They could be that precise, couldn’t they?
I think so, Roeglin intruded. It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise.
And there was the reason she was trying not to think of what she needed to do next.
And what is that? Roeglin wanted to know, and Marsh turned her head to scowl at him, completely ignoring the sudden interest on Monsieur Gravine’s face.
“Sleep!” she murmured, and it wasn’t far from the truth.
The founder responded as though she had spoken to him.
“An excellent idea, Mademoiselle Leclerc. We all need to rest. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day, and with an early start, if I’m not mistaken. I will have the stewards escort you to your quarters.”
Marsh blushed.
“I’m sorry, Monsieur; I did not mean to be rude.”
He waved her apology aside.
“No need to apologize. You raised a good point.” He made a show of stifling a yawn. “And I am tired too. I will see you all in the morning.”
Whether that last was a polite farewell or firm order, Marsh couldn’t tell, but she’d treat it as the latter. She would make sure to meet him again in the morning.
Good to know, Roeglin told her as he rose from his seat, following Monsieur Gravine’s gesture to where the stewards were waiting.
“Sleep well,” he said, and Marsh joined in with the murmured replies wishing him equal fortune in finding rest.
11
Slipping the Leash
Marsh ended up sharing a room with Izmay, but she didn’t complain. The female shadow guard seemed friendly enough behind the veneer of distance she maintained. She lounged against the door as Marsh washed up, catching the trainee’s look of unease with a slight upward quirk of her lips.
“I’m supposed to watch you until you’re asleep,” she admitted. “Roeglin said so.”
“Nice.” It wasn’t hard for Marsh to sound disgusted at the idea.
Marsh decided wringing Roeglin’s neck might not be out of the question. She didn’t say so, though. Instead, she raised her hands in mock surrender, then shucked her armor, boots, and blades and slid between the clean sheets of the lower bunk.
“Night, Mama.”
Izmay flashed her a smile and crossed over to lean on the top bunk and look into Marsh’s face.
“If you were any kid of mine, I’da tanned your hide by now.”
Marsh pulled a face and rolled over on her side, putting her back to the room.
“It’s a good thing I’m not, then, isn’t it?” she muttered, feeling childishly defiant.
I wonder if this is what it’s like for Aisha, she thought, closing her eyes and letting her breathing even out. She also wondered how Mordanlenoowar was faring. The big kat had vanished into the shrooms and shadows when the squad had taken them in tow on the other side of Ruins Hall, and Marsh hadn’t seen her since.
She tugged at the shadows close by, asking them for news of the kat, but not a single one of them trembled. It was like none of the shadows around her connected with the cavern outside the walls. Marsh sighed and tried to use her ability to sense life forces to detect where the kat might be, but all she got was a sense of thick walls and muffled flames, then nothing.
The very density of the walls interfered, similar to the way the cavern walls divided the outside world into compartments. Marsh sighed, thinking she shouldn’t have been surprised that Monsieur Gravine’s mansion walls acted in the same way. Forcing herself to relax, she listened as Izmay finished her evening’s ablutions and climbed into the bunk above.
Then Marsh waited some more.
She was tired from the long day’s run, but she knew she had to reach Madame Monetti while the woman was unprepared…if the woman was ever unprepared. Marsh’s mind flitted back to her time working for Kearick. She doubted there’d ever been a time when the wily old businessman had been unprepared.
Ever.
It made it hard to stay relaxed. It should have made it impossible to sleep.
But it didn’t.
Marsh woke to the sound of Izmay pulling her armor on as quietly as she could. The woman started when Marsh rolled over.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
“Merde!”
Izmay grinned.
“What? Slept in?”
Marsh scowled at her and swung her feet over the edge of the bed.
“You could say that,” she grumbled, and set about getting dressed.
Izmay laughed.
“The master said you’d be unimpressed.”
“Roeglin?”
What did he know about her sleeping in?
“Yeah, but he also said you needed the sleep.”
He had? Wait, what had he done?
Marsh rammed her arm through her sleeve and jerked her boots onto her feet.
If that dirty mind-crawling pain-in-the-ass had tampered with her head, she was going to take large, hairy pieces out of his hide!
A polite knock at the door interrupted her thoughts, and Izmay gave her a cursory glance before answering it.
Good thing I’m dressed, Marsh thought.
“I’m to take you to the dining hall.”
The child standing at their doorway couldn’t have been any older than Aisha, and her dark eyes were wide with awe as she took in their armor and swords. Marsh could almost see the thought crossing her fuzzy little head: When I grow up, I’m going to be just like them!
Oh, no, kid, she thought. Not like me. Be something better.
But she didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she focused on finishing getting herself armored and then exchanging kit checks with Izmay, aware of the child’s intense scrutiny the entire while. She let Izmay lead the way out of the room and followed, ignoring the woman’s glance back to verify that she hadn’t tried to go elsewhere.
Marchant pulled the door to their room closed behind her and walked after the guard, letting herself drop back a little bit at a time. By the time she was ready to take a side passage, Izmay had stopped looking over her shoulder. Mourning the loss of breakfast, Marsh stepped away, taking partial cover behind a man carrying a tray laden with dirty dishes.
With any luck, he’d be heading for the kitchen, and the kitchen would have some sort of way out that would be connected with an exit to the caverns beyond the mansion. Marsh just had to move fast enough that Izmay didn’t realize she’d ducked away, and Roeglin couldn’t catch up with her before she made it out the gates. Maybe he’d be late for breakfast…
Marsh shook her head.
Nah. No hope for that—but he might be too busy with breakfast to realize she hadn’t arrived with the rest, and the same might go for Izmay and Gustav.
Gustav.
Now, there was a more likely problem.
Marsh hurried her steps, discovering she had guessed right about where the man was heading. She found herself in the kitchen. Snatching a couple of crescent-shaped shroom pastries from one tray and a shroom roll from another, Marsh looked around, searching for another door.
One clearly led to the pantry, and she couldn’t resist lifting an uncut slab of bacon from another sideboard as she passed —Mordan would be hungry—and went through another in the wake of a boy carrying a bag of vegetable scraps. Those had to go outside, right?
Turns out they did—and that the outside they led to was right by the stables where Monsieur Gravine kept his mules. Not that Marsh needed a mule, but she did need the gate leading out of the mansion’s grounds. Funny how the founder hadn’t thought to make this one an airlock like the main entrance.
It was something she’d point out to him when she got back. If she could find it from the inside, careful reconnaissance from the outside would reveal it, too, and given the forces they were facing, Monsieur Gravine should know that.
She waited until the stable yard was clear, then went quickly and quietly out the gate, sliding into the shadow of the wall and realizing she’d come out along a different part of the barricade. It didn’t matter.
Leaning on the stone, Marsh looked for Mordanlenoowar. She blended a request to the shadows with a search for the blazing life force that marked the big kat like a beacon.
It didn’t take long for Marsh to find her. Mordan was lying patiently beneath a clump of callas not far from the main entrance, and Marsh tried to let her know where she was. This far away, she wasn’t even sure their minds could touch.
To her surprise, the big kat opened her eyes and slipped quietly away from the gates, disappearing into the shrooms and rocks without a sound. She appeared beside Marsh moments later, raising her muzzle and sniffing appreciatively at the hunk of bacon Marsh held in one hand.
“Yes, this is for you,” Marsh told her, giving the kat the meat and pulling the roll from the pouch she’d stuffed it in.
When they were both done eating, Marsh bent down and leaned her forehead against the hoshkat’s head.
“I need to find an enemy,” Marsh said, speaking aloud even as she gave the kat the impression of her need to find her foe’s lair and hunt her down inside it.
The kat lifted her lips in a silent snarl, taking the vague directions out of Marsh’s head, and turning toward the trail to Leon’s Deep.
“Not by the road, girl,” Marsh said. “Today we hunt alone.”
She caught a sense of puzzlement from the kat and pushed it aside. She had a very good reason why she was hunting without the rest of her pride. Yes, even for prey as deadly as this. Roeglin did not approve.
The kat hissed softly, her opinion of a male who did not care for the concerns of his mate quite clear.
“He’s not my mate,” Marsh protested. Mordanlenoowar flicked her tail, stalking into the shrooms.
Now, what was that all about?
The kat wasn’t stopping to answer questions, however, and Marsh hurried after her, giving up on using her feet normally to take to the shadows and move with a speed she couldn’t have in solid form. True to Marsh’s wishes, Mordanlenoowar didn’t take Marsh via the trade route. Instead, the big kat cut across country, stopping when they reached the edge of the open field of one of the small farms dotting the cavern.
Marsh joined her beneath the shelter of a cluster of callas, laying an arm over the big beast’s shoulders.
It is still, the kat thought, her azure eyes studying the farmhouse, and I smell no blood. No human life and no blood.
No human life? Apprehension formed a lump in the center of Marsh’s chest. No life, and no blood. Her heart sank, and she pushed carefully out of the callas. No life meant she shouldn’t encounter anyone or anything, but that wasn’t what she was afraid of. No...
Moving quickly and quietly to the rear door, Marsh wasn’t surprised to find it open, the signs of a struggle evident. There was overturned furniture and broken dishes as she moved through a kitchen and then into a dining room, where the table had been tipped on its side and a buffet shoved across a broken window.
Even knowing what she would find, Marsh climbed the stairs to investigate the bedrooms. They were empty, and it was more depressing being right than it would have been otherwise. She noted what had been left behind and what had been taken.
Nothing but people for the latter, and everything for the former, just like it had been at the prospector’s hut. Just like it had been at the truffle farm. Just…just like her parents’ place, and all the others in between. Grief formed a lump in her throat and tears blurred her eyes, and Marsh stopped, forcing herself to face reality.
People had been taken, and she had been unable to stop it. She drew a deep breath and let it out, her hand drifting to the hilt of her sword. Well, next time it would be different. Turning around, she hurried down the stairs and back out the door to where Mordanlenoowar was waiting.
Her thoughts of haste were accompanied by her own very human snarl, and the hoshkat responded with flattened ears and a snarl of her own. Marsh wasn’t the only one tired of losing people to the raiders. Reorienting themselves using the scent of their target, they crossed the empty yard behind the farmhouse and leapt into the shadows of the overgrown field beyond.
Mordan’s paws made no sound as she passed, although she flattened patches of shrooms. Marsh took to the dark, shedding her human shape and weight to move through the cavern’s shadows, at once at one with and yet completely separate from them.
They came across the next deserted farm less than an hour later. This time, Marsh took enough time to give it a cursory look before returning to where Mordan was pacing the yard. The big kat’s tail lashed as she snuffled the ground.
Not long gone, the big kat said, and Marsh got the impression that the raiders had struck while they were investigating the first farm.
It made Marsh wish she had a map of the cavern, and she realized she knew someone who did. Where was Roeglin? Hadn’t she been gone long enough for him to notice she was missing? Why couldn’t he be in her head when she needed him, not just when it was damned inconvenient?
It was like she’d summoned the man.
By the Deeps, I am going to kick your ass! You are the most undiscipl—
Marsh cut him off.
What’s the closest farm to this one?
There was silence, and Marsh hoped he hadn’t decided to ignore her.
Please, Ro, she thought. Please, please, please.
Why?
I need to get there before the raiders do.
By the Deeps, no.
To warn them. I need to warn them. If I can get there first, they might have a chance.
And you have Mordan with you.
It was like he was thinking out loud—and then the map was in her head. Marsh took to the shadows again, Roeglin’s voice no more than a flicker as she raced through the darkness, one with the shadows as she willed them to let her pass.
Be careful.
Marsh didn’t respond, all her attention was focused on reaching the farm and its people before the raiders did. She came close. From the looks of things when she got there, the raiders had only just arrived.
They’d arrayed themselves in the yard and one was standing at the door, his hand raised as though he’d been knocking. Marsh slid behind the cover of a fall of boulders and started working her way around to the back of the house. If she was quick, she might be able to slip inside and get them out before the raiders thought of checking.
Apparently, the farmer and his family had thought the same. They had just opened the back door and stepped through when the raiders rounded the sides of the house. This was clearly not the first time their prey had tried to escape the back way.
They leapt forward even as the farmer’s wife tried to herd her children back through the door, two raiders grabbing the husband and the oldest girl before they had a chance to avoid them. A little boy made a break for the rocks at the end of the yard, towing his brother with him, but one of the raiders ran him down. Another grabbed his brother and lifted them both, shrieking, from the ground.
Their father twisted against the hands that held him, shouting in outrage as he fought to get free, and Mordanlenoowar roared. This was exactly what had happened to her kits, only she had not been with them to fight for them as the male was trying to do, as the female was trying to do, as each cub was trying to do. She jumped into the fray, knocking one of the raiders to the ground and snapping his neck with brutal efficiency.
Marsh looked toward the front of the house. Mordan’s roar had drawn the attention of the raiders trying to break through the front door, and several of them had turned to run down the side of the house, pulling swords and crossbows as they did so.
Don’t you da— was as far as Roeglin got, and Marsh had the impression he was moving fast in her direction.
Strange, since she didn’t think he’d learned to shadow-step like she had, and that was the only way she could think of that would let him move as fast as he seemed to be going. Well, good, because she was going to need some help.
Get them away, she thought, sending the idea along her connection to the kat.
>
There was no reply, but Marsh didn’t expect one. The kat was busy taking down raiders. If she took down enough of them, the farmer’s family might break free and escape on their own—and what a tale they’d have to tell. All Marsh had to do was stop the dozen or so men and women racing around the side of the house to intercept them.
That was all…
She stepped out from behind the rocks she’d been using as cover, shouting to draw their attention even as she pulled the shadows toward her.
“Hey, shit for brains! You missed one!”
They shouted something in reply, and a half-dozen of them broke away toward her. It wasn’t exactly what she’d hoped would happen, but it would do. Marsh spread her arms wide and then drew them in close to her chest, gathering the shadows as she did so. When she had them all together, she reversed the motion, thrusting the shadows away from her with her hands, and sending them in a wall over the raiders moving toward the back of the house. That they caught the ones moving toward her as well was an added bonus.
She watched as the shadows slammed into them, flattening men and women to the stony ground surrounding the house, the impact sending their weapons flying out of their hands. The shadow wall rolled past them and slammed into the other half-dozen making their way to the back.
Not one to waste the advantage, Marsh went after those closest her. None of them was getting up, not if she had anything to say about it. The first raider had pushed himself upright, and Marsh used a two-handed swing of her shadow blade to separate his head from his shoulders. The second one made it to her knees before Marsh plunged the sword through her heart. The third one blocked her strike.
Screams rose from the back of the house, as well as sharp, urgent cries to get into the rocks. Marsh only hoped the latter were from the farmer getting his wife and kids to safety. She knew the rest were Mordan’s work, but she didn’t have time to check. The raiders had picked themselves up and were heading in her direction.
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 37