They paused before acknowledging him with nods. As they scattered, Marsh gathered with Roeglin, the children, and Brigitte, relieved when the shadow guards and Jakob joined them. Henri and Izmay’s arrival was a pleasant surprise.
Henri eyed Marsh’s torn tunic. “You finally managed to piss Mordan off as well,” he commented. “Congratulations.”
Izmay slapped him, but Marsh gave him the sweetest smile she could manage. “Yeah, I was trying for biggest asshole in the Deeps, but apparently you got there first.”
The others sputtered with laughter, and Henri regarded her with shocked surprise. Finally, he shrugged. “The Deeps know how.”
Roeglin draped an arm over her shoulders and smiled at Henri. “Don’t worry, Henri. You won’t hold the title long. Someone is a very quick study.”
He’d managed to pin one of her arms between them, and his grip was enough that she couldn’t twist and hit him with the other. She was saved from having to find an answer by Gustav’s arrival.
“They brought our mules and gear over from the temporary camp and stabled them in the waystation. Apparently, we can operate out of there for the remainder unless we want to change to another of the towns during our stay. Either way, they’re glad of our help.
As they should be, Marsh thought and earned a sharp glance from Roeglin, although he didn’t comment.
Gustav led the way back to the waystation, where Marsh changed her tunic for an untorn one and then pulled on her armor. “What?” she said when she emerged and caught the look on Gustav’s face. “We are going to go kick raider butt, right?”
“We’re having lunch first.”
She shrugged. “And your point is?”
“Just get your ass to the dining hall, apprentice.”
Trust him to remind her of her bust-back rank. He must be feeling all kinds of useless.
No, but he’s thinking double-time and making a couple of hard decisions. Give the man a break.
Oh. Well, that put a different angle on things. Marsh grabbed her pack and went. She noticed the mules had been left in their stalls and wondered what their chances of leaving the children behind to look after them were.
Not a hope in all the Deeps, Roeglin told her, and she looked around to find she had two shadows, both armored and both carrying their packs.
Well, damn.
He laughed. They’re more like you than you know.
She had nothing to say to that but was surprised to feel Aisha’s pride at being like her. A careful inspection of her mind showed the little girl’s presence. Get back in your head.
With a cheeky giggle, the child went, skipping happily up to take her hand. “I can hear you.”
Why couldn’t you hear me before?
Aisha’s face clouded but she answered, I blocked all the heads.
And are they all blocked now?
Some. I can keep out the mean ones now.
Marsh squeezed her hand. Good. Don’t let those mean ones in.
I won’t.
Marsh brought her attention to the outside as they reached the dining hall. She got to see what Roeglin meant by Gustav having to make hard decisions, even if he did leave them until after he’d eaten. It was nice to see the man had his priorities straight.
He even left it until he’d seen the rest of them clear their plates. It made Marsh wonder what he was about to raise. Sulema must have had some idea of what was coming because she raised a hand, calling for silence as Gustav stood.
“As you know we have to seal the cavern,” he said, and everyone went still. He looked directly at Sulema. “That means sealing every opening.”
The community leader pursed her lips. “And as you know, Captain Moldrane, we need the sinkhole to remain open to the sky.”
“With all due respect, community leader, you have just seen the size of the army that came over the edge, and I have my doubts that anything your people do, short of sealing it with clear-rock, will make it inaccessible.”
Sulema stood also. “Captain Moldrane, let me show you what we have in mind.”
There was silence as he lifted his chin and met her eyes. Marsh caught her breath as Sulema’s eyes flared white. No one moved or spoke until they cleared again. Gustav looked impressed, but he still shook his head. “I am afraid it won’t be enough.”
“And I say you are wrong.”
This brought a gasp from several of her people, but Gustav stared her down. “What about a compromise?”
Marsh hadn’t thought he could.
Sulema cocked her head. “I’m listening.”
“If we find an alternate water source, will you at least consider sealing the sinkhole?”
“If you can find an alternate water source, I will speak to my druids and see what they have to say about its feasibility.”
Gustav let his chin drop to his chest. “Fine.”
“Fine?” Sulema challenged. “It’s more than fine. You will agree to abide by my people’s decision regardless.”
“On one condition,” he said, and she motioned for him to continue. “If we find an alternate water source, and your alternative measures fail, then you’ll seal the cavern regardless.” He paused, his voice taking on a pleading tone. “The security of the other caverns depends on it.”
Sulema tilted her head, looking down at the table in front of her, and then back up at him from beneath her bangs. “I will consider it.”
He sighed and shook his head. “If your measures do not work and you have other alternatives, I will have no choice but to seal Ariella’s Grotto off from the rest of the Four Caverns complex.”
She straightened her back, anger flaring in her eyes. “On whose orders?” she demanded. “Your masters in Ruins Deep?” She glanced at Roeglin, Izmay, Zeb, and Gerry. “The shadow mages? On whose orders?”
Gustav bowed his head, resting his knuckles on the table in front of him. When he replied, his voice was soft. “On my own.”
“Your own? Tell me, why that is going to fly with any of the Four?”
“Because once this cavern is sealed, they will be secure. Because once they are secure, I will be the leader of the Protectors, and my duty is to the Four Caverns. I will do what I can to keep them safe.”
“Including abandoning one of them?”
“For the safety of the other three? Yes.”
She raised a hand toward him, her eyes the color of milk. Marsh had a momentary sense of falling before becoming briefly aware of weeping. Looking around, she found him, kneeling on the floor in a barren room, his fists on his knees, and head bowed.
Gustav?
The room faded as quickly as it had appeared and Gustav stood at his table, his head raised to meet her eyes. When he spoke, his voice was bleak. “So. Now you know.”
Sulema nodded. “Yes. Now we do. Help us secure our home. We will look for your alternate water source at the same time, but not as our primary goal.”
Gustav swallowed as though clearing his throat. “It is enough.”
“Yes, it is,” she told him, her voice implacable. “But if our alternate measures work, you will not be sealing our caverns.”
“Agreed,” he said, meeting her gaze and not flinching.
Picking up his plate, he surveyed his team and jerked his chin toward the servery. “We have our tasking.”
Marsh rose with the others, collecting her soiled plates and carrying them to the sinks. Once she’d set them down, she followed Gustav to the door. The rest of the team came after, including the children, who stayed close to her heels.
They trailed Gustav through the dining hall door, collecting their packs and shouldering them as they continued after him across the courtyard. By the time they’d hit the town’s edge, they’d already fallen into ranks of two, with Mordan, Scruffknuckle and the kit vanishing into the surrounding shrooms to cover their flanks.
They traveled in silence, keeping watch on the surrounding cavern, their ears straining for the first sign of a shadow monster attack. As
they crossed into the cavern proper, Gustav rolled into a jog, and the rest of them did the same. Knowing they had to reach the next small settlement by cavern’s dusk, Marsh understood some of the urgency.
Breakfast had been late, and lunch had been scheduled somewhere close to mid-afternoon. A four-hour march could be shortened by the pace they were setting, but not by much. Gustav broke the jog with short sections of walking so they could keep at it for longer, and they settled to the pace.
The animals showed no signs of tiring, and Mordan reported no sign of raiders as they moved. They’d gone about half the distance when Gustav called to her, “Leclerc. Scan ahead.”
“Sir.” She hadn’t known until she said how she was going to answer, but that was what came out, and it seemed most fitting. He didn’t acknowledge it, but it didn’t matter. Roeglin came alongside her and offered her his arm.
She nodded her thanks, tucking her hand over his forearm and sending her senses out into the cavern, seeking any sign of life, while asking the shadow threads to show her what was hidden at their furthest ends.
Nothing. They ran until they’d almost reached the town, then Gustav called a stop. He looked at Marsh. “Anything?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” And she realized the significance of what she’d said.
“Nothing,” she replied, searching again. She gave him a worried look. “Nothing at all.”
His face grew bleak and he turned to the rest of the team, his gaze traveling across them as well as the kats and the pup who had come in from the peripheries to sit beside them. “You know what to expect. Make it quick. We’re not camping here tonight.”
“Apprentice Danet, you’re staying with me.” Both children turned to look at him, rebellion on their faces, and he pointed at Aisha. “Tamlin, you’re with Roeglin.”
The look of rebellion did not fade but Tamlin went, jogging over to Roeglin and following him into the town. Marsh looked down to find Mordan at her side. She glanced back at Aisha. “Be good.”
The little girl stuck out her tongue, and Scruffy whined. “Go, Scruff. Look after Marsh.”
As if she needed looking after, but the pup came anyway. This time, at least, she did not. She worked her way through the section of town Roeglin designated as hers. The mind mage coordinated them as they quartered the village and found nothing alive.
The animals had been slaughtered, their wounds showing the raiders had followed their usual attack pattern and sent shadow monsters in first. Once again, there weren’t any human remains.
“It was a standard attack,” Roeglin reported when they got back, and the others nodded their agreement.
“We can’t camp here,” Izmay confirmed. “There were signs of scavengers.”
Henri glanced toward the rim of the sinkhole. “The sun is setting.”
Zeb followed his gaze without thinking and flinched, turning away from orange-tinged vines, his eyes watering.
“Move out,” Gustav commanded and jolted into a jog, leading away from the township.
How does he know where to go? Marsh wondered, and Roeglin answered. Sulema gave him a map. She imprinted the cavern in his memory so he didn’t get lost.
She could have just given him a guide.
Her forces are stretched thin too.
It still didn’t explain why the town leader hadn’t sent someone with them.
What if we’d met a survivor? They wouldn’t have known to trust us.
I don’t think she expects us to find any survivors, Roeglin replied, and she’s sent home teams to any areas where there is the vaguest of hopes.
So we’re going to find more of this. Marsh waved her hand in the vague direction of the village, finding her mind on the edge of tears. There was something about the empty streets that struck her as forlorn.
It could be worse.
Marsh didn’t want to think about worse, and she was glad when Gustav called a stop sometime after full night had joined the cavern to the sky above. When Roeglin stopped, she stopped beside him, unrolling her bedroll and setting it beside his.
“What?” she asked when he looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, what?” Aisha demanded with all the belligerence a five-year-old could muster.
Tamlin set his bedding down beside theirs, the look on his face challenging Roeglin to utter one more word. The shadow mage raised both hands and settled between the blankets. They camped cold, not lighting a fire but eating the sandwiches they’d collected from the kitchen when they’d packed their gear.
Gustav set watches anyway, but their sleep remained undisturbed, and they were packed and on the move again before the vines at the sinkhole's edge were painted gold by the rising sun.
13
Survivors
Marsh discovered exactly how much worse it could be when they hit the next small village six hours later. Once more, she’d sensed nothing, not even in the surrounding clusters of shrooms...and that included no heightened life sign from scavengers.
The township lay in ruins as if a rockslide had run through it, tumbling its houses and sweeping everything from its paths. It had burnt, too. There was nothing left of the shrooms that had been shaped into huts save the burnt squares outlining where they’d stood.
“Well, that’s a first,” Henri murmured, running his forefinger through one of the ashen markings. “I wonder why they did this...”
“And how long ago,” Izmay added, “because it had to have been before we arrived. We’d have smelt the smoke otherwise.”
Gustav nodded. He walked slowly through the ruined town square and looked at Marsh. “Are you sure?”
She nodded but shrugged too. “I can try again. Sometimes things are hidden.”
A short moment later, she turned to Gustav, making hand movements as though she hadn’t found a thing. At the same time, she slid into his mind. That pile of rubble over my shoulder...
He nodded.
There used to be a barn about six feet back in the shrooms. We passed it, remember?
Gustav did indeed remember the barn. It had been made of stone instead of shaped from shrooms, and lay in rubble. The thing that had struck them most, however, was the absence of any kind of animal carcass, when the dung heap said there had been several mules and a small herd of moutons there up to a week prior.
Well, Obasi says there’s a trap door there, and that the raiders will be back to collect them at dusk. He says he can hear them coming through the tunnels beneath our feet.
“Are they watching us now?” Gustav kept his voice low, making hand gestures as though he was talking about the idea of camping the night.
He cannot be sure if they posted a watch. He says they don’t have a mind mage with them, but that they know what the people of the Grotto can do. He is very worried about what they intend for their captives, or what will happen if they coerce any into fighting for them.
“He’s not the only one,” Gustav muttered. He looked around the group. “We’ll head for the back of the cavern. Sulema said there was a water source there, so we’ll be investigating it anyway. And the shrooms are thicker that way. We’ll have cover when we double back.”
From the look on his face that wasn’t all Sulema had said, but he wasn’t sharing, so they nodded, slinging their packs and following him out. They trotted toward the cavern wall, slowing down to pick their way between stands of chocolate-covered toadstools and jaundiced broad-capped shrooms.
“Candy caps!” Aisha squeaked, but Marsh thought it better to check.
“They don’t smell like it,” she said, noting the absence of any form of sweetness, and Aisha leaned toward one and gave it a cautious sniff.
“Eww!” she exclaimed, pulling her head back and scrunching up her nose. “Not candy caps.”
“Keep it down,” Gustav ordered quietly. “We’ll circle back from here. Henri, Izmay, you’re going in first.”
Henri and Iz moved to the front and wound their way back t
hrough the shrooms, Marsh riding overwatch by tracking the life signs and shadows as they went. Apart from the people around her, there was nothing human in range.
With Obasi’s light contact in her head, she doubted that. She hadn’t been able to sense the people beneath the barn, and she couldn’t sense the raiders Obasi claimed were coming though the stone under their feet, but she believed him. There had been a real terror to his mental voice and a sense of urgency to his tone as he’d pleaded with her to hurry.
They spread out, forming pairs and staying within sight. Taking cover as they reached the open space around the barn, they watched as Izmay called the shadows to cover them and she and Henri headed for the trap door.
They’re in, Roeglin shared and tapped Marsh on the knee. Our turn. I’ll shroud us, you scan.
It didn’t take them long to reach the now open trap door and slide quietly down the ladder. Ahead of them, they watched the deeper patch of darkness that was Izmay and Henri as Roeglin thickened the shadows around the ladder.
Gustav and Aisha are coming in next. Mordan, Perdy, and Scruff are guarding the entrance.
Marsh hoped they’d be going out the same way they’d come in because there was no way known Aisha would leave the animals behind.
Too darn right.
Marsh rolled her eyes. While she was glad the child had re-found her ability to speak mind to mind, the kid had no sense of privacy.
Like Roeglin. Marsh hadn’t intended for anyone to discover that thought.
You and what shadows? Roeglin challenged, then added, Pay attention.
Marsh raised her head, seeking the life forces ahead of her. She tweaked the shadow threads, asking them to reveal what they touched. The tunnel didn’t run very far, and there was a small crevice at the rear of the room into which a dozen villagers had been crammed.
You’re clear, she informed the team. They’re just ahead.
They hurried forward, their arrival greeted by several shocked gasps and the sound of people trying to wriggle away.
Obasi? Marsh sent out, and she gave voice to the name. “Obasi?”
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 110