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

  He drove his dagger into the side of its neck and whipped his sword around to thrust up and through its chest, kicking it off his blades as it fell. As soon as it was clear, he turned on the next nearest monster. There were four, all vying for strikes at Gerry and Henri, who were fighting back to back.

  “Not much good to you,” Henri panted, parrying a deadly set of claws with his sword even as he blocked a bite with his shield.

  “Just. Keep. It busy,” Gerry managed, mirroring Henri’s moves without being aware of them.

  The shadow guard had managed to conjure a shield and sword, but the monster he was facing looked like it had taken on guards before. Marsh cursed, trying to finish the horror she’d injured. Her second strike drew it away from Roeglin’s side and directly onto her, and she managed to get under the guard of its claws to punch her dagger up into its heart.

  It died with an agonized squeal and flailing claws, but Marsh was already turning away, blocking its death throes with her shield as she stepped around to take out the nightmare keeping Roeglin’s shield arm busy. As she reached it, Mordan appeared again, slamming into the shadow monster occupying Roeglin’s sword and driving the beast to the ground.

  Marsh wondered how the kat was even connecting with the monsters, then noticed that Mordan’s claws had taken on a smoky hue and her teeth gleamed less brightly than she remembered. It was a view that vanished quickly, however, as the kat sank her fangs into the shadow monster, her jaws met by a hastily upflung arm.

  That wasn’t the end of it, however, and the two of them tumbled into the nearby shrooms in a frenzy of flailing claws and teeth. Marsh was worried for the kat, but she had problems of her own. Her target had turned away from Roeglin’s shield and was trying to stretch its reach beyond her guard.

  This one seemed more flexible than most, and Marsh countered multiple strikes that reminded her more of an attacking snake than a clawed arm. The strikes stopped when Roeglin brought his blade into play, spilling the monster’s intestines on the cavern floor.

  “I’m not sleeping here when we’re done,” Marsh managed as the sight and smell hit her, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  Jakob was shouting as he tried to draw the attention of one of the beasts away from Zeb’s fallen body. Marsh looked up in time to see him lash out with a boot, trying to push it off the man, but the shadow monster would not be deterred. Marsh raced toward them as the creature stretched its jaws impossibly wide and bent to bite off the shadow guard’s head.

  There was no time for finesse or calculation. Marsh hit it side-on, slamming her shield into its ribs and her sword into its side as she arrived and then tumbling over it as her momentum pushed her forward. As she fell, she realized she’d lost her shadow form and was relying on her very human bulk and speed—and she didn’t have much of either.

  This time, it didn’t matter. As the shadow monster twisted and screamed beneath her, Jakob brought his sword down and severed its head from its body, then turned back to take on the next beast that thought Zeb might make a good meal. Marsh struggled to her feet, dragging her sword from the shadow monster’s body as she looked for her next target.

  To her relief, the odds had evened out, and as she watched, they turned in the group’s favor as Roeglin, Clarinay, and Gerry finished a monster each. Marsh looked for bodies and discovered that the monsters dissipated into the darker corners of the cavern. It crossed her mind that they might reform, but she shoved the thought away. So far, there had been no reports of that happening.

  As she looked for an opening to join the battle, another two shadow monsters went down, and she realized she wasn’t needed. All she could really do was to make sure nothing broke away and attacked Zeb.

  Good idea, Roeglin managed, deflecting a clawed strike with his shield and jamming his sword into another shadow beast’s gut before ripping up and back.

  The beast roared as he pulled the blade free, and it roared again as he followed the move with a sword stroke that sliced across its biceps and chest. If humans had come from shadow, she might almost believe the shadow monsters were once men.

  Roeglin was silent on that one, but that was because he’d garnered the attention of the next shadow monster, saving Clarinay from what might have been a nasty fight. Marsh turned away, scanning the perimeter of the campsite and sending her senses out into the cavern. She wondered what a shadow monster might look like as just a life force moving through the dark and took a moment to find out.

  The ones closest to her looked like boiling masses of purple and black flame, in contrast to the red and yellow of the humans they fought. With that image in her mind, Marsh let her senses float through the cavern, seeking any more human or shadow monster lives. She didn’t find any, although she came across Mordanlenoowar drinking at the edge of the pool.

  The kat’s life force glowed strongly, so Marsh moved on. When her scan revealed nothing, she thought she’d ask the shadows and see if there was anything concealed in their depths that she had missed. She sent her query through the cavern, teasing the shadow threads closest to her with the question.

  She came up with nothing save the faint sense of something having passed from the cavern into the tunnel leading to the junction where the trail to Ariella’s Grotto met the turnoff to the shadow mage monastery. It was just a tremor, nothing more—and, no matter how much she worried at the threads, a tremble was all she got.

  8

  Shelter from the Shadows

  With a sigh, Marsh let the shadow threads go and opened her eyes.

  “So much for looking out for Zeb,” Roeglin said, his face so close to hers that she could feel the warmth of his skin.

  Marsh gave a yelp of surprise and stumbled back, tripping over Zeb’s prone form and falling. She’d have landed on him, compounding whatever injury had laid him out, if Henri, Gustav, and Clarinay hadn’t grabbed her and pulled her upright.

  “Thanks,” she said, her face blazing scarlet. She looked Roeglin straight in the eye. “I scanned the cavern looking for life forces as well as what the shadows could tell me, and it’s empty, save for some tremors along the trail leading back to the junction. You’ll need to warn Master Envermet he’s going to have company. Zeb was perfectly safe.”

  Clarinay gave a low whistle, Gustav’s eyebrows hit his hairline, and sudden tiredness swept over Marsh, making her sway. Jakob was staring at the dark-touched blade in his hand, seemingly unaware of anyone around him. Marsh was about to comment on that when the sudden flare of white as Roeglin contacted Tamlin caught her eye. She focused on it, using it as an anchor to keep herself upright.

  “And we need to find another campsite, because I’m not sleeping here…Master.”

  Marsh didn’t let herself stop, but turned back to the trail and headed in the opposite direction from where she’d felt the trembling sensation of someone’s passage. As much as she wanted to pursue it, she had to take a message to Monsieur Gravine, and she had to do it fast. The incursion they’d just faced proved that.

  They really didn’t have time to sleep…or to stop. They had to… She heard a flurry of movement behind her, and Roeglin’s voice in her head.

  Trainee Leclerc!

  Marsh kept walking. She was sure the trail wasn’t empty; she was sure there had to be someone living along it—a prospector, a farm, a… Surely the damn mage knew of somewhere! He was supposed to be the Wanderer.

  Whatever that was.

  “I’ll tell you about it one day,” Roeglin answered, coming alongside her and laying an arm over her shoulders.

  At least he didn’t try to stop her.

  “To answer your question, a prospector lives about five miles down the next side trail. He’ll just be waking when we arrive. If we wait for him to come out, he might lend us his hut for the day.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  “One of us might get shot with a crossbow bolt.”

  Marsh almost stopped but forced herself to keep going. A cabin, right? It was be
tter than spending a night in a gut-soaked cavern that raiders were using as a thoroughfare. If Roeglin caught the hitch in her stride he didn’t comment, just matched her step for step and pointed out the turnoff when she would have missed it.

  Clarinay surprised her by materializing out of the shadows ahead of them.

  “The road ahead is clear,” he said, and then, catching Marsh’s look, he continued, “You’re in no condition to scout tonight.”

  The surety in his words was almost enough to have Marsh protesting that she was more than able to scout, but she knew she wasn’t. She was exhausted, and the new use of her shadow magic, the battle, and the search for danger as the others had ended the fight had taken more out of her than she’d realized.

  Rather than respond, she kept her silence and watched as Clarinay faded into a background of stone.

  “Keep going,” Roeglin said. “We all need the rest, and stopping’s not a good idea.”

  “I don’t know, boy,” Gustav teased. “Henri, Jakob, and me? We’re fine.”

  “That’s why you’re carrying Zeb,” Roeglin retorted.

  They were? The shadow mage moved down the trail, taking Marsh with him. Five miles had never seemed so long in all her life, and what they found when they arrived was not what they’d hoped for.

  For one thing, it was quiet; far quieter than it should have been. Beyond the lack of movement in the hut or the yard, there was no smoke coming from the small chimney. Roeglin came to an abrupt halt, his sudden stop echoed by those behind him. When Clarinay had emerged from the side of the path and told them the claim was quiet, they’d thought nothing of it, given the early hour.

  Now, though…

  They all stared at the small cottage in the center of the clearing. It was close to the back wall of the cavern. The low ceiling billowed and wavered to the right before dipping toward the floor in a wall of blackness. Worst of all, the door hung open, and silence reigned.

  Roeglin lifted his arm from behind Marsh’s neck and stepped forward, drawing his sword.

  “Wait with Zeb,” Roeglin ordered, and Marsh heard the command in his voice—and the unspoken warning.

  This time, she’d better not try shadow-fishing or looking for life signs around the cavern. Well, that was fine with her. She’d be lucky to keep her eyes open until he got back. She turned around in time for Henri and Jakob to slide Zeb’s arm over her shoulders and make sure she had a good grip on the man’s waist. To her surprise, Zeb was conscious.

  “I can stand on my own, you know,” he said, and tried to push himself upright.

  “Uh huh,” Marsh said a moment later when they landed in a heap on the ground. “Tell me how that works for you.”

  The look he gave her might have been lethal if he hadn’t given up and started to smile.

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah. I’ll keep watch; you’re a mess,” Marsh told him, and got to her feet…or tried to.

  She really had overdone it, and found herself sitting on her ass beside Zeb, trying not to meet his eye. He reached over and nudged her in the ribs.

  “So,” he quipped, “tell me how that works for you.”

  Marsh opened her mouth to tell him what he could do with himself, but Roeglin emerged from the cabin, his brow furrowed with concern. He glared when he saw them sitting propped against each other.

  “Honestly, I can’t leave either of you on your own. Get up.”

  Marsh twisted her head to catch Zeb’s stare, and they both rolled their eyes. In the end, it was Zeb who replied.

  “We’re sorry, Master Leger, but getting up is beyond us right now.”

  “And what were you going to do if you were attacked?”

  “You were the one who thought it was a good idea to leave us out here unprotected,” Marsh snapped, and Mordan gave a soft growl of concern.

  “I left you with the kat,” Roeglin protested. “You’d have been fine. Come on, get your asses off the ground.”

  He crossed to help Zeb to his feet. Marsh followed his progress as he hauled the shadow guard off the ground and bit back the urge to protest. The man had a point. She could damn well do this on her own…

  Okay, she decided, a few moments later. I can do this with Mordan’s help.

  Roeglin led the way into the hut, half-carrying and half-supporting Zeb as he went. Marsh followed, leaning on Mordan and resisting the urge to collapse again. Tiredness weighed like lead along her limbs and the cavern spun, so she closed her eyes and used Mordan’s sure progress as a guide. Even so, she was glad when Roeglin returned and helped her up the steps.

  “Time to sleep,” he told her, and barred the door as soon as Mordan had made it inside. “For all of us.”

  “What happened to the prospector?” Marsh asked, but her eyes stayed closed and her words were slurred. It was a question Roeglin answered after she had woken up and was wolfing down a shroom loaf stuffed with cheese.

  She was chasing it with a cup of kaffee, hot and sweet but black as tar. Not what she wanted, but better than water—and it was waking her up much faster than she’d have managed on her own.

  “So, where’s this prospector?” she asked, repeating her question of the morning before, “And how long have we slept?”

  “Gone, and too long,” Roeglin answered. “You up for a bit of a run?”

  She raised her cup and her shroom loaf.

  “When I’m done here. Can we make up the time?”

  “Have to. We—” Roeglin stopped, raising his hand for silence as the others around them stirred.

  Outside, they heard the clatter as a bucket toppled over onto its side and then the swift skitter of claws trotting over stone. Marsh took a soft breath and slowly let it out, listening for another clue, and when Mordan raised her head, tilting it this way and that, Marsh had a better idea how to find out what sort of creatures were outside.

  Closing her eyes, she drew another long, slow breath and, this time when she let it out, she sent her senses outwards with it. It was not the same as asking the shadows, but it gave her a sense of size and number, and then she asked the shadow thread to show her what creatures they could see in the darkness beyond.

  Their reply made her heart sink, and she relayed it to the others.

  “Joffra? Are you sure?” Roeglin asked, and it was Marsh’s turn to raise her hand for silence as she shook her head.

  Around them, the guards shifted their feet and then leaned against walls or seated themselves on the floor. When they were settled, Marsh reached out to the shadows, asking them to confirm what sort of creatures shared them. Only a few answered, and these stretched beneath the door and out onto the narrow porch where several of the creatures wandered curiously about, snuffing along the bottom of the door, and cocking their heads so they could see in the windows.

  At first glance, they looked like oversized chickens, but that wasn’t right. Their heads lacked the beak of a bird, and they had two short forearms tucked before them. None of them had feathers, either. They were either very bald chickens or lizards like the joffra, except they ran around on two legs and not four. One of them lifted its head and gave a curious chirruping call.

  “No idea,” Marsh said. “Never seen the lizard-chicken things before. They’re not joffra.”

  Henri rolled his eyes.

  “They’re shroom walkers. We used to get them out on the farm. Death on rats and house pets, but not a threat to humans unless you were too injured to defend yourself. Guess they smelled the blood.”

  Roeglin picked up a dish that was sitting on a bench near a small hand tub.

  “Or they were looking for scraps.”

  Marsh didn’t want to know what was inside the bowl; what was crusted on the outside looked bad enough.

  “They used to stay away from the house, though,” Henri added. “Avoided humans like the plague.”

  “Maybe there hasn’t been a human around here for a while,” Roeglin suggested, looking into the bowl as he set it back on the bench and wri
nkling his nose in disgust. “Pieter didn’t have a lot of crockery. Doesn’t make sense that he’d let things get into this state by choice.”

  “You think he’s been taken?” Gustav asked, throwing a quick glance toward Marsh.

  Roeglin looked around the cabin as though ticking things off on a list as he spoke.

  “Food on the table. No resident. Nothing was stolen, not even his savings.” He nodded toward a small biscuit jar on a shelf above a stove. “It sounds exactly like the waystation Marchant described.”

  “And Downslopes,” Marsh added, and caught the looks on their faces. “Long time ago, there used to be a waystation on the hillside below Kerrenin’s Ledge. Last I heard it was empty. People who set it up disappeared, but everything was left in place.”

  “Someone you knew?” Roeglin asked.

  Marsh found a loose thread on her sleeve, pulling on it as she answered. “My parents. I was staying with my uncle when it happened.”

  Gustav gave a low whistle, and Roeglin put into the open what they were all thinking.

  “These raiders have been around for a while, then.”

  Before anyone could add anything, a sudden flurry of movement erupted just beyond the door. It was accompanied by several loud alarm calls, squawks, whistles, and the sound of scattering feet.

  “Marsh?”

  Roeglin didn’t have to tell her what he wanted to know. Marsh could guess. She tweaked the shadows, blending them in her search for the life force behind that disturbance. What she found had her recoiling from the door.

  “Centipede,” she whispered, and they froze. All except for Jakob, who quietly pulled the thin blanket from the bed set in the corner of the room. Crushing it into a ball, he tossed the cloth to Roeglin and pointed to the door. Outside, they heard the clatter of a myriad of hard-toed feet scurrying along the porch.

  Roeglin’s eyes flashed white, as though he was asking the guard what he was supposed to do with the blanket, then hurried to press it along the bottom of the door. Before he could say anything, Jakob raised his finger to his lips, and they waited. When the skitter of claws could no longer be heard, he nudged Marsh with the toe of his boot and tilted his chin toward the door.