“Got him,” she said as Gustav drove his mule past the two raiders closest him to allow Henri and Izmay to engage them.
Mordan roared from behind them, and the mules bolted. Zeb cursed as the kat shouldered him out of her path, knocking him into a patch of brown noses as she passed. Mordan roared again, and Jakob shouted in reply as a raider screamed.
“Again!”
But the kat didn’t oblige. Judging from the next scream, Mordan had taken down her first victim and left Jakob to kill his own prey. She didn’t have time to concentrate any further because the raider she’d attacked had blocked her first strike and was pushing back. She blocked a vicious strike to her gut and used the buckler to push his blade up and away.
He wasn’t fast enough to block her counter-thrust with the dagger he wielded in his off hand, and he went down with a wound in his chest. He didn’t stay down though, and Marsh had to finish him as he tried to rise. It made her sick to the stomach, but she didn’t have time for regrets.
The third raider moved to take advantage of her distraction, and she barely got her shield up in time. The force of the raider’s attack pushed her back, and she almost tripped over the one she’d just killed. As she struggled to regain her balance, Roeglin proved he was no gentleman, slashing her opponent across the lower back and making a second cut before they could turn to parry.
Together, they scanned the surrounding shrooms for more before turning to see where they were most needed. Gustav was already walking down the trail after the mules. He was making chirruping noises as he went, but Marsh doubted they’d come. She figured they’d have at least an hourglass of walking before they caught up with their escaping mounts.
Zeb, Izmay, Jakob, Gerry, and Henri had gathered in a cluster around one of the raiders and Marsh went to see why.
When she got there, she saw the man was as dead as the rest of their opponents but that his corpse still glowed with the purple luminescence she’d borrowed from the calla shrooms.
“Not a bad idea,” Henri said as she came up. “Made him a lot easier to hit.”
Marsh didn’t know whether to be glad or not. Now she could light up her enemies for her friends. It should have been a comfort, but she could hear the raider who had attacked her at Midpoint: “At least they get to live.”
He’d been talking about his wife and children. He’d refused to surrender or to change sides because he’d wanted to keep his family safe. Looking at the glowing corpse before her, she could only wonder if this man had been fighting for the same reason. It took her a moment before she realized the guards were all staring at her.
“What?” Henri demanded. “You did good.”
As if that was supposed to be any comfort.
“I’d better give the calla back its energy,” she said to change the subject, and she closed her eyes.
She had to open them moments later so she could direct the energy, but the need to focus saved her from the swirl of sadness that had threatened to overwhelm her. Envermet’s words clung.
It is never wrong to mourn the loss of a life, or the lost potential for that life to have been used for other, better things.
With a twirl of her fingers, she had the light disentangle itself from the fallen raider and directed it to the shroom. Try as she might, the sadness swirled back, and she ducked her head to hide the tears that threatened to fall. She didn’t know whether to be grateful or angry when Roeglin settled his arm around her shoulders and turned her away from the others.
Instead of turning her into his chest, he merely moved her so she was facing the next glow-lit raider and let her return the light energy she had borrowed for him too.
“Best we don’t highlight our presence,” he said, and Marsh felt a smile quiver along her lips even as she sent the luminescence back to the shrooms.
“If we lit them on fire, would the energy dissipate or keep burning?” he mused, and Marsh knew the thought would haunt her until she tried it.
The opportunity to do so came far sooner than any of them would have liked.
They’d resigned themselves to walking, and Marsh was wondering just how far a frightened mule would run when the first unearthly screech echoed out of a side tunnel.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Henri grumbled, drawing his sword. He glared at Marsh. “Why didn’t you see this coming?”
Marsh didn’t bother answering him. She couldn’t be everywhere at once, and he knew it. Instead, she reached out and curled her fingers through the scruff of Mordan’s neck.
“Stay,” she murmured and the kat tilted her head to look at her, sending a protest over the link between them.
Roeglin caught it and looked at Marsh.
“Hunt them together,” he said, and Gustav gave a sharp nod of agreement.
“Close the gate.”
It was all the permission they needed. Marsh shifted to take on the substance of shadow, her hand allowing her to transfer the shift to Mordan. She wasn’t ready for the kat to shake herself free of Marsh’s grip and step into the closest patch of shadow with the same practiced ease Marsh did.
What the… The rest of Roeglin’s question was left behind as Marsh followed the kat.
Just when and how the kat had managed it would have to wait until after the shadow monsters had been defeated…and she’d killed the shadow raider mages who’d summoned them. It was strange, but she didn’t feel the same pang of sorrow for their deaths as she did for the soldiers. It was as though she thought they were somehow more responsible.
But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that she killed the mages and broke their connection with the portal they’d opened between the shadow monsters and the trail. She strode through the shadows, stepping from one patch of darkness to another and moving more swiftly than would have been possible in her solid human form.
They reached the entrance to the side cavern and Mordan led the way through, the kat picking a path even faster than Marsh could.
This way, the kat directed, showing her the trail to take. There.
Marsh felt a moment of disconnection as she saw something that wasn’t anywhere in view. It took her a few seconds to realize she was seeing through Mordan’s eyes, then she saw the mages. There were four, not two.
How big a gate did they intend to open, anyway?
It was a question that didn’t have an easy answer, save that the portal they’d created was already larger than any she’d yet seen—and it was growing larger by the heartbeat. Again her vision shifted, but this time two of the mages were highlighted.
Mine. Mordan laid her claim with clear precision and followed it by highlighting the second two. Yours.
Marsh found herself alone as the kat cut the link, leaving Marsh with the distinct impression that “mommy was busy.”
“Not your cub,” she muttered, but the kat didn’t respond. She focused instead on the two mages Mordan had said were hers to take.
She noticed how they’d gathered in the bright glow of a cluster of calla shrooms and golden gleams and remembered Alois telling her that the shadow monsters tended to shun the light. It was curious, since the mages were clearly visible, and yet the monsters racing out of the portal paid them hardly any attention. It was as though the maddened creatures already had a target in mind, and the mages were nothing beside it.
Perhaps they planned to come back and kill them later. Marsh wouldn’t put it past them. Right now that wasn’t her problem. Her problem was taking the mages out and trying to kill as many of the monsters as she could because there was no way Gustav and the others could stop them if she didn’t.
Roeglin.
I’ve got it. We’ll discuss you talking to me when you get back.
They would, and the realization of what she’d just done almost broke her concentration to the point she dropped out of shadow form right then and there. She’d just spoken mind to mind!
Don’t let it go to your head.
Like she ever could. She had to live to do
that.
Mordan’s hunting yowl screeched across the cavern, and Marsh chose the next point to step to. If she didn’t hurry, the kat would start the party without her. She stepped out into the shadow behind the calla grove where the two mages were sheltering.
Mordan must have seen her because she sent a growl rolling out toward her and one of her mages screamed. Marsh didn’t wait any longer. Instead of pulling sword and buckler from the shadows, she pulled a dart and flung it at the closest mage before charging across the open ground between her and the next mage.
He’d raised his hand as though to summon a weapon, but Marsh gave him no time. She plucked a second dart from the darkness and hurled it through his chest, and had the momentary taste of blood as teeth rent flesh and Mordan took down the second of her targets. As the taste faded, the portal snapped shut, shredding the monsters that were only part-way through as it winked out of existence.
The kat let out another roar, this one full of belligerence and challenge. Marsh saw the last of the shadow monsters falter, then continue to run in the direction they’d been going. She thought about calling the lightning, then realized that the opening to the cavern had been flanked with brown noses, but that groves of calla and brevilar had grown a little farther back on either side.
Their luminescence had mingled in almost separate streams, but it had been there. Marsh looked for it and saw how the monsters squeezed together to avoid passing through any but the very edges of the shroom light, then remembered what Roeglin had said about setting them alight. It would be one way to thin their numbers.
Wait, she ordered the kat, and reached for the energy running through the cavern.
It was easy to find now that she knew what she was looking for, and the calla-brevilar groves were thick with it. She drew on the light energy, but didn’t try to gather it into a ball. Instead she lifted it in a rolling cloud above the shadow monsters…
And called the heat.
Just like she’d called it when she’d first been trying to light a glow.
She drew the heat into the light and directed the entire sheet to drop down onto the rearmost monsters, winding tendrils of burning light around and through them as they ran. Roeglin’s cry of alarm reached her just as she realized what she’d done.
You’re going to set the cavern alight.
His voice was accompanied by a growl of alarm from Mordan and the kat bounded over to where she was standing, seizing her by the hand and trying to drag her away. When that didn’t work and Marsh stood there staring at the inferno building in the midst of the shadow monsters, the kat switched tactics.
She knocked Marsh off her feet with a swipe of her paw and seized her by the shirt, bounding into one patch of shadow and out of another as she tried to put some distance between them and the fireball. When they’d gone as far as the cavern would allow, she dumped Marsh behind an outcrop of rocks and crouched over her.
Marsh, you need to do something about that.
Marsh wondered what Roeglin was shouting about, but she had to fight Mordan to get the kat to let her up enough to look.
“Oh, the Deep’s dirty-assed britches and shag-ended shrooms!”
Nice…
Shut it, Ro.
Marsh took another look out from behind the rock and felt heat lick at her face. The man was right for a change. She really did have to do something about that. But what?
It wasn’t like she could return the light to the shrooms. She had to… She needed… She peered out from behind the outcrop again. What did she do with the shadows and the lightning? She sent them back, sent the energy to the form it used to have. She calmed them.
She looked at the fire and knew she didn’t have much time. The shadow monsters had spread it through the cavern in their panicked attempts to evade it and now the light was everywhere, clinging to the bodies of the dead monsters and slowly shriveling the shrooms closest. She had to send the light back, dissipate the heat…
Taking a deep breath, Marsh focused on the center of the fire. She had no time to nibble at the edges. If she didn’t take care of the core of the firestorm she’d made, there’d be no time to deal with the rest. She thought about the light, thanking the shrooms for lending their energy and light and sending it back to them. She thanked the heat also, treating it the same way she treated the shadows, dispersing it back to where it had come from…and she discovered she had another problem.
The fire she had created had spawned more fire. Parts of the cavern were burning that hadn’t burned before, and she had more heat to deal with than she’d had when she started. She had to find somewhere for the extra heat to go…or something for it to burn itself out on. Her sight fell on a shadow monster corpse. Now that it wasn’t coated in shroom light, it was rapidly cooling, and would soon become just another carcass rotting in a cavern.
It would attract scavengers, and they would attract… The memory of the shadow wraith came unbidden and she shivered. Better if there were no corpses to draw that kind of attention. It took a little bit of effort to guide the extra heat and flame to the bodies left behind by the shroom light but she managed it, even if it was Izmay who saw what she was doing and finished the task with only a fraction of the energy Marsh was using.
“You’re an idiot,” Roeglin told her when he’d picked his way across the cavern and found her propped against the outcrop.
“Quit your bitching. They’re dead, aren’t they?”
“It’s going to stink of burnt shadow monster for weeks,” he told her as he helped her across the cavern.
Izmay and the others joined them as they got to the other side. It wasn’t until Marsh stepped into the tunnel through which the trail ran that she had any idea of how far the fires had spread. Roeglin caught the look on her face.
“We were lucky we had Izmay...and Henri and Zeb…” He indicated the ex-caravan guard and the dark-haired shadow guard, who sat propped against each other.
Gustav turned away from them as they approached.
“You’d better have some healing left in you,” he growled. “We can’t camp here.”
He had a point, and Marsh headed across to crouch beside the pair. Henri scowled.
“This does not get you out of dinner.”
Marsh ignored him as the shadow guard gave her a weak smile.
“Any excuse to get your hands on me.”
Marsh tried to scowl at him but she couldn’t. That smile was too infectious.
“Just keep telling yourself that.”
“He’d better not.”
She might have asked Roeglin where he’d gotten the idea he had any say who she put her hands on, but she didn’t. Instead, she focused on finding the energy to draw on to help Zeb and Henri. She should have realized the fires would have had a greater impact than she’d planned. The damage had left the surroundings low on life.
Mordan surprised her by pushing her head under the hand Marsh had placed on the ground.
Pride, the kat sent, emphasizing the thought with an anxious rumble and the idea that she had the energy to spare.
Marsh wound her arm around the kat’s neck and leaned into her, taking just a little of what the big beast was offering and pushing enough of it into Zeb and Henri for the guards to regain their feet.
“It’s enough,” Zeb told her. “We just have to catch up with the mules.”
At his words, Henri gave an exaggerated sniff.
“We’re never getting the mules back,” he muttered morosely. “Not with the stink you’ve created.”
“A putain a vous,” Marsh snapped and turned away, taking her place beside Gustav and not protesting when Roeglin came to walk beside her.
Mordan pushed her way in between them, casting the mage a defiant look as she did so.
“You’d better protect her from Henri then,” he told the kat, and Mordan flicked her tail in a way that said Henri could try.
“As if I would,” Henri muttered. “She still owes me dinner.”
14
Dimanche at Last
They didn’t catch up with the mules until they’d reached the outskirts of Dimanche. The creatures had found themselves a quiet patch of shrooms to browse in and were standing together beneath the golden glow of a cluster of brevilar.
“You sodding ungrateful beasts,” Henri shouted as they turned their heads to watch them approach and then slowly moved away.
Mordan, Marsh thought and the kat slunk swiftly and silently off the trail, appearing in front of the mules shortly thereafter. Gustav’s mount ducked its head and pawed the air in front of her but the kat stood her ground, flattening her ears and curling her lips in a silent snarl. When the mule repeated its actions, she hissed at it and it backed away, glancing back at the advancing humans.
“Easy there,” Gustav murmured, and indicated the kat. “You know I’m a better option.”
He chirruped at it, unbuckling the flap of his belt pouch. The mule caught the movement of his hand and its ears came forward. When he pulled his hand out, it snuffed the air.
“Wait here,” Gustav told the others and walked forward, his hand closed around whatever he’d taken out of the pouch.
The mule watched him come, snorting as he got closer but stretching out its neck so it could investigate what he held in his hand. Gustav let it snuffle at his closed knuckles, resisting the questing nibbles of its lips until it had stepped close enough for him to grasp its bridle.
“Easy there. See? It’s not so bad. Here you go…” And he uncurled his fingers so that it could take the shroom ball from his palm.
While it crunched happily, he took its reins and began inspecting it for any injuries. When he was done with that, he checked its tack, making sure everything was in order and that no sensitivity lurked when he ran his hands under the edges. When he was sure it was okay, he checked the girth and swung into the saddle.
The mule danced a little under him but it didn’t protest, and Gustav signaled them to come collect their mounts.
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