The first of the children’s rooms yielded nothing, and the second one was just as empty. Both had a few toys made of stone and cloth and several small volumes of books on the shelves set between the beds. Marsh guessed there were about five children in all—or there had been before whatever had happened here. She figured farmers went for large families if these guys and Tamlin and Aisha’s parents were anything to go by.
It made sense; there was a lot of work that needed to be done around a farm—and children were a lot cheaper than hiring labor. More loyal too, mostly.
That didn’t matter, though. What was most important was that she find the source of last night’s sound… and discover what had happened here. After that, she was going to head out to the barn to see who had been responsible for the lantern the night before.
Once she’d looked under the beds and in the closets, Marsh moved toward the last room on the floor. Her ears strained as she listened for any sound that would tell her she was not alone, but she didn’t hear a thing. She felt like an intruder as she stepped cautiously over the threshold of the master bedroom. Leaving the door deliberately open behind her, she turned first toward the closet.
It was quite deep but easy to inspect. Not many clothes hung within.
And it was empty of life.
Marsh turned away, closing it behind her. As she came around to face the bed, she was sure she heard a sound, just the softest whisper of movement from somewhere across the room. She froze, and the sound faded. After a minute of waiting in the dark, Marsh took a step toward the bed.
No sound greeted her.
She took another step.
Still no sound.
She crouched parallel with the bed, and something desperately scampered away from her. Instead of trying to reach under the bed, Marsh bounded over it, catching hold of the small form emerging from the other side. It twisted and shouted in her grasp, but she didn’t let go.
“Stop!” she said. “Stop! I’m not going to hurt you. Stop!”
The form didn’t stop, trying to pull free with such force that it nearly succeeded. As it slipped from her fingers, Marsh made a sudden lunge toward it, wrapping her arms around it and tumbling them both to the floor. The impact as they landed on the stone jarred through her, but the child she’d captured stopped moving.
For a moment, she thought she’d killed her.
“Are you all right?” she asked, shaking the kid. “Hey. You good?”
The person responded by punching her in the chest.
That might have hurt, except they were wrapped too close together and the kid didn’t have enough space to get a good wind-up.
“Get off me! I’m not going anywhere with you! Get—”
Marsh cut her off before she could go any further.
“I’m not taking you anywhere! I just want to know what happened. Okay?”
When the girl stared at her, Marsh shook her just a little.
“Bon?”
“Not taking me away?”
Marsh shook her head.
“You’re not one of them?”
Again, Marsh shook her head. The girl looked confused.
“Then why are you here?”
Marsh pushed herself up and onto her feet and reached down to offer the kid a hand. Warily, the girl took it.
“Long story,” Marsh told her, helping her up. “You want breakfast?”
7
Feeding Time at the Farm
“Who’s that?” Tamlin demanded when he saw the girl.
“Who d’you think?” the girl snapped back, crossing the kitchen like she owned the place and taking the spatula from his hand. “Fetch me the eggs.”
Tamlin stared at her and she waved the spatula at him, pointing to a stone cupboard on the other side of the kitchen.
“The eggs!”
He looked at Marsh for an explanation, but Marsh only shrugged and indicated he should check the stone cupboard for eggs. It didn’t take them long to be sitting around the table eating breakfast, the girl having won Aisha’s friendship with the first bite.
“You cook better than Tams,” the little girl said, and the older girl shrugged responding coolly.
“I’m thirteen,” she said as though that was all the explanation needed.
Tamlin scowled and focused on his plate.
Marsh waited until they’d eaten before she asked, “What happened here?”
The girl raised her head and then stood, gathering the plates from the table. Lifting the kettle she’d set to boil on the stovetop, she filled the sink with hot water. Only then did she explain.
“They came yesterday, late in the day cycle,” she said. “There were a half-dozen men, but three of them were mages and they commanded the shadow. Mama was putting away the laundry when she saw them coming, and she told me to hide. I wanted her to hide too, but she had to find Tory and Curt. I hid. I don’t know what happened to them.” The girl’s words stuttered to a halt, and her fingers fumbled in the water. “I heard fighting, then everything went quiet.”
She stopped until Tamlin and Aisha stirred restlessly at the table.
Marsh was going to tell them to be quiet, but the girl started at their movements and kept speaking.
“When Hugo started barking… Well, I thought they had come back, so I hid again.”
She pulled another plate from the water and set it with the rest of the clean crockery.
“You know the rest.”
Wiping her hands on her dress, she turned to face them.
“When you’re done, wash your plates. I need to look after the animals.” Before Marsh could call her back, she walked out the back door.
“Tamlin…” Marsh began. The boy finished the sentence for her.
“I know, wash the dishes and mind your sister. You’ll find us when you’re done.”
From the sound of it, he’d heard those words before, although not from her. There really wasn’t a lot she could say.
“Thank you.”
Marchant hurried out the door after the girl, catching up with her when she stopped to open the gate to the field. Neither of them said anything as they crossed to the barn.
“It’s locked on the inside!” the girl exclaimed, and Marsh backed up a step to look the stone structure over.
One thing she had learned from talking to retrieval experts and other adventurers was that there were more ways than one into a building. It didn’t take her long to spot the smaller door at the other end of the barn or to find that whoever had lit the lantern last night hadn’t been as careful as they thought.
“This way,” she said, pushing it open. “I saw a lamp in here last night. Maybe your mother was able to hide.”
“Well, if she had, the animals would be fed,” the girl retorted and picked up a bucket, which she filled from one of the feed bins in a small stone-lined chamber, “and they’re not.”
From the way she moved, Marsh could see she was determined to wrench some sense of normalcy from doing the daily chores. The thing was, Marsh didn’t think they had time for it. The raiders could return, or the mages could come and remove the glows, or…
“We have to go,” she said, grabbing the girl’s wrist as she returned to refill the bucket.
The girl shook her head.
“Moutons need feeding.”
“You can’t stay here on your own.”
“Have to. Someone’s got to look after the farm.”
Marsh was about to argue the point when Tamlin and Aisha arrived, Hugo and Scruffknuckle on their heels.
“Girl’s got a point,” Tamlin said, picking up a bucket and filling it. “Animals need feeding.”
“Girl’s got a name, too.”
“Girl should introduce herself, then.”
“Fine!” The girl finished slamming scoops of dried shroom into the bucket and shoved it against Tamlin’s chest. “Eveline. Got it?”
“Sure thing, Ev,” Tamlin teased, stepping swiftly out of arm’s reach before taking the
bucket farther into the barn.
Marsh registered the hungry animals’ urgent bleating. It sounded like there were hundreds of sheep waiting to be fed. From the size of the barn, it couldn’t be that many, but still…
“Bon. You three get them fed, and I will see if I can find who was staying here last night. Maybe they are still here.”
The girl did not answer, just took the two extra buckets she had filled and hurried off to feed the animals. Marsh looked around, noting the ladder leading to the upper level, and wondered if that was where the chickens were kept. If it was, she’d better be quick, or Eveline would have her collecting the eggs—and she didn’t want to spend any more time in the cavern than she had to.
She had to get the kids to Ruins Hall. She had to deliver Kearick’s package, and she had to warn the caravans at the settlement that the glows were down and the trail to Kerrenin’s Ledge was compromised. She really didn’t have time for this!
Of course, she didn’t have time to drag a farm girl kicking and screaming from her home either, which only meant she had to do things faster because Eveline was going with them whether she wanted to or not—and it would be easier if she wanted to. Keeping the need for haste firmly in her mind, Marsh reached the top of the ladder and looked around the loft, blinking against the sudden brightness of the single glow.
Eyes watering, it took her a couple of heartbeats to adjust to the glare. She’d forgotten that chickens needed more than the soft luminescence of glow moss or mushrooms in order to thrive. Once her eyes had adjusted, she looked around.
“Shadow’s Heart, there must be a hundred chickens in here!” she murmured, wondering just what it was going to take to convince Eveline to leave.
She couldn’t leave the girl here. Not alone.
Maybe she didn’t have to.
Marsh turned slowly on the spot, taking in the laying roosts and the gate leading to the chicken run beyond. Someone had gone to a lot of work to make sure the birds stayed fed and happy. By the looks of it, the farm had started with the idea of keeping the waystation up the road well supplied.
The waystation! Marsh had forgotten about it. Now that she’d remembered it was there, she knew she had to at least walk through it to see if anyone else had managed to stay out of the raiders’ reach.
“Merde.”
Taking a deep breath, she went to the gate leading to the chicken’s enclosure. It opened to a small double-gated space, and she made sure to close the first gate before opening the next. The very last thing she wanted was to have to get a hundred chickens back into their pen—not that they’d want to leave in the first place.
After stepping through the second gate and securing it, Marsh let her gaze travel over the enclosure and gave a long, low whistle. Shrooms and lichens grew from every wall, interspersed by every kind of moss the creatures loved to eat. Boulders and rocks poked out of the floor, providing places for them to perch and more surfaces for their favorite foods. It was amazing that the floor hadn’t collapsed under the weight.
Marsh recalled the angle of the ladder and noted which way the chicken run had been built, taking only a moment to realize that the enclosure had been carved from the cavern walls.
“Very nice!”
Moving swiftly around the well-appointed space, she didn’t take long to confirm the chickens were the only ones in residence, or that they’d be fine without human care. Maybe convincing Eveline to leave wouldn’t be as hard as she’d imagined. She wondered if the moutons had a similar space at the back of the barn, or if there was another level above the woolly creatures’ pens.
She couldn’t find a single door leading anywhere else, not in the length of the enclosure or in the egg collection area. There was no other way out that she could see.
Leaving the chickens to their clucking and scratching, Marsh left the enclosure, making very sure not to let any of the feathered monsters out with her. It wasn’t that she was worried about what Eveline would say; she just didn’t want to deal with another snot-nosed child today.
Unfortunately, the children had other ideas.
“I’m not going!” Eveline declared, not quite stamping her foot when Marsh told her she was returning to Ruins Hall with them. “Someone has to stay with the animals!”
Said with all the conviction of a thirteen-year-old, the statement had the finality of prophecy—and Marchant wasn’t going to let it stand.
“I won’t leave you here alone!”
But the girl wouldn’t be moved.
“Then you’re going to be here an awfully long time.”
“Can’t. I have business to attend.”
“So do I.”
That took the wind out of Marsh’s sails. They’d made it out of the barn, the girl opening the doors to let the moutons into the field. To get back to the gate, they had to work their way through a herd of woolly bodies, every one of which seemed intent on getting as underfoot as possible. By the time they made it to the gates, Marsh had seen all the moutons she wanted to encounter for the rest of her life.
“At least come back with us so we can get help out here,” she finally said. “They might not believe me, but they know you live here, right?”
Eveline nodded.
“So they’re likely to come out if you ask.”
Eveline’s face went serious, but she still refused to commit.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, and Marsh decided to give her a little more time to consider the idea.
“Bon,” she said. “I have to see if there’s anyone left at the waystation. You coming? They’ll need to see a familiar face.”
Eveline gave a deep sigh.
“Fine.”
Tamlin and Aisha followed them, Aisha keeping one small hand firmly entwined in Scruffknuckle’s fur even though the pup whined to be allowed to chase after Hugo. The big farm dog bounded on ahead as though he knew where they were going. Marsh watched him closely, remembering the joffra from the night before and knowing he’d give the earliest warning they could hope for. She only hoped it wasn’t when they were halfway between the station and the farm, because that would be bad.
She didn’t have to worry.
Hugo led the way, bounding ahead to check the trail and the ground on either side and then bounding back to nudge Eveline’s hand. He completely ignored Marchant, Tamlin, and Aisha, who were walking behind Eveline, except to occasionally come over and nudge Scruff.
Each time he did, the pup would look up at Aisha and whine pleadingly, and each time Aisha would fix the krypthund puppy with a firm stare.
“No,” she’d say, and Hugo would bound away, the pup staring forlornly at his retreating form.
Marsh kept a close eye on Eveline. The Shadows knew the girl had experienced enough shocks to cripple someone older—and the same went for the other two—but none of them seemed to be reacting to what had happened. Tamlin and Aisha held hands, sure, but neither of them cried for their parents, and Ev didn’t either. She kept walking, setting a fast pace toward the waystation’s walls and not looking back.
When she raised a hand as though wiping her cheek, Marchant pretended not to notice. If the girl wanted to keep her tears a secret, who was she to break the illusion? She was glad when neither Tamlin nor his sister chose to comment, and gladder still when they reached the waystation’s gates.
These were closed, but not barred or locked. The four of them put their hands on them and pushed, and the gates opened beneath their palms. Once they reached the other side, they all turned and pushed the gates closed again, lifting the locking bar in unison to drop it into place. The cavern might seem safe and quiet, but none of them had forgotten the raiders, and the joffra would not be far away.
Instead of splitting up, they stayed together, the children checking under beds and opening cupboards while Marsh led the way into every room and up or down every set of stairs. In less than a full turn of the hourglass, they had been through the station proper and found no one.
“We n
eed to leave,” Marsh said, and Eveline nodded.
“Can we stop at the farm first? I need to pack a few things.”
Marsh wanted to tell her no, although she was glad the girl had decided to go with them. She wanted to get them out of the cavern and on the road long before the night cycle began and the joffra decided to check for stragglers. But she didn’t. Instead, she nodded, accepting that they might have to spend one more night at the farmhouse. At least she could sleep in one of the beds.
The thought wasn’t much comfort against the urgent restlessness she felt. The raiders had come and gone and left everything in its place. They hadn’t touched a single item of value, from the money they’d found in the station master’s office to the mules she and the children had fed and watered in the station’s stables.
“We should let them loose,” Marsh said, but Eveline had disagreed.
“We leave them out in the cavern,” the girl had told her, “and the joffra will eat them inside a day. Just give them enough feed for me to get to Ruins Hall and back. I’ve got the merchants’ names.”
And she did.
Marsh had shown them how to work out which caravan had stopped the night of the raid, and how many travelers had arrived, and where their animals were kept. When they’d checked the rooms, the traders and travelers were gone, but their belongings were not. The whole scenario had reminded Marsh of the stories told about Downslopes and her parents’ disappearance.
They’d set up the waystation a day’s journey over the surface below Kerrenin’s Ledge—and their station had been found in exactly the same condition as the one she’d just walked through. The memory sent a chill down Marsh’s spine, and she’d been glad to push the waystation’s gates closed behind them and wedge them shut with stones gathered from the edge of the path.
Eveline insisted on putting the moutons back in the barn as they passed the field. Of course, she did. As her chances of leaving that day diminished, Marsh helped the girl add extra feed to the animals’ troughs and ensure the water pipes flowed freely. Hugo started getting restless as they left the field behind them, the barn securely locked and the moutons content.
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 Page 6