Trading by Shroomlight

by C. M. Simpson

  Already done. He came to stand beside Marsh. I’ve warned Shamka too. They’re taking shelter, but I don’t know what the lightning will do to buildings, so try not to walk it into the town.

  There are healers in Shamka, right? Marsh asked.

  She tried to hide what she intended from Roeglin, but he caught it anyway.

  Marsh, we can’t be sure there’s a healer close enough for that.

  I have to get to Aisha.

  You can’t do that if you’re dead, Roeglin retorted, and Master Envermet intervened.

  I concur. Take out as many as you can, but don’t drain yourself dry. There aren’t enough of us to keep you safe, and I don’t want to be explaining to either of those children that you killed yourself trying to reach them. Understood?

  Marsh nodded and the shadow captain gave her a long, hard stare.

  Good, because I can see the state of your head, and I will put you out myself.

  Merde.

  Roeglin heard her and laughed.

  Take them out, Marsh.

  She focused on the shadows, feeling the energy flowing through them and calling it out, directing it toward the life forces she knew were the raiders moving ahead of them. As she unleashed it, she saw a small gleam of life break free of another larger one and race straight toward the enemy lines...and she knew without a doubt exactly who she was seeing.

  She directed the lightning back, sparing the first two lines of raiders and the tiny life now calling a shadow blade from the darkness and screaming defiance while her father desperately tried to catch up. He grabbed her just as the first raider came in range of her sword, pulling her back.

  Marsh watched as she screamed and flailed. By then he had been joined by half a dozen more men and women. One took the girl and passed her back to someone else, shielding her from the raiders and deflecting their attacks on themselves.

  Marsh kept the lightning static, concentrating on making sure she knew exactly where the raiders’ life forces were and where those of the villagers could be found. Ahead of her and on either side, the other shadow mages spread out, making sure none of the raiders made it through to her or beyond them.

  I will not have them roaming the caverns Master Envermet declared. I will not have them threatening our allies.

  Marsh remembered the aftermath of the raiders in the tunnel and could not force it from her mind. As she directed the lightning to take these raiders down, images from the tunnel flickered through her mind...and not just the tunnel.

  “Oh, Shadow’s Heart,” she whispered and the lightning wavered.

  It’s okay, Marsh, you can let it go. You’ve evened the odds. Envermet’s words were comforting, but Marsh didn’t know if she could trust them.

  He shook her gently. Stand down, Leclerc.

  As gentle as that order was, there was a hint of iron to it. Marsh stopped.

  “Tell it to go back,” Roeglin said. “Tell it everything’s okay and thank it for its service.”

  “Yes,” Marsh murmured and focused on the lightning, pushing her worry for the children aside. “Thank you, shadows. You can rest now.”

  She concentrated on calming thoughts and sending it back to the ceiling. “Thank you.”

  There weren’t many raiders left. At least, not of this force.

  We can’t go yet, Captain Envermet told her. We have to make sure the town can hold against anyone else that might come against it.

  Understood.

  The curtness of her reply earned a sharp look, but a small group of raiders were trying to get past them, and there was no way in all the Deeps that any of them were letting them get away. After that group, there was another, and then a third, then Mordan roared a warning, both inside and outside her head.

  Marsh hit the floor, bringing Roeglin down beside her. The quarrel meant for her heart buried itself in a nearby calla shroom. Marsh rolled to one side and Roeglin rolled to the other.

  Who have you pissed off?

  Marsh watched another group of raiders race past them. I wonder...

  But Roeglin wasn’t having a bar of it.

  If he was part of the raiders, he’d had plenty of other opportunities to get close. As it was, he chose when she was either helpless or busy.

  Not necessarily.

  Yeah, she had to admit Roeglin had a point. Her would-be assassin had vanished after his first attack at Bisambe and hadn’t returned, and neither she nor Mordan had touched him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t part of the raiders.

  The kat growled through her skull. Mordan was going to do more than touch him. Mordan was going to shred him, and then she was going to shred all the little pieces...and then she was going to find out where her cub and her pup had gone and the human that went with them.

  Scan, Marsh, Roeglin urged, when Marsh froze.

  Scruffy and Perdemor were missing?

  And your cubs cannot be found, the kat replied tartly. The four of them are up to mischief and we have not been able to stop them.

  Her cubs?

  The kat reinforced the idea by showing her images of Tamlin and Aisha.

  All our cubs!

  Roeglin pushed himself sideways, slamming into Marsh in a half-dive and half-roll and flipping her over and then under him. Before she had time to protest, he’d drawn a dome of shadow over them, shielding them from another attack.

  I’ll talk to Mistress Sulema, Captain Envermet said. You will have answers.

  The shell boomed around them, the sound of it sending a dull echo through her bones.

  “Marsh, you need to find the assassin. Try using the life sense.”

  “I don’t even know if it will work. I don’t think it did last time.”

  “Try anyway.” Again the shield boomed, and Marsh stilled.

  It was hard to concentrate on the glowing patches of life around her when she was worried sick about Aisha and Tamlin.

  “You and me both, Marsh.”

  She took a deep breath and sent her senses outward. It didn’t take her long to locate the remaining raiders, and Envermet took those locations from her mind, sending them to the nearest shadow mages to deal with.

  “Find him, Marsh,” Roeglin urged, and this time she was able to focus.

  At first, she didn’t see him, and then she did.

  “How is he doing that?” she wanted to know.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Roeglin told her, sounding very satisfied. “Mordan’s got him now.”

  Panic surged through Marsh. “She can’t! What if she gets hurt?”

  “She won’t. She won’t, Marsh. Master Envermet is with her.”

  More panic flared. “What if he—”

  Roeglin laid a hand over her mouth. “He won’t. He’s... He’ll be all right.”

  But Marsh pulled the thought right out of his head...or part of it. “What do you mean he’s done this before?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  And it’s not yours to tell.

  Marsh looked down at Roeglin, but he shook his head. “You heard the man.”

  She leaned her head against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.

  Master Envermet’s voice was an unwanted intrusion. You can come out now.

  They came out and Master Envermet dumped the assassin at their feet, Mordan looking askance as he claimed her kill. Marsh sent gratitude along her link to the kat. She knew who’d really made the kill.

  Mordan gave Master Envermet a pained look and Marsh did a double-take. He had made the kill? She studied the body of the assassin more closely. This one was almost exactly like the last, but he also wasn’t the last—at least, not as Marsh remembered him.

  “Deeps be damned, just how many siblings did the man have?”

  Marsh shrugged. “I never bothered finding out. The good thing is we know he wasn’t sent by the raiders. They’re after me because I killed their brother.”

  “You say that as if it’s a good thing,” Roeglin said, studying her face. “Tell me you don’t r
eally think that.”

  Marsh shook her head. “It isn’t.” Worry crashed through her, and she curled her fists in Roeglin’s shirtfront. “We have to find them. Who knows where they’ve gone?”

  She gestured toward the assassin. “What if one of these has got them.”

  Roeglin took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. He bent his head to look her in the eyes. “You know where they’ve gone,” he told her, his voice saying he was willing her to admit it.

  “Yes.” But before she could tell him, Master Envermet interrupted.

  “Heads up,” he murmured, and Roeglin released her.

  They turned away from each other, each drawing a weapon from the shadows as they went. Master Envermet watched them and then looked toward the approaching riders. Tabia and Kwame rode ahead of what looked to be every warrior left in Bisambe.

  Marsh looked beyond them, half-expecting to see refugees or pursuit. When she saw neither, she scanned their surroundings, but that returned nothing either. “Are they saying what happened?” Marsh asked.

  “I think they’re going to tell us when they get here,” Roeglin said, and Marsh realized what news Tabia and Kwame were bringing.

  “They don’t know we know the children are missing.”

  “And it’s not the news decent people give mind to mind,” Master Envermet added, glancing at the kat.

  She looked up at him and then stood and stretched, flicking her hind feet at him as she wandered under a clump of callas.

  “Wow,” Roeglin muttered. “As Aisha would say, dat rude.”

  Marsh replayed the image of the kat’s retreat and had to agree. If anything, Mordan had given them the perfect kat’s ass. She wondered what Tabia had made of it.

  The shield leader wasn’t impressed.

  “I take it you know then?” she asked, indicating the kat sitting under the shrooms grooming her chest fur.

  Marsh nodded. “I’m sorry, but yes.”

  “And you’re still here?”

  Marsh jerked a thumb at Master Envermet. “I have orders.”

  Tabia raised her eyebrows. “And you followed them?”

  “Well, yes?”

  “At the expense of your children?”

  And Marsh remembered what Master Envermet had said about her parental worth hanging in the balance.

  “There is no point in going after them until I know as much as I can,” she said, rounding on the other woman and poking her finger into the center of her chest. “If I assume they’ve gone after Gustav, I still need to know which direction they took. I still need some supplies, and permission to leave, and to know I’ve kept my promise here.”

  “They’ve been gone since shortly after you left today,” Tabia finally confessed, and Marsh nodded.

  “That’s because they both knew we’d be out for the day, and they were hoping we’d keep the raiders occupied so they could traverse the cavern safely.”

  “They’re not that devious,” Tabia protested, but her tone said she was now considering the possibility.

  Neither Roeglin nor Marsh decided to enlighten her and Master Envermet directed her toward the village. “We’ll be along shortly.”

  He let her get a mule’s length beyond him, then called to her again.

  “Isn’t there going to be an attack on that cavern soon?”

  “We repelled it this morning. Sulema has two other impi working their way back to the cavern and one more guarding the sick. We’re all right. Shamka is standing by for any who try to escape this way.”

  When she had ridden on ahead, Master Envermet turned to Marsh. “It is too late in the day to follow them. Tamlin is clever; he will have stopped to camp. He knows how dangerous the caverns can be at night. He’ll keep his sister safe.”

  Marsh wanted to argue that he and Aisha were only children and that they were out there alone, but she didn’t. Master Envermet was right.

  “And you need to sleep,” Roeglin added. “After that trick with the lightning, you’re tired, and you’ll need food.”

  Again, Marsh wanted to argue that she was neither, but she knew she couldn’t.

  “And even if you’re not tired, I have thirteen other shadow mages to think about.”

  Thirteen?

  “Yes, Marsh. Today’s team will go with you. Captain Moldrane is one of our own. We’re not leaving him out there alone.”

  “But we’ll never catch up,” Marsh whispered, sadness and despair mingling with frustration. Master Envermet had an answer for that too. He motioned at Mordan.

  “We have the kat. Those things are the deadliest hunters in the cavern. You think she can’t track her own kit?”

  Mordan looked toward him and blinked, and Master Envermet gave Marsh a happy smile.

  “I’m leaving Sergeant Seward in charge of the rest of the troops and the liaison operations. It’s about time I gave her a chance to do something meaningful.”

  From the way he said it, someone had raised the point to him, and he’d remembered. Marsh guessed that he’d probably been avoiding doing what he’d just decided to do and wondered why.

  The look he gave her was pure disbelief.

  “She’s my daughter, too.”

  Until then, Marsh hadn’t realized the impact Aisha had had on those around her, but Captain Envermet met her eye and dared her to deny him. Instead, she shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “Sure,” she told him. “Why not? The more, the merrier.”

  “Good, because Tabia says we need to return to Bisambe and speak to Sulema ourselves—and we’d need to do that anyway because that’s where all our gear is.” He raised his voice. “Let’s move it on out.”

  The return journey was a lot shorter because they bounded in and out of the shadows all the way back, spooking the rock mages on lookout duty by appearing suddenly out from under the shrooms and hailing them.

  “You must teach us that trick,” Sulema told them once their discussions of the terms of their liaison with the Protectors and the Monastery had been finalized.

  “Gustav will be back to finalize the terms for the Ruins Deep Alliance, should you wish it,” Captain Envermet added, and Sulema nodded.

  “I look forward to it.” She rose from her seat. “Now, if that is all?”

  Captain Envermet nodded. “It is.”

  “The dining hall is crowded, but we would be honored if you would join us for dinner.”

  They went. Tomorrow they would be eating cold until they got Gustav back. Besides which, they were hungry. During the day, they’d forgotten to stop and eat. They followed Sulema over to the hall and collected their food from the servery.

  Marsh had just sat down to dinner when a man approached her table. He wasn’t from the Grotto, and at first, it took Marsh some time to recognize who he was. When she did recognize the raider who’d intervened for the prisoners, she rose from her seat and stepped away from the table, wariness cloaking her face.

  He saw her move and stopped. “I’m sorry. I mean you no harm. I just have to know. Is it true?”

  Marsh frowned, forcing herself not to draw a blade from the shadow. “Is what true?”

  “Is it true that…that you’ll save my family?”

  “I’m going to save all the families.” The reply was out before Marsh could censor it. She did her best to make amends. “All the families that have survived and done their best to not become the raiders’ creatures. Why?”

  “Because that is why I’m still here,” he told her, then expanded, “Because they told me you would bring my family back.”

  He gulped. “And no matter what I’ve done, I could never...” He squeezed his eyes shut, his mouth twisting with emotion.

  Marsh waited, wishing she could be anywhere but where she was and knowing she couldn’t look away.

  Seeing he had her attention, he continued, “I promised I wouldn’t leave her.”

  His voice broke. “But she’s there.”

  After a momentary pause, he said, his voice barely a whisper, “an
d I’m not.”

  He gave her a helpless shrug. “So, are you?”

  “Going to get your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I can find them, mais oui.”

  He took a short sharp breath and rushed the next words out as if afraid to speak them. “Look into my mind.”

  “What?”

  “Please. Just look, and then you will know who you are looking for.”

  Marsh did as he asked, letting him know when she had seen what he needed her to see.

  When she had, he didn’t ask for more but walked quickly away, leaving his meal at the table and hurrying out of the hall, the mind-walkers assigned as his keepers abandoning their own meals to keep him company. Marsh watched him go and then pushed her plate away, only to have Roeglin push it back and Henri come over and stand behind her.

  “You need to eat,” Henri told her. “If you don’t, you’ll never be in any condition to cook me dinner when we get back.”

  After that conversation, Marsh didn’t feel like eating, but the looks on her team members’ faces said they wouldn’t let her go until she did.

  “Fine!” she said and ate in spite of herself, urgency gnawing at her insides as she chafed at the delay. When she’d finished her meal, she curled up in Roeglin’s bed hoping that sleep came quickly and dawn even faster.

  It was good to have someone to hold in the darkness. It would have been better if she’d known the rest of her family was tucked in the beds nearby, but that wasn’t to be. Tomorrow she would go and find them.

  And once they’d been reunited, they could see what needed to be done to reunite the other families the raiders had split apart.

  Author Notes - CM Simpson

  July 28, 2019

  Again, thank you for reading this far, and for loving these stories and characters as much as I love writing them.

  It’s been a fortnight since I finished writing the latest installment to Marsh and Roeglin’s battle to secure the four caverns. Thank you for coming on that journey with me.

  It was good to spend time with these characters, again, and to get to take them through to Ariella’s Grotto...although looking back, I think I forgot to explain exactly how the coffee and cocoa beans came to be there. I was having far too much fun exploring the people.