Trading by Firelight

by C. M. Simpson

  “Never,” she managed, ashamed when the answer came out harsh with more emotion than she’d imagined she could feel.

  She kicked her mule toward the entrance and through into the open ground beyond, not realizing she’d dropped her scans until Mordan’s outraged growl of warning split the air. Marsh kicked the mule again and ducked low over its head. The vicious whir of something flying through the space she’d occupied came as a surprise.

  “Keep riding!”

  Gustav’s shout had her spurring her mount forward even as wordless cries and screams rose around her and the sound of people bursting through the underbrush on either side of the trail reached her ears. Marsh rode forward, looking for a piece of the path wide enough for her to turn her mule. Her plans were interrupted when a hand wrapped around her calf and her foot was pulled from the stirrup.

  She lashed out with her boot, then Mordan intervened. There was a startled shriek, and the hand let go. Behind them came the clash of metal and more enraged shouts. The sound sent a chill through Marsh. Those voices…

  They were close to human but reminded her more of the shadow monsters’ mindless howls. She reached a point where the growth on either side of the path thinned and she pulled the mule off the path, slowing it enough to slide from its back before it had come to a complete stop.

  Throwing the reins over a nearby bush, Marsh turned and raced back up the path toward the sounds of battle…and of Mordan making yet another kill. The kat made no sound, but her victims certainly did, and Marsh smiled. It was good to know these folks could feel terror.

  Without thinking, she reached for the shadows and realized it was bright daylight. The shadows came, but they were nowhere near as thick as she was used to. Still, they came, and they would do. Marsh didn’t slow down as she saw the dozen filthy, ragged humans on the path ahead.

  She slashed the first across the soft portion of the lower back, her blade biting just as deep as she’d have expected it to. Reversing the blade’s movement, she slashed at the next one, the stroke nowhere near as good as her first but enough to distract it from Henri. The blade completed its arc, and she pulled it back so she could thrust it into her opponent.

  It slid through muscle, past bone, and deeper, and she jerked it free as he crumpled. His dying scream drew the attention of those closest, and they turned toward her. One went down beneath a flurry of paws and the other grinned, swinging his club in a strike designed to break bone but not kill. Marsh didn’t want to think about why he’d want her alive.

  His swing left his chest and front exposed and Marsh stepped inside the weapon’s arc, calling a buckler so she could block the club as she ducked. The club impacted hard, and she staggered as she drove her blade up into her attacker’s mid-section and pushed him so she could twist clear as he fell.

  Her maneuvering brought her into range of another of the creatures as her blade caught, jerking her to a momentary halt before she could pull it free. She ducked, and its club whistled over her head. It recovered more quickly than she did, and she was barely able to free her blade to block its next blow, the shadow blade catching in the timber of his weapon.

  Marsh released it back to where it had come from and brought her buckler up. Her sword’s disappearance had, however, surprised the monster attacking her.

  “Magic!” it roared, its cry taken up by its fellows, who sought to disengage.

  Their attempt made no difference to the Protectors, who took advantage of those retreating by bringing down as many of them as they could. Mordan did likewise, the big kat pursuing their attackers as they fled until she was sure they would not circle back and try again.

  “What in all of the Deeps were they?” Jakob asked once they’d returned to the cave where they’d left their mules while they dealt with the attack.

  Gustav’s expression darkened.

  “Remnant,” he said. “They’re a kind of human that came about during the Madness. Something back then had driven their ancestors insane, and their minds had never recovered.”

  He scanned the land around them before continuing.

  “The minds of their descendants never recovered either. It’s like they lost their humanity, or it was swallowed by the baser instincts of man.” He paused, watching as Marsh brought her mule back from the bushes she’d left it in. “Now they follow only their desires to feed and find pleasure.”

  Marsh wanted to know how he knew all this but Gustav had other priorities.

  “We need to reach the waystation. They’re bound to come back in the dark,” he said and kicked the mule into a fast trot.

  Henri and the others trotted after him, Marsh and Roeglin riding with them as they jolted down the trail. After a few steps, Marsh reached out along her connection with Mordan to see if the big kat was all right. Her inquiry was met with annoyance and a sense of great distaste—the ugly humans did not bathe, and their flesh tasted of sickness.

  When she had finished washing her mouth in a nearby stream, the kat informed her, she was going hunting for healthy meat and use it to cleanse the taste of their ambushers from her tongue. Marsh was to be more watchful in the future; the smallest of Mordan’s cubs would have smelt those creatures lying in wait. They would not have walked into a trap.

  Before Marsh could respond to that, the kat had cut the link.

  Hunting! was all she would reply when Marsh tried to reestablish it, and it was cut again.

  Well, aren’t you Miss Popular today? Roeglin said, his laughter echoing through her mind.

  Get out! Marsh snapped and bunted him from her head in much the same way as Mordan had just done to her.

  Roeglin gave a startled yelp, but when he talked to her next, she could only hear him with her ears.

  “You know your eyes flash white when you do that, don’t you?”

  Marsh hadn’t, and she didn’t like hearing it.

  “Wonderful,” she muttered, making it sound anything but.

  They rode on, not stopping for the mid-meal but eating dried ration bars in the saddle. To their relief, they didn’t see any more remnant and reached the waystation gates as the sun was sinking low on the horizon.

  If she’d been in the cavern, Marsh would have enjoyed watching the play of colors across the cavern walls and through the shrooms. Instead, she felt mildly anxious at the approaching dark, searching the nearby hillside and overgrowth for danger. It felt strange to be in the dark and yet so out in the open.

  That, and she needed the distraction from the stone-walls rising in front of her…not that watching for danger was helping very much.

  “You have to face it sometime.”

  To her surprise, Roeglin had said that out loud where everyone could hear him, even if they were pretending not to. Gustav rode up to the closed outer gates and reached for his sword. Marsh didn’t know who was more startled when the gates started to open before he could draw it, but they didn’t stop to wonder why. Instead, they rode right through, reaching the courtyard before Marsh registered that Mordan hadn’t come through with them.

  She turned her mule around, and kicked it back toward the gates, dismounting when she’d passed through and reached the open space just before them.

  “Dan!” she called. “Dan?”

  For a long moment, there was no answer, then the kat came padding out of the dark. Judging by her bulging middle, she’d not only found something suitable for taking the taste of remnant out of her mouth, but she’d eaten enough of it that she wasn’t going to have to hunt for the next few days. Marsh fondled her ears.

  “You do know I’d feed you, right?”

  The kat rumbled a reply and rubbed her head against Marsh’s thigh, her thoughts full of wary contentment and wistful images of a well-lit fireplace. It made Marsh laugh and she tangled her hands in the kat’s ruff, walking beside her as she led the mule back through the gates.

  They’d been starting to close when she’d ridden through, and now stood partially open in the evening twilight. As soon as she�
�d stepped back into the waystation courtyard, they began to close again, coming to another grinding halt when a low, mournful howl flowed over the hillside.

  Marsh stopped and turned, relieved when a series of soft glows lit up the inside of the courtyard. She kept her hand in Mordan’s fur as a large gray shape raced through the gates. It was followed by several more, and Mordan growled. The wolves raced toward her and Marsh stepped forward to meet them pulling shadow blade and buckler from the night.

  She heard voices as someone hastily excused themselves from the small knot of shadow guards gathered in front of the waystation’s main building.

  “Marsh!” Gustav called, but she didn’t take her eyes off the wolves.

  “Marsh?”

  That voice was both familiar and not, and a tall, blond man squeezed her shoulder as he slipped past to kneel before the leader of the pack. It growled at him and tried to slip past, but the man spread his arms and caught it, pulling it toward him even as it growled in furious protest.

  “Ironshade,” the man said. “Ironshade, they are friends, and she is pack.”

  The wolf’s next growl was angrier than the last, and as full of disagreement as any sound Marsh had ever heard. Marsh’s mule snorted, the sound of its hooves on the cobbles telling her it was backing away from the wolf and its pack. Mordan growled in reply.

  “Merde!”

  Marsh released sword and buckler to the shadows and turned to wrap her arms around the big kat’s neck.

  “Pride, Dan! He’s pride…and his friends are our friends, right?”

  The kat stayed tense beneath her hands, seeming to ignore her.

  “Dan?”

  Marsh got the fleeting impression of being pursued over a darkening slope when all she’d wanted to do was curl up on the warm rocks and sleep off her latest meal. She slapped the kat’s shoulder.

  “I’d have been worried sick!”

  The kat made a sound that suggested she only had herself to blame since she’d been the one to ride out into an ambush of remnant she should have smelt.

  “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

  The kat made an odd sneezing sound, and Marsh glanced back at the wolves. They were watching her as though she were something particularly interesting.

  “You were hunting her?” The man’s voice was incredulous. He stared at the wolf. “But why?”

  The pack leader gave a whining growl.

  “Territory? But you’ve got the whole damn mountainside! What’s one more to share it? Ow!”

  That last comment had obviously been one question too many…or it had been a particularly stupid question because the wolf gave him a hard nip on the shoulder.

  “You’re just lucky the gate’s closed for the night,” he grumbled, getting up from in front of it. “Now come and meet the kat and be friends. I don’t want to begin the night with an argument.”

  Marsh thought it was already too late for that, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she turned to Mordan.

  “And you play nice,” she said, giving the kat a brief squeeze.

  Mordan huffed out a breath and regarded her with a baleful look. Marsh ignored her and looked at the tall blond man. It took more than a moment for her to recognize him, and amusement played across his face as he let her do it. He broke into a full-blown grin when she said his name.

  “Gabe?”

  “Marchant!” her oldest cousin said, “It’s been a long time.”

  It had been a long time, and he’d gotten taller since she’d last seen him. Marsh took an awkward step toward him. Before she could take another, however, the wolf slipped around Gabe’s calves and braced itself between them. Its growl rolled over her and through her, raising the hair on her arms and sending a wave of goosebumps over her flesh. Marsh slapped a hand on Mordan’s neck as the kat surged forward.

  Curling her hand in Dan’s scruff, she brought the kat to a screeching halt and prayed she’d be forgiven. Trying not to think about what the kat might have to say about being grabbed like a cub and held, and really trying not to think about what she’d say about her next move, Marsh crouched in front of the wolf. She raised a cautious hand to the side of its face and froze as its jaws closed over it with a sudden snap.

  “Iron!”

  The wolf growled around Marsh’s fingers, a clear warning for the man to back off. Mordan snarled, and the wolf growled again. Marsh stayed perfectly still, leaving her hand in its mouth and resisting the urge to pull away. She was aware of movement among the guards, and glad when none of them came any closer. Instead, she focused on the wolf’s bright-green eyes.

  “I am Marchant Leclerc,” she told it, “Gabrielle’s cousin. My parents built this place, but it is Gabe’s home, and I have no intention of changing that.”

  Gabe made a sound of muted protest and started to move, but Ironshade growled at him. Marsh watched as the wolf’s eyes flicked from her to her cousin and back. When she had its attention again, she met its eyes and tried to make a connection to its mind, wanting it to see that she meant no harm and had no intention of staying, that Mordan would be leaving with her, that the kat kept her safe, just as the wolf kept Gabe and his territory secure.

  She fell, but only a little way, having started to get the knack of stepping between her own conscious and the kat’s. Connecting to the wolf wasn’t much different, and she regarded it mind to mind, noting how much bigger it seemed than when she stood beside it.

  He is my human, it growled, and his mate is mine to protect.

  “And I am his pack,” Marsh assured it. “Not his mate, but his cousin. Among humans our bond is family. I do not want his mate.”

  Or to take her place?

  Marsh snorted.

  “That is not the human way.”

  Why are you here?

  “For shelter and for the hunt.”

  The Hunt?

  Now she had its attention. Marsh thought of the raiders, of them attacking the innocent and releasing the shadow monsters into the caverns. The wolf snarled at the thought and Marsh continued, showing Ironshade an image of Kearick.

  It snarled louder.

  This one was a guest under our roof not three moons ago!

  “We hunt him…and there was one more, but I do not know what he looked like,” Marsh began, but the wolf interrupted her, showing her the image of another man.

  He was tall, taller even than Gabe. As tall as Ardhur but rake-thin and sallow-faced, with hazel eyes and a way of looking at Gabe’s mate that she did not like. Marsh snarled as she recognized him, a seeker whose gaze had made her skin crawl on the few occasions she’d encountered him at the Emporium.

  “Salazar.”

  The wolf’s ears pricked.

  You know this human?

  Marsh nodded.

  “Only by sight, but I know him. We will hunt him too.”

  Ironshade let go of her hand, licking the indentations he had made with his teeth and darting forward to nip her at the base of the throat. Marsh recoiled as she felt his teeth bruise skin, but he broke the connection between them, turning to trot over to a stunned Gabe, his bushy tail waving in the air.

  Mordan shook Marsh’s hand free of her ruff and turned toward the waystation, and Marsh caught the kat’s desire for a warm fire and maybe a rug to lie on. She couldn’t blame the big beast. If she’d eaten that much shev, she’d be needing to sleep it off as well. She pushed to her feet, wincing as her knees cracked.

  The clump of boots alerted her to Gustav’s approach before the Protector reached her.

  “This hunt we’re on,” he said. “You want to tell us what it’s all about?”

  4

  Adopted Sons

  It took Gabe a moment to finish with the pack, and Marsh was surprised when the wolves swept by her to surround Mordan and escort the big kat inside. Why they should bother was made clear by the startled shriek that came shortly after they’d disappeared inside.

  “Gabe! Oh, no, you don’t. That rug is… Gab
e!”

  Marsh looked at her cousin, and he looked back.

  “Ursula’s going to have my hide,” he said, then closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Before he could say any more, there was another frustrated shout from the station house.

  “Gabe!”

  He sighed.

  “Even if you have a knack for getting me into trouble with my wife.” He let go of Marsh and headed for the station. “I’ll see you all inside. The stables are over there, and there’s plenty of room.”

  It was a clear directive for them to take care of their own mounts, and Marsh realized she hadn’t seen anyone around. Figuring the gates didn’t man themselves, Marsh headed for the gatehouse to find out who was there…and maybe to discover what was going on.

  Gustav grabbed her by the arm.

  “The hunt?”

  “In the stables,” she told him, and he let her go.

  It was no surprise when Roeglin came alongside her.

  “There are two of them,” he said. “Both a lot younger than I’d expect, and both waiting for the courtyard to clear before they head back to their…”

  Marsh pushed the gatehouse door open, startled to see two boys around the ages of ten and twelve. She already knew they were too old to be Gabe’s. The Deeps knew Per had nagged him enough for a grandchild, but these would had to have been born before he’d left the Ledge. And they hadn’t been.

  Both boys had been standing by the mechanism for opening the gates, their attention focused on the door. Now the older one put himself between the younger one and the door, and the younger one was looking around the room as if he could find either find an escape route or a weapon.

  It was just too bad for them that the stairs leading up to the wall were next to the door, and Marsh and Roeglin were blocking the way. The kids weren’t going anywhere. Marsh kicked the door closed behind her, trying to decide which one to tackle first.

  “…master?” Roeglin finished, sounding puzzled.