Trading into Shadow (The Magic Beneath Paris Book 1)

by C. M. Simpson

  In the meantime, there was only one other thing she could think of to do: she tried to sense the life in the cavern. It was a good deal harder to do while walking than it had been when she’d been sitting at the fire that morning. At first, she sensed nothing more than her own harsh breathing, and then all she could feel were the hoshkat and her kits, and Scruffknuckle’s fierce joy of life.

  It was the pup who alerted her to the rest. His energy changed from happy vibrancy to darker shades of tension. Marsh snapped out of her magic and into her own head as the first mage fell to a spear of shadow twisting out from between a tall boulder and a calla shroom. The next spear shattered against a suddenly gleaming chest plate and the mages were facing outward, shields of stone forming on one forearm while blades of iron and rock materialized in their opposite hands.

  Battle was joined less than a heartbeat later, but it was a fight against humans and not the shadow monsters Marsh had expected.

  “Take them down!” came the Master of Stone’s command, and the mages roared in response.

  “Protect the children,” Brigitte ordered, her eyes turning shadow-dark as she pulled a sword and dagger from darkness and stepped to the back, helping Gustav and Lennie guard the rear.

  Marsh wanted to argue, but she could see that there were enough blades around them that hers would be better suited to catching anything that made it through the gap—especially as those blades were being wielded far more competently than she was able. Circling to put herself between the children and the mage guard, Marsh kept watch for any incoming threats.

  Roeglin had placed himself firmly on the other side of them, the hoshkat coming to stand beside him.

  “What makes you think I need your help?” he asked the kat as a spear blade slid between the two mages in front of him and buried itself in the armor he wore.

  The kat didn’t bother gracing that with an answer, just rammed her way between the mages and pounced into the dark. A scream rose from where she’d landed. It ended in a gurgling crunch and a snarl. Marsh dropped back beside Roeglin in time to see him dispel the spear. She was also in time to see the blood that trickled from his side.

  He stumbled and Marsh caught him, lowering him to the ground.

  “Aisha! Tamlin!” she called, wanting the children close by so she didn’t have to worry about them as she tried to stop the bleeding.

  She hadn’t counted on Aisha thinking she’d been called to help. Instead of crowding close to Marsh, the little girl dropped to her knees beside her, pulling on Roeglin’s tunic and trying to part the dark leather beneath it. When she wasn’t strong enough to pull it apart to get at the wound, she turned tear-filled eyes to Marsh.

  “Help.”

  It wasn’t a plea or a request; it was a directive. Marsh hesitated, not sure what to do, and Aisha set about solving her own problem. She seized the hilt of Marsh’s dagger and pulled the blade from its sheath.

  “I cut,” she said, angling the blade toward the hole.

  Roeglin drew a breath of alarm and Marsh wrapped her hand around Aisha’s small hilt-filled grip.

  “I’ll cut,” Marsh insisted, taking the dagger from Aisha’s hand and carefully slipping it beneath the leather.

  It took a bit of effort to cut a slit in the armor, but she succeeded despite the grip becoming slippery from the blood flowing from the wound. Around them, the battle raged. Metal rang and screams echoed through the cavern. Beside her, Tamlin grunted as he hung onto Scruffknuckle’s neck.

  “No!” he argued when the pup tried to yank himself free. “Stay!”

  Aisha ignored the struggle, focusing instead on the wound. Marsh watched as the child used one hand to pinch the rent together and stroked her finger over the join. Nothing happened the first time, although she heard Roeglin bite back a cry of pain.

  Aisha wasn’t dismayed. She stared down at the wound, and her eyes took on a slightly green glow. Again she moved her finger across the wound, but Marsh didn’t have time to see what she was doing. A shout from the mages on her right drew her attention and she looked toward them.

  She was in time to see a raider pulling his bloodied sword from the mage he’d just killed, and then the man was coming toward them. Marsh saw him pull his arm back, ready to swing the heavy blade forward, and wished she had a shield. In her mind’s eye, she saw the shadow engulfing Lennie’s fist back in the eatery. She wanted something bigger, something rounder; something that would cover her and Roeglin and the children and the kits and the pup. She wanted the shadows to form a barrier between them and stop the sword before it hit.

  As smooth as thought, Marsh pulled the darkness from between the surrounding shrooms and dragged it down from the ceiling arcing overhead. This time it was not like grasping a thread, but more like taking hold of the edge of a cloak or moving a shutter. Marsh grabbed it and pulled it in between her and the blade.

  She pictured it forming an oval shield large enough to stop the blade and raised her forearm above her to hold it. Shadow fell over her, darkening where she and the children crouched. Pressure slammed into the shield, and then slammed into it, again—and again. And—

  It stopped.

  Marsh opened her eyes.

  All around them, the sounds of battle had ceased, and relative silence descended.

  It was broken by a drawn-out yowl and the sudden shuffle of footsteps as people moved to make way, and then Marsh caught the sound of something large snuffling around the edges of the shield she had created. She sat there for a moment, and then the Master of Stone’s voice rang around them.

  “You can drop the shield now.”

  25

  Speak Nicely to the Dark

  Dropping the shield was easier said than done, especially once the hoshkat started clawing at the edges trying to reach her kits. In the end, the mages reached in and pulled Roeglin clear. Aisha and Tamlin crawled out after him, followed by Scruff and the two kits.

  “Are you coming out too, Marsh?” called the Master of Stone, and Marsh realized she had a problem.

  When she’d conjured the shield, she’d thought of it as strapped to her arm so she could hold it above her head…and now she couldn’t unstrap it.

  “Merde,” she whispered, and the Master of Stone’s head appeared around the edge.

  “Trouble?”

  Marsh felt her face glow red. She pulled on the straps, but the shield didn’t move.

  Huh. Maybe she hadn’t had to hold it up after all.

  “Give me a bit.”

  “Trainee, we do not have a bit. I want to reach the monastery by nightfall.”

  “I am sorry, Master.”

  And she was. She truly was, but not because she couldn’t obey the master’s order; more because she didn’t want to be trapped under a shield of shadow no matter how handy it had turned out to be. She jerked against it once more.

  “Let. Me. Go,” she growled and repeated the action.

  The straps bit into her arm, and the shield didn’t budge. It was as though it was jammed into solid air and wrapped tightly around her arm. She tried worming her arm out of the straps, but that didn’t work, and then she tried pushing the shield up and out of the way, but it stayed stubbornly in place. As she bounced off it and hit the ground, Marsh wished the children were somewhere much farther away, because merde was not the word she wanted to use right now.

  “Aagh!” she shouted, and three curious faces peered under the rim of the shield. “What!”

  Roeglin started smirking, and Tamlin was grinning. Aisha stared at her in wide-eyed wonder.

  “You stuck?” the little girl wanted to know, and Marsh wanted to scream.

  Some of that must have shown in her expression because Roeglin chose to intervene.

  “Aysh, why don’t you go see if Brigitte has any spare cookies? I’m sure she’ll share…”

  Aisha shot Marsh one more worried look and disappeared. Roeglin crouched to get a better look at her. The smirk was back, and it wasn’t an improvement. From
the look on his face, there was plenty he wanted to say and just wasn’t. Tamlin didn’t have the same sense of decorum.

  “Lennie would find this hilarious,” he said, and it was as if he’d summoned the guard.

  She stuck her head under the rim of the shield, took in Marsh’s situation, and disappeared with a bark of laughter. Given the noises that followed, she was in danger of literally pissing herself from mirth. Roeglin snorted, and Tamlin started snickering.

  “I’m going to murder you all when I get out of here.”

  Roeglin tried to look offended.

  “That’s not an incentive for me to help you, you know.”

  “I could send Scruffy in,” Tamlin said, laughter leaking around the words. “He’d cheer you up in no time.”

  And then the boy was gone, rolling out of sight as he cackled like a hen that had just laid an egg.

  “Very funny,” Marsh muttered, but her tone said it was anything but.

  She rested her head on her forearm, glad the boy hadn’t followed up on his threat. She didn’t need a face-washing on top of everything else. Roeglin chuckled and moved closer, and Marsh eyed him with disgust. He didn’t even have the decency to come in on the side that wasn’t trapped.

  Smarter than he looked, that man—because she really wanted to hit something right now and he was looking good.

  “I can read your mind, you know,” Roeglin told her. “And I’m not stupid.”

  Marsh wanted to argue that, but the evidence was against her. She sighed, biting back the urge to ask him to help her all over again. She was not going to beg.

  “Never said you had to,” he said, his voice suddenly serious. “Besides, I’m your instructor; I’m supposed to help you get out of things like this.”

  He edged closer until she felt his warmth against her side, and Marsh tried telling him that as her instructor, it was his job to not let her get into situations like this to start with.

  “Not true,” he said, “and, even if it was, I was indisposed.”

  Oh. Indisposed. Is that what he called it? Because to her, it had looked like he was in danger of bleeding to death.

  “That, and I had to stop Aisha from overdoing it.”

  He had? To be honest, Marsh had lost track of what was happening when she’d tried to pull the shield up in time to stop the sword from falling.

  “Yeah, so let’s figure this out quickly because I’m gonna need Lennie’s help.” He paused. “Unless you want to carry me?”

  Marsh ignored the mock hope in his voice. Carry him? In a mule’s eye, she would! She’d ask the hoshkat. Maybe Mordanlenoowar would eat him first.

  “Do you want to get out of there?”

  Oh. Right. Mind reader. Damn. Maybe it was time for her to rethink her policy on begging.

  “No, don’t do that. Just keep being your charming self. So, you called the shadow, right?”

  Marsh nodded.

  “And you asked it to be strong enough to stop the sword, right?”

  “Mmmhmmm.”

  Marsh wondered how long it would take him to get to the point.

  “You know, you could at least pretend to be grateful.”

  Well, double Deep damn!

  “Don’t you know anything stronger?”

  Marsh groaned. Sure she knew stronger curses; she hadn’t grown up in a waystation not to know all the good swear words. She just didn’t want to say any of them where the kids could hear her.

  “Fine, but when they’re asleep, you’re going to have let some of that tension loose, okay?”

  “Just tell me how to get out of here,” Marsh said, but she couldn’t help adding, “Please.”

  “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to beg.”

  “I may have to kill you when this is over.”

  He snorted at that.

  “Remind me never to let you talk in any negotiation we need a favor on.”

  “Well, pu—”Roeglin cut her off before she could finish.

  “And I thought you were worried about the children…”

  “Merde!”

  Marsh sagged, her arm pulling her up short. When Roeglin next spoke, there was no hint of amusement in his voice.

  “Did you ask the shadows to form a shield or did you make a shield out of the shadows?”

  Marsh considered that.

  “I pulled them between us and imagined what I wanted them to do.”

  He sighed.

  “Asking them would have been easier. You could have just asked them to go back to where they came from.”

  “You mean I can’t?”

  “Have you tried?”

  “Didn’t you hear me shouting?”

  “Shadows are like anything else. You have to ask nicely.”

  “Oh, fine. You mean like, ‘pretty please, Mr. Shadow, will you let my arm go’?” Marsh hadn’t meant for it to come out sounding quite so sarcastic.

  “Well, you could try that, seeing as polite isn’t really your forte.”

  Now she really did want to hit him, but she also wanted to try asking the shadows to let her go because, sarcastic or not, she’d thought she’d felt something give. Taking a breath, she straightened up and rested her head on her forearm.

  Ask the shadows, right? Well, it was worth a try.

  “Shadow’s Heart and Shadow’s Deep,” she began and then stopped. “Thank you for your help. I return you to your homes to sleep.”

  She accompanied the words by thinking of the shadows returning to the hollows and crevices from which she’d called them.

  “Sleep,” she whispered. “Go home and sleep with my thanks.”

  She raised her eyes, willing the shadows to leave the shield and return to the cavern dark. To her surprise, it worked. The pressure on her arm eased, the dark bands that had bound the shield to her skin slowly letting go as the shield dissipated into mist and floated away. With a sigh of relief, Marsh collapsed over her knees and took a deep breath, then she straightened up.

  “Thanks, Roeglin.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, if you would call Lennie…”

  Looking at him, Marsh realized he was a lot paler than before, and his eyes were dark with strain.

  “Lennie!” she called. “Lennie!”

  And the guard came running. Marsh remembered something the woman had said earlier.

  “Not when you can stop it, right?” She looped her arm around Roeglin’s waist and pushed herself to her feet, lifting the mage until his injury became visible.

  Lennie had no problems swearing in front of the children, and she didn’t waste any time asking Roeglin to sit down, either. She just pushed the cut flap of armor aside and swore again.

  “Stand still,” she ordered and did exactly what Aisha had done: pinching the two sides of the wound together and running her finger down the seam—except that Lennie called on the Mother of Shadows, Shadow’s Heart, and Shadow’s Queen, and the light that flowed from her hands was brighter than any Aisha had managed.

  With a shout of alarm, Henri rushed over and pulled her away.

  “What are you trying to do, girl? Lose the baby? Make me carry you the rest of the way? Are you insane? Jorj would kill me if I let anything happen to either of you!”

  When Lennie tried to go back, the Master of Stone stooped to examine Roeglin’s side. After probing the wound, she looked at the guard.

  “You’ve done enough,” she said. “He’ll scar, but he’ll be fine.”

  She paused, studying Lennie, Roeglin, Marsh, and Aisha with a disgusted eye. With a huff of impatience, she turned to the Master of Beasts.

  “We’ll camp at the next rest point and march into the fortress in the morning. I’ll need assistance in fortifying it.” Her face took on a hint of mischief, and she looked at Brigitte. “I believe the journeyman has brought cookies.”

  From the look of dismay on Brigitte’s face, Marsh guessed the girl’s cookie supply was running low. Fortunately, Roeglin stepped up to help her out.

 
“I have some as well,” he said. “Between us, we’ll have enough.”

  It was roughly an hour’s walk before they reached the waystation and they were all ready to stop well before they did. The Master of Stone was merciless, however. When Aisha stumbled, she strode back and swung the little girl onto her shoulders.

  “Hold on,” she said, ignoring Aisha’s scowl as she continued down the path.

  Scruffknuckle whined, but the kit picked up its pace until it trotted at the master’s heels and the puppy had no choice but to hurry after. Marsh almost wished she was small enough to be carried, but then decided the indignity of it would far outweigh any advantages. She did her best to keep up but her footsteps dragged, and she was not alone.

  Gustav, Henri, and Lennie walked with her and Roeglin, even though Tamlin joined Scruff and the kit on the master’s heels. The mages and the fourth guard, Jakob, surrounded them, their eyes wary as they moved through the cavern. It was good when they arrived safely at the rest stop, although a bit unnerving to watch as two of the green-clad mages asked the moss and shrooms to reshape themselves into broad benches while the rock mages called stone from the cavern floor, their eyes turning as black as pitch as they asked it to form walls around the site.

  Marsh pulled dried fungal bricks from her pack and built a fire in the existing pit. They might not be cooking, but at least they could heat water for kaffee or chocolate and enjoy their rations in the light and warmth of the flames. She unhooked the kettle from Roeglin’s pack, trying to ignore the buzzing in her head. It had been a long journey, sure, but she had no reason to…

  Tamlin took the kettle from her hand.

  “You need to sit down,” he told her. “I don’t know how much magic you used when you called the shield for us, but that took some conjuring. You should have been feeling it ages ago.”