the shadows, seeking what they touched and looking for those connected to the raiders moving through the village they’d burned.
They’d tunneled through a half-mile distant, but some time ago. Marsh caught sight of them disappearing through the tunnel opening, a line of prisoners strung between them. At the same time, the shadows brought her the image of another waystation courtyard. Given the impression of open sky above it and that she didn’t recognize it, Marsh guessed it was the waystation in the main settlement.
Whatever it was, the people of Ariella’s Grotto were being led through the shadow gate that had been opened in the courtyard to emerge in the ruins they’d visited the day previously. Marsh’s head swam as it tried to reconcile the three images, but she kept them separate. Passing them to Gustav, she hugged her arms around her body and waited.
All she wanted to do was to make a dash for the tunnel entrance and stop the raiders from taking any more prisoners through it, although she was torn. She also wanted to take out the mages holding the door open in the burnt-out town and prevent them from bringing any more prisoners through.
While the townsfolk were being held in the Grotto proper, there was some hope of saving them. Once they’d been taken from the Four Caverns, that became much more difficult. “Relay this,” Gustav ordered, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Given the raiders were short on mind mages, they were going to strike the force going through the tunnel first. With any luck, it would take the ones in the ruins some time to work out anything was amiss, and more of the townsfolk would be brought through...where they could free them.
Marsh caught the thought that if they were very quick, they could travel to the waystation and free the rest of them, but it was shoved aside as an impossibility—and stupid to boot, given how many men they’d seen descending into Ariella’s.
Gustav thought it was much more likely the raiders would send soldiers through to retrieve the prisoners. “We stop the raiders leaving with the prisoners. We get as many out as we can. And we shut down the gate before they can send reinforcements.”
His voice was quiet and firm, his eyes hard as ice in a face as bleak as the winter slopes outside Kerrenin’s Ledge. “We get our people, and we leave none of theirs alive.”
“Oui,” came out as more a growl than an affirmation and Mordan snarled softly.
Gustav looked from one to the other of them. “You have your orders. Move out.”
He’d assigned Brigitte, Tamlin, and Aisha to work with Gerry and Zeb and tasked them with observing the raiders at the gate. “The second you think they know something’s gone wrong, take out the gate. I don’t care who’s coming through it or how many. Shut it down. We can rescue the ones in the cavern, but not if we’ve got half an army up our asses.”
“Rude,” Aisha whispered, and he blushed.
She giggled, and he glared at her. “Am I understood, Apprentice Danet?”
Aisha’s smile disappeared and she straightened, answering as soberly as any of the others. “Oui, Captain.”
15
Ambush Point
They reached the trail leading to the tunnel entrance and slowed.
“I don’t like this,” Roeglin murmured, and Henri agreed.
“There’s no other way to reach it.”
“It stinks of a trap,” Izmay agreed.
“I’ll go first,” Jakob told them, laying his palm on Gustav’s chest. “Trooper’s responsibility. You’re needed to think our asses out of any mess we get ourselves into.”
“Marsh?”
She scanned for lives, not surprised to sense twenty or thirty ahead of them. The signs coming from the shrooms around them, however, were a surprise. They’d gotten the ambush point wrong. It wasn’t ahead of them. They’d walked right into its center.
“Sons of the Deeps,” Gustav murmured, then shouted. “Go! Go! Go!”
Whatever the raiders were expecting, Marsh thought, it probably wasn’t this. The six of them split up and charged the shrooms at the edge of the trail, using the image Roeglin had transferred from her mind to guide them. Only Jakob and Henri bolted for the tunnel.
Being the only non-shadow mages among them, they couldn’t draw shields to catch the crossbow bolts fired at close range. While the men on either side of the path focused on the warriors charging directly at them, the two ex-caravan guards went to see what they could do about the prisoners.
“Don’t you leave us to do all your dirty work!” Henri shouted, but the battle was joined, and his words went unheeded.
Marsh didn’t think they’d have much of a choice. They were outnumbered four to one, and she wasn’t sure even Mordan could even up those odds.
Help is coming, Roeglin told her, and she wondered why she hadn’t heard Gustav blow the whistle. He hasn’t done that yet.
The raider rose in front of her and Marsh slammed a shield up between them in time to catch the crossbow bolts. She even managed to parry the strike from the raider on the other side of her, and then she was trying to deal with them both. The problem was, they weren’t using blades.
They’re going to try to capture us. Roeglin sounded like he didn’t quite believe it.
Marsh didn’t know whether to be relieved or mortified.
I guess they have to feed the shadow monsters something.
He gave a short bark of laughter, drawing a puzzled glance from the man in front of him but not stopping him from swinging the short length of metal in his hands.
“Yeah, laugh it up, sunshine. You won’t be laughing for long once she gets a hold of you.”
“You talkin’ about your mother again?” Roeglin sneered, lashing out with his sword.
It clashed off metal as his opponent blocked and then bounced his second short-staff off Roeglin’s shield. “You can’t hold these forever, shadow mage.”
He feinted, pretending a strike to the ribs and then directing the blow downward onto Roeglin’s thigh. Roegling grinned as he dodged backward...and stopped grinning as a third staff slammed into the back of his legs, taking his feet out from under him.
Marsh might have found it funny if she wasn’t having enough trouble of her own. Two raiders had turned into three, and then four. She’d backed up to a clump of calla shrooms but couldn’t be sure how long it would take for someone to work out they could fit a blade or staff between the trunks. Once they did that, she’d be
gone.
She could hear people fighting farther up the trail and guessed Henri and Jakob were in trouble. Dan.
She felt a faint affirmative down their connection and knew the kat was heading in to help them. She hoped Jakob remembered to set his blade alight and was relieved to see Gustav had already done so. The man might not have a lot of magic, but he certainly knew how to use the little he had.
It would have been better if he’d been able to work out how to call the shadows, but she didn’t remember him trying, just the fire. That was something she’d have to follow up later. Right now, she had to figure out how to survive.
Izmay shouted from somewhere behind her, and Marsh hoped that didn’t mean the female mage had been hurt. She also worried about how the children were doing. If this ambush had been waiting, did that mean there had been another at the ruins?
Focus! Roeglin was gritting his teeth as he tried to regain his feet, and his warning came too late.
Someone worked out there were spaces between the calla. The sudden pain of a staff tip being rammed into the back of her thigh jolted Marsh back to the fight. Her leg buckled but she pulled her head to one side fast enough that the second blow missed it and crashed into her shoulder instead. It wasn’t much better.
Her arm went numb, and she let go of her sword. The raider on her sword side grinned and came in, both sticks whirling. Marsh called another shield from the shadow. She didn’t bother trying to strap it to her arm, just hung it between them to take the brunt of the attacks.
It was a stopgap measure, and she knew it. She was down, and just hadn’t been gracious enough to concede it.
“Two chances,” she murmured, and the raider on her shield side also smiled.
“No chances,” he told her, slamming one of the sticks into her shield while sweeping the other one in a vertical downward arc and smashing the tip into her ankle.
“Poutain!”
“Not your fate.”
Marsh wished she knew what he meant by that, but all she got from his mind was a glimpse of an old stone building, its windows and doors boarded up. Sunlight shone off its yellow stone walls, and he was terrified of it.
Where is that?
That’s something we want to find out on our own terms, not theirs, Roeglin answered, and then cried out in pain.
Marsh looked toward him, dropping her shield for just a moment. That time, she saw the stick come arcing in and got the shield back up in time to block it. The hand that caught her armor by the back of the neck and pulled her against the calla shrooms brought with it the business end of a blade pressed against her lower back.
“Drop everything.”
It was hard not to keep fighting, but Marsh did her best, freezing in his grip.
“Everything,” was accompanied by an increase in pressure and the realization he’d found a gap in her armor. Cloth tore, and the tip of the blade found flesh.
Marsh gasped and dropped the shields.
“Better.”
As he said it, Marsh heard the screeching yowl of a kat hunting...but it didn’t belong to Mordan. A second screech followed, this time accompanied by a scream. Marsh tensed and was pushed abruptly forward.
She stumbled but still managed to avoid the sticks that came crashing toward her head. She also managed to stay on her feet and pull another shield from the dark. There was no point in trying to grab a sword. Her arm hung uselessly by her side in need of healing.
Using the shield, she plowed a path past the raider on her left, maneuvering until she was clear of the three of them. If they hadn’t been more focused on the chaos happening on the other side of the trail, she’d have never gotten through.
Ro?
I’m here. Marsh caught the thought that he didn’t know how long for.
Dan!
Busy, and Marsh caught the impression of blood and blades, of prey running when she didn’t force it to stop and fight back. Busy was one word for it, and the kat was going to need help.
But only soon. Marsh worked her way behind a thick clump of brevilars and checked her surroundings. The battle still raged, but there was no one in sight. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she leaned on one of the shrooms and wrapped the shadows around herself.
When she was still sure she was alone, she laid one hand on her injured shoulder. Even that light pressure made her wince, but she waited for the initial flare of pain to die and then sought the living energy around her, being careful to borrow only a little of the brevilar’s golden light.
Redirecting it as healing, she stifled a gasp as warmth flowed into her shoulder. It was different healing herself. This time, she could feel where it hurt and direct the energy toward it, willing the magic to set right what was wrong.
The warmth of it traveled from her shoulder into her arm. It flowed across her back and neck and over her collarbone, and then it faded. Marsh thanked it and sent back what she hadn’t used, returning it to the fungi and creatures around her.
Creatures? She opened her eyes.
The toadstools just outside the brevilars’ light rippled and shook, but the creature was gone.
Sound crashed back over her, shouts and the clash of swords, and she remembered Roeglin. Reforming the shadows around her into sword and shield, Marsh concentrated on finding him.
Here. His voice was weak, even in her mind.
Marsh twisted the magic she used to detect life forces around her and just sought his. The other lives faded out, and she found him lying not far from where she’d almost been captured.
Almost? The question made Marsh smile. At least he was still able to give her a hard time.
Just hurry.
She did, but carefully, pulling more shadow so she could slip past combatants with less chance of drawing their attention.
I am here, she told him, dropping down beside him.
She felt the air move behind her and flattened herself over his body. A sword whistled through the space she’d occupied, and she pulled the shield into a dome over them. Channeling the shadow that had failed to conceal her into it, she enclosed them and pushed herself off him.
He groaned, and she forced herself to ignore it as she inspected his body for injury.
“Let’s see what you’ve done to yourself,” she murmured, surprised to find the sounds of battle fading as the dome finished forming.
He coughed. Laughing hurt.
“And I shouldn’t know that,” Marsh told him. “Now hush.”
She moved her hands across him, only finding the wound when she slid her fingers under his back. He shuddered as she touched the rent in his armor and felt the gaping rent that continued into flesh.
“Damn,” she muttered, then turned him onto his other side and worked her hands under the armor until she found the wound.
Not...the...only...one, Roeglin managed, his mind filtering between wakefulness and darkness.
“The magic will find it,” Marsh reassured him, and focused on the life force around it. Too anxious to try to separate it, she borrowed from it all, channeling it into the injury and then asking the magic to seek out and repair anything else Roeglin had broken.
Hey! The protest ended in a groan and a short cry of pain as bone shifted.
Marsh caught a flash of white, followed by a brief span of dark.
“Deeps, that hurt almost as bad as when it first happened.”
“You’re just lucky you fell over so fast.”
“I did not. I...” He closed his mouth and moved cautiously into a crouch.
That didn’t stop Marsh from catching just how hard he’d fought to reach her.
“No wonder they broke so much.”
“You’re Deeps-be-damned welcome,” he grumbled and tapped the inside of the dome. “You wanna drop this so we can go help the rest. I thought I saw Gustav taking on four of them, and his sword was well and truly alight.”
Marsh nodded. “Shield ready?” she asked, pulling one for herself as she stretched a hand toward the dark
wall surrounding them.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Maman.”
“Ingrate,” she snapped, dispelling the dome with a swift swipe of her hand.
They rose quickly, their shields knocking aside the half-dozen blades that greeted them but not stopping the spears that appeared to threaten them from three different directions. Marsh let the shadows go and slowly raised her hands.
“Oh, yeah, that worked just fine,” Roeglin snarked, and she rolled her eyes.
“Well, it worked better than your plan.”
Laughter rippled, and the spears faded. The fierce anger on Izmay’s face faded to relief, an expression that was mirrored by those around them. The sword blades were lifted away. There were a half-dozen faces Marsh didn’t recognize, and several more she knew from Shamka.
She scanned them all but didn’t see the two she was looking for.
“Where’s Henri?”
Izmay shook her head, her face clouding with worry. “We were hoping you were with them.”
“Sons of the Deep,” she breathed and bolted for the tunnel.
“Merde,” Roeglin echoed, catching the memory of Jakob and Henri running for the tunnel, Mordan in their wake.
Dan? Marsh called, but the link between them didn’t work and her innards twisted with worry. Dan?
“Scan for them,” Gustav ordered, his voice rough.
The strangers fell in around them and he made no objection, not even when one of them was no taller than Aisha. Marsh thought she recognized her, but she was scooped up by one of the men running with them and set on his shoulders before Marsh could be sure.
Marsh kept running, but her mind worried at who would let a child on a battlefield.
And you don’t?
That’s different.
Roeglin laughed.
Mina brought the shroomkats, he told her. She saved our lives.
Well, whatever Mina had done, her presence reminded Marsh that Aisha and Tamlin were elsewhere...and that she didn’t know how they were faring...and that she couldn’t go and help them.
Help here, Roeglin told her. The raiders will try to capture them first.
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