Trading into Darkness

by C. M. Simpson

  Roeglin listened to Clarinay’s report of the suspected raider campsite and nodded. The guards around the campfire exchanged glances and then stared warily into the darkness beyond the campfire’s subdued glow.

  “Be alert tonight,” Roeglin ordered when he spoke to Gustav and the guards.

  To give them credit, none of the guards rolled their eyes at his instruction. They all just nodded solemnly and turned toward Gustav to set the watches. When Roeglin realized none of the mages or scouts had been included, he tried to protest, but Gustav wasn’t having it.

  “With all due respect, Master Leger, keeping you safe is our responsibility. We’ll see you through the night.”

  It was as close to a dismissal as Marsh had ever heard the bodyguard give, but Roeglin didn’t take offense. He just nodded and turned away, pausing before he left.

  “If your people need relief, please let me know.”

  “Very good, Shadow Mage.”

  And that had been the end of that. Roeglin had returned to the fire and insisted Marsh debrief him on what she had learned that day, and then he had ordered her to rest. He’d turned to Clarinay next, and the two of them had huddled together in hushed conversation long after she closed her eyes. They were still talking when she finally drifted off to sleep.

  The shadow monsters struck during the night. They needed no latrines or paths, and they did not use either of the trails leading into the cavern. Marsh woke to a firm hand covering her mouth and nose. It released its grip as soon as she opened her eyes, and she saw Gustav crouching above her. He raised one finger to his lips. She nodded, and he pulled his hand away.

  He moved his hand from his mouth to his ear, indicating she should listen. The gibbering chatter of shadow monsters was unmistakable and Marsh rolled swiftly and silently out of bed, reaching for where she’d draped her armor over her pack.

  Gustav helped her check that it was clear of creepy-crawlies and then stayed to make sure she put it on right, checking her straps and weapons before he stooped to lift her blanket from the ground. He shook it out and shoved it into her hands.

  Across the campfire, Henri was doing the same for Roeglin, and Gerry’s hands were being swatted away from Clarinay’s buckles. Mordanlenoowar stood at the edge of the camp. When the big kat saw Marsh stuffing her blanket into her pack, their eyes met, and then Mordan slipped quietly into the surrounding dark.

  Happy hunting, Marsh thought and felt a snarl curl through her mind.

  Mordanlenoowar was hunting but was not happy. The prey was not what she preferred. The shadow monsters tasted…wrong, even though they needed to die. Marsh sent the kat her sympathy, along with a curt order to kill them all—and overlaid those thoughts with the hope that the kat returned safely.

  The kat was more pragmatic, touching Marsh’s mind with the urgent need to protect her kits should Mordan fall.

  It will be done, Marsh assured her, pulling her pack on as the link between them went quiet.

  Marsh didn’t wait for orders but hurried to follow the hoshkat into the night, determined to protect her partner no matter how firmly Roeglin demanded she remain behind.

  When this is over, you and I are going to discuss the matter of pets, he growled, and Marsh flipped him a mental finger.

  Mordan was more than a pet.

  I ought to freeze your mind and stuff you into a box, he muttered, and Marsh wondered if he could.

  As tempting as it would be to prove the point, now is not the time, he told her, then left her head.

  The shadow monsters had not waited. They came sliding through the darkness, homing in on the campfire and the human movement around it. Marsh was tempted to stand in their path, interposing herself between them and her traveling companions, but Mordanlenoowar had other plans. She’d caught a different scent—human, belonging to the one thing that could open a gateway in the shadows to let the monsters through.

  Without the raider’s mage, the shadow monsters would not have had a way into the cavern. If he were gone, there would be a limit to how many reinforcements they could call. The mage was going to pay for his intrusion into the cavern. He was going to pay for letting the monsters loose.

  Mordanlenoowar would ensure he opened no more gates.

  Marsh caught herself smiling as the hoshkat crept closer to the gate. The mage had stepped clear, moving from the other side of the portal into the cavern through which the shadow monsters leapt. Marsh heard shouts from the direction of the campsite but did not let herself be distracted. The mages did not work alone, so there would be another one close by. She circled in the opposite direction from the one the hoshkat had taken.

  That way, even if the mage saw her, it would not foil the big kat’s attack; Marsh would not risk that. She took a moment to become one with the shadows so she could move through them without fear of making a sound. She’d counted half a dozen shadow monsters slipping through the shrooms. She could not tell how many were in battle but knew the guards would make a good accounting.

  All she and Mordanlenoowar had to do was stop the flow. Even as she thought it, another half-dozen or so shadow monsters howled out of the gate. Marsh noticed something else slipping through the gate as well, and fixed her attention on it.

  As she watched, the figure of a second shadow mage became clear. This one was more interested in what lay through the gate behind him than anything that might be waiting for him in the cavern. He kept looking over his shoulder as though that would save him from whatever was coming.

  At one point, he angled his head around the edge of the gate, catching the eye of his fellow mage. As soon as he did, he waved his flattened fingertips across the front of his throat, signaling for an end to something.

  The gate?

  Marsh glided closer, catching the darker bulk of Mordanlenoowar creeping across the cavern floor. The big kat was positioning herself for an attack. She didn’t even look toward Marsh, who was getting ready to take out the second mage. The way the guy kept looking back at the gate, this was going to be easy.

  Let them close it first! Roeglin’s voice was desperate in her mind, and Marsh passed it along her link to the kat. Mordanlenoowar’s growl filled the air, and the mage nearest the kat looked desperately around. As his gaze swept the cavern, it fell across the gate and turned from concern to near-panic.

  Now he could see what had his partner so worried. Now he looked as frightened as the second mage. For a whole second, Marsh wanted to know what could terrify two mages hardened to working with the shadow monsters and all the risk that entailed, and then she didn’t care. She just wanted them to close the portal before whatever was beyond it got through.

  The shrieks of the shadow monsters paled in comparison to the sounds following them. These screeched through the air and the shadows between, sending shudders along Marsh’s fingernails before grating up and down her spine. They made her want to curl up in a ball on the floor of the cavern and rock herself in the comfort of the dark. They made her want to flee.

  Marsh took a deep breath and divided her attention between the portal and the shadow mages. If they didn’t get the gate closed before whatever was coming made it into the cavern, she was going to have a fight on her hands—and if they did, she was going to gut them both to make sure they never opened another gate. Ever.

  It was the least she could do if there were things like that in the lands beyond. She didn’t realize her attention had closed almost solely on the gate until the high-pitched keening coming from beyond it stopped, and she saw that the portal no longer hung at the edge of the trail. It took her another two heartbeats to comprehend that the two mages were moving, and not in the direction of the shadow monsters and the camp.

  No, the misbegotten sons were making for the junction her team had passed earlier that day, and they were moving just as fast as they could get their legs to take them. Time she put an end to it.

  But the hoshkat was faster. Even as Marsh started to move, Mordan leapt into the air, slamming her for
epaws between the shoulder blades of the closest mage. He hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud, and the kat launched herself from his back, digging deep with her hind claws and leaving furrows as she sprang toward the second mage.

  The first man momentarily lay silent as she leapt away, then let out a deep groan. Marchant changed course, reaching him as he pulled himself up onto all fours. Marsh did not hesitate, putting everything she had into the downward stroke that drove her blade into his back. Bone grated against her sword, and he screamed before going limp and forever silent.

  Marsh paused for a moment to catch her breath and registered the unearthly sound of the shadow monsters’ screams coming from the camp. How many had she seen go that way?

  “Merde!”

  All she wanted to do was flee, but she couldn’t. Roeglin was her trainer, and—

  Master! wheezed through her skull and Marsh snorted, but she ran toward the fight all the same.

  Roeglin sounded like he actually needed her help, and that meant he was still alive and still holding his ground with the others.

  Move your ass!

  Ingrate! Then Marsh thought about how much faster she’d moved when she was one with the shadows, so she tried to do it again, surprised when her body blended effortlessly with the cavern dark and the shadows instantly took her where she needed to go.

  Well, that was new—but it was a new she was going to have to investigate later. Maybe Clarinay could explain it. She arrived at the battle between one thought and the next, focusing on remaining in shadow form even as she dropped her metal blade and pulled one from the shadows.

  She wondered whether it would work any better than her usual sword, and decided it was worth trying, in any case. None of the guards seemed to be having much luck. A shadow monster screamed as she swung her new sword across its side, and ink flowed out of it, floating like shadow but as sticky and damp as blood.

  “Shadow blades!” she cried, swinging again and summoning a shield to the arm she’d raised against the creature’s retaliation.

  For a moment, she thought her voice hadn’t carried. Then she heard Roeglin in her head.

  Shadow blades! he repeated, and the tempo of the battle changed.

  Marsh heard weapons hit the ground, and then the sounds of injured shadow monsters as the monastery’s guards used the darkness against them. In spite of this, they were still struggling when Mordanlenoowar joined the fray.

  She pounced into the center of the battle and swiped at the closest shadow monster, her eyes glowing as brightly blue as the monsters’ eyes glowed red. The creature she’d attacked howled a challenge, and the kat leapt away, drawing it after her. To Marsh’s surprise, the shadow monster turned to go after Mordan, leaving its chest exposed to Clarinay’s blade. The scout didn’t waste the opportunity.

  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.