Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more

by C. M. Simpson

  “Run!” she cried, her gaze passing over Scruff as she looked back.

  She was relieved to see that Scruff was already on his feet and shaking the cavern dust from his fur. Tamlin towed his sister into a run and Marsh stumbled. She snapped her attention back to the front and focused on following the big hound up the steps to the porch and to the door. As soon as they’d crossed the porch’s stone floor, he dropped her hand and nudged the door, whining.

  When Marsh didn’t react quickly enough, he nudged it, again and then pawed at it.

  “Okay, keep your furry britches on! This had better be unlocked.”

  Marsh put one hand on the dog’s head and grabbed the door handle. To her surprise, it turned without difficulty and the door opened.

  “Allo?” she called. “Anyone home? Allo?”

  Only silence greeted her, and she hesitated. The dog, however, had no doubts. He pushed past her, and then turned in the small entry hall beyond, whining anxiously. Tamlin and Aisha arrived and Marsh ushered them in, following on their heels. She was about to close the door behind them when Aisha broke free of Tamlin’s grip and ducked past Marchant’s legs.

  “Scruffknuckle!” she shouted. “You come here. Wight. NOW!”

  She had a good set of lungs on her—Marsh would give her that—and the pup obviously got the message. He flinched at her “Now,” gave the dark one more defiant growl, and scampered for the door. If Marsh hadn’t been watching for it, she might have missed the way the knee-high brown-nose toadstools shuddered at the base of the nearest pillar, or how a small cluster of blue button mushrooms shattered and smeared the pillar’s side.

  A darker shading of blue and brown passed over the pillar’s surface and through the fungi. Marchant stared at it, completely missing when the path leading to the porch streaked in color. Movement shifted into form just as Tamlin slammed the door shut, then fought to get the heavy locking bar to slide into place.

  “Help me!” he said, and his voice jerked Marchant out of her contemplation of the heavy stone portal.

  Since when were doors made of solid stone? Who would…

  “Hey! Hey, you!” Tamlin shouted, and she came back to reality and helped him slide the locking bar home.

  “What were they?” she asked because she’d never seen that…those…things before.

  “Joffra,” Tamlin said, and he pulled the glow stone he’d made from his pocket, holding it up to light the house’s interior. “We had them sometimes at the old farm in Dimanche.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper.

  “They hunt in packs.”

  So Marsh had seen. She looked down at the farm dog.

  “Still want to eat me?” she asked, remembering the way it had come bounding out from the farmhouse, hackles up and barking.

  The dog gave her a look that bordered on disgust and walked through the door on the other side of the entry hall. Tamlin shook his head and laughed.

  “He probably wants you to feed him.”

  He stopped and cocked his head to one side.

  “I never asked you your name.”

  Marchant resisted the urge to accuse him of not caring. She was, after all, a good bit older than ten, and someone had to be the grown-up.

  “Marchant,” she said, “but most folks call me Marsh.”

  That wasn’t exactly true, but her uncle called her Marsh, and so did her cousins, and she’d feel weird if these kids used her full name—especially since it looked like she’d be the only family they’d have for a while. She gave Aisha a stern glare.

  “You need to stop chasing that puppy into every stupid problem it digs itself into,” she said. She meant both Scruff trying to face down the farm dog and the girl running outside to call the pup back in.

  The little girl looked her up and down and arched her eyebrow.

  “You chase after us,” she said and Marsh decided it would be better if she followed the dog.

  She was in no mood to argue with someone who was barely out of diapers, especially when they might actually have a point. She had chased after them to stick them on the mule, and who knows how much farther she’d have gotten if she hadn’t. Leaving the kids to decide whether they’d follow her, she headed through the door leading deeper into the house.

  6

  Farm Stay Host

  The dog had gone directly to the kitchen. He turned soulful eyes to Marsh as she followed him into the room.

  “Couldn’t let us get eaten by a pack of lizards, huh?” Marsh asked him. “What sort of a guard dog are you?

  He whined and scratched at one of the cupboard doors.

  “And now you want me to feed you.”

  It wasn’t a question, so Marsh opened the cupboard and found a bag holding cured meat mixed with solid balls of black and brown shrooms.

  “I can’t believe you actually like this stuff,” she grumbled, looking around for a bowl.

  It was sitting on the other side of the kitchen, near another door. This one had a locking bar, too. Marsh didn’t bother opening it, just slid the bar across. By the time she got back with the bowl, the dog already had his head in the cupboard and was eating straight from the bag.

  Marsh just looked at him and decided she was too tired to try pulling him out of it.

  “Fine. Serve yourself, then! It’s a good thing you’re not my dog.”

  The pup arrived. He bounded into the kitchen and stopped, lifting his muzzle and scenting the air, before bouncing over to the farm dog and putting his paws on the side of the bag, bumping the larger dog’s chin with the top of his head.

  “You’re game!” Marsh told him, as the big dog growled.

  But the pup would not be deterred. He backed off from the bag and whined, and the big dog stopped eating and snarled. The pup sat and whined once more, but the farm dog turned back to the bag and resumed eating. Marsh laid a hand on Aisha’s arm when the little girl went to intervene.

  “Let them work it out,” she said, in no mood to either break up a fight or clean up the mess that was sure to ensue.

  The pup bounced forward again and the big dog growled again, a low rumble that rolled across the kitchen floor, and raised goosebumps on Marsh’s arms. That was enough for Scruff. He sat back on his haunches and howled, and the big dog stopped, sighed, and pulled the bag out of the cupboard.

  Marsh groaned as the animal upended the bag and sent shroom balls and jerky rolling across the floor.

  “You’re cleaning that up,” she muttered, looking at Aisha.

  The little girl pouted, but she didn’t argue. She just changed the subject.

  “I’m hungry,” she said, and Marsh sighed just as loudly as the farm dog had.

  “Give me a minute,” she said, looking around the kitchen.

  If this had been the waystation, she would have known exactly where she needed to go. But in a stranger’s kitchen? She was just about to see what was behind the tall door in one corner when Aisha crossed to it.

  “Can you cook?” the little girl asked, and Marsh wondered if the child was six or going on sixteen.

  “Mais oui,” she replied.

  Of course she could cook. She didn’t want to, but she could if she had to. Tamlin seemed to read her mind.

  “I’ll cook,” he said, even though he didn’t look big enough to lift a skillet.

  “Mum makes us help when we hit ten,” he explained. “I can do stew.”

  Aisha made a face and looked imploringly at Marsh.

  “Pleeease cook.”

  Marsh shook her head and moved toward the door.

  “I’m going to make sure the joffra can’t get in,” she said, figuring the kids would be fine with the two dogs. “Stay in here.”

  Just as she got to the door, another thought struck her, and she fixed Tamlin with a stern glare.

  “And don’t burn the place down.”

  She wanted to add that she was pretty sure the joffra would eat them roasted just as well as they would eat them raw, but she didn’t have
the energy—and she didn’t want either of them working out she was lying. She wasn’t going to lock the place down.

  If it hadn’t been locked down, they’d have been joffra food already.

  She was going to see if the farmers were home and hiding, or well and truly gone.

  Her footsteps echoed over the stone floor as she made her way slowly through the house. There were five other rooms on the ground floor: a dining room with a table large enough to seat a dozen men, sleeping quarters with two three-tier bunks, another room for just sitting and talking from the looks of it, a bathroom with three wash bays and three privies, and a laundry with clothes soaking in two large tubs and sitting in a basket by another door.

  Figuring the door led outside, Marsh slid the locking bar in place. Maybe she hadn’t been lying after all. She studied the room and then headed back the way she’d come.

  The wash-bays in the bathroom were wet, and damp towels had been slung into a basket in one corner. The bunks in the other room had all been slept in, but two had covers that looked like they’d been hastily flung aside. The whole room smelt like a barracks. Whoever slept here hadn’t been gone for long.

  Marsh found a set of stairs leading up and followed them. The second floor was almost like the first but without a bathroom or laundry. It looked like the farmer and his family had made this their private domain, with slightly better-crafted furnishings in a master bedroom and two children’s rooms. They were empty, but Marsh felt like she was intruding. Again, there were signs the house was occupied or had been occupied not long ago, but not a single person in sight.

  A large office looked out over the cavern, clear rock covering two large windows that allowed a view. Leaning on the window ledge, Marsh caught sight of movement, her eyes drawn to the joffra exploring the grounds around the house, leaping onto boulders and raising their muzzles to scent the cavern air. The windows also gave a clear view of two orderly mushroom patches, both fenced in stone, and a field with a large closed building at one end.

  As she stared at it, Marsh saw one of the darkened slots lighten as though a curtain had been lifted. Beyond it shone what could have been the dull yellow glow of a lantern, but she couldn’t be sure. The curtain dropped, and the glow disappeared. Why would someone be hiding out in the barn?

  Marsh decided that was a problem for another day. As far as she could tell, the house was deserted when there should be someone inside.

  And the joffra couldn’t get in.

  With a sigh, she pushed off the ledge and made it back to the stairwell. As tempting as it was to collapse onto one of the beds up here, she couldn’t—although how long she would be able to resist the fatigue dragging at her limbs was difficult to judge. All she wanted to do was sleep. She’d taken two steps down when she heard something behind her.

  Marsh turned and saw nothing.

  Taking another careful step down and away from the opening leading into the passage, Marsh held her breath. When she was far enough down that she couldn’t be struck from around the corner, she stopped, listening in the dark, but the sound did not come again. After several heartbeats more, Marsh slowly made her way back to the kitchen.

  There was no stew.

  Instead, there were three plates with rough-cut sandwiches set on the kitchen table. The two dogs stretched out in front of the cold kitchen oven as though it would make a difference.

  “What happened?” Marsh asked.

  “Sandwiches were faster,” Tamlin told her, his face daring her to make a fuss about it.

  He cut a quick glance at his sister, but she returned a look of such fake innocence that neither he nor Marsh was comforted. Marsh decided sandwiches were enough and slid onto the bench on one side of the kitchen table.

  “Good job,” she said, lifting hers from the plate.

  They ate in silence for a while, Marsh enjoying the thick slabs of meat and cheese between the round-top shroom bread. Back at Kerrenin’s Ledge, they were experimenting with flour ground from grass seed, but she liked the earthier flavor of the shrooms. The cheese was a bitey dark orange, its nutty flavor a perfect complement to the richer smokiness of the meat. Both gave her a better idea of what was in the big building walling the open field.

  “So…” Tamlin broke the silence and Marsh looked toward him. “Did you find anyone?”

  And she sighed. She hadn’t fooled him for a second.

  “Might be in the other building,” she admitted, and he frowned at her.

  “What other building?”

  “The big one on the other side of the pasture.”

  “The barn?”

  Marsh shrugged. “Oui, if that is what it’s called.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. You called it a barn.”

  Now it was Tamlin’s turn to sigh. “No. How do you know there might be people there.”

  “Thought I saw a light.”

  “Well, they won’t come out while the joffra are around.”

  Marsh rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she snapped, realizing exhaustion was making her short-tempered. “Sorry. Need to sleep.”

  “Did you find beds?”

  “There are some upstairs,” Marsh told him and instantly regretted it.

  Upstairs, where she had thought she’d heard a noise.

  “There are some downstairs too,” she hastily amended. “We could use those instead. They’re closer to the bathroom.”

  But Tamlin had been watching her face, and he knew exactly what she was doing.

  “What?” he asked. “What happened upstairs?”

  Marsh took another bite of her sandwich, avoiding the question, but she knew Tamlin wasn’t going to let it go. He mirrored her, eating his sandwich, matching her bite for bite and chew for chew, making a point of it. It made her remember that no one did annoying like a ten-year-old. No one… and then her gaze fell on Aisha. Well, almost no one.

  “I thought I heard a sound,” Marsh answered and felt her face heat as she blushed.

  Now that she said it out loud, it sounded ridiculous.

  “You didn’t go see what it was?”

  “I thought I was hearing things.”

  Which was partly…well, mostly… Well, almost true.

  “You didn’t check?”

  Again with the sarcasm. Marsh glared at him.

  “Tired.”

  Tamlin glared back.

  “No excuse.”

  Marsh swallowed the last of her sandwich. The boy had a point, but she didn’t think she could take on a determined kitten, let alone anything bigger.

  “Let’s hole up in the kitchen,” she said. She thought he’d argue, but he didn’t.

  Instead, he studied her carefully before slipping off the bench with a nod and closing the kitchen door.

  “I’ll light the fire.”

  “Sure, kid. You do that,” Marsh told him, but tiredness rolled over her in a dizzying wave and she closed her eyes.

  It was meant to only be for a moment, but there was a skillet on the oven top and the smell of meat frying when she woke. Marsh opened her eyes all the way and realized she’d gone to sleep propped between the wall and the table. The kitchen was warm, and Tamlin looked up at her from beside the stove.

  “Feeling better?” he asked and continued when she nodded. “Joffra are gone.”

  “How do you know?”

  He waved a hand at the unbolted kitchen door.

  “Dogs needed to go outside.”

  “And you just opened the door?”

  “They wouldn’t have gone if the joffra were still there—and they’d made enough of a mess.”

  He waved a hand and Marchant followed the gesture. Aisha was sitting in the middle of the spilled dog food, casting rebellious glances at her brother as she slowly picked it up piece by piece. Marsh pushed out of her chair and looked into the pan.

  “Any eggs?”

  Tamlin shrugged.

  “Might be some out in the barn.�
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  Hearing the stress on the last word, Marsh gave him a look. He was smirking but pretending to focus on the pan, so she decided to let it slide.

  “Let me deal with whatever might be upstairs first.”

  She adjusted her sword and belt and unblocked the door.

  “Nice idea,” she said, pushing the box aside, then hesitating.

  Tamlin glared at her when she looked back at him.

  “I know,” he grumbled, waving the spatula in her general direction. “Don’t burn the place down.”

  Marsh was grinning as she went back into the corridor, drawing the door closed behind her. She let her grin fade as she tried to work out what to do next. First things first. She needed to check out the sound upstairs, although if it was a person who lived here, they’d probably be needing to visit the bathroom.

  It reminded her that she needed to do the same, so she moved carefully in that direction, checking through each of the rooms on the way. As soon as she was sure each one was clear, she pulled the door closed and moved on to the next. It didn’t take her long to go through the laundry and then head into the bathroom.

  It was almost disappointing to find it empty, and she did what she needed before heading upstairs. This time she paused before she hit the top of the stairs, listening carefully before sliding around the corner. She thought about drawing her sword but decided against it. If someone was up here, they were doing their best to stay out of sight, and probably not planning on coming down until she and the kids had left.

  Well, too bad, Marsh thought. I need to know what happened.

  And that meant she needed to find whoever or whatever had made the sound the night before. She eased down the corridor, her head in constant motion as she kept glancing over her shoulder to keep an eye on the stretch of hall behind her, even as she tried to watch where she was going.

  The office was empty, and nothing moved in the cavern beyond. Marchant was both pleased and very relieved to see that the glows still lit the trail leading out of the cavern. After checking under the desk and in the cupboards she left the room, closing the door behind her. She hoped whatever had made the sound had stayed hidden and not snuck down the stairs while she’d been in the office.