C. M. Simpson
Michael Anderle
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2019 C.M. Simpson & Michael Anderle
Cover by Mihaela Voicu http://www.mihaelavoicu.com/
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, August 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64202-393-0
The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2019 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.
Contents
1. It’s all in the Head
2. No Kind of Welcome
3. Arrival at Ariella’s
4. The Assassin
5. Shadow Monster Strike
6. After-Battle Clean-Up
7. Culture Clash
8. Nick of Time
9. Battle Losses
10. A Family Affair
11. The Invasion Force
12. Challenge and Compromise
13. Survivors
14. Living Shrooms
15. Ambush Point
16. Retrieval
17. Some You Win, and Some
18. Shadow Gate
19. Somewhere to Sleep
20. Misperceptions
21. Cubs, Kits and Kids
Author Notes - CM Simpson
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Other Books from C.M. Simpson
Books by Michael Anderle
Trading By Shroomlight Team
Thanks to our JIT Readers
James Caplan
Mary Morris
Nicole Emens
Misty Roa
Diane L. Smith
Jeff Goode
Dorothy Lloyd
Larry Omans
John Ashmore
Editor
SkyHunter Editing Team
Dedication
This is for all those who believed in me enough that, eventually, I had the courage to believe in myself.
Thank you.
—C.M. Simpson
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
to Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
to Live the Life We Are
Called.
— Michael
1
It’s all in the Head
Shadows wove and danced between the calla shrooms, damping the glow coming from beneath the callas’ caps. Darkness seeped down from the ceiling spreading like a blanket across the tall, pale fungi until it was hard to see the path between them.
Gustav raised his hand, his voice almost sibilant in the growing black.
“Stop.”
The soft thump of the mules’ hooves ceased and the shadows lifted, swirling back to the ceiling and the tunnel walls from which they had been called. Marsh smiled, feeling Roeglin’s satisfaction echoing on the very edges of her mind, but she remained quiet, letting the day’s instructor give her assessment.
“Nicely done, Tamlin,” Shadow Master Brigitte commented, smiling at the boy riding beside her. “I don’t think Master Leclerc could do anywhere near as well.”
Recognizing the challenge for what it was, Marsh freed one hand from her reins, twirling her fingers through the air to summon the shadows from their corners. It was no surprise when they refused her call, sliding from her grasp when she tried to bend them to her will.
“Well?” Gustav asked from the head of the column. “Are you done yet?”
Marsh frowned, feeling for the shadows again and trying to draw them to her. She was all too aware of the restless shifting of the mules as their riders held them steady on the trail.
With a day of travel behind them already, today would be their last night on the trail before they reached Ariella’s Grotto, and to delay meant arriving later the next day. Everyone was tired of travel, with some wanting a hot tub, others a soft bed, and everyone craving a warm meal.
Feeling their impatience, Marsh tried to coax the shadows out of their hiding places, only to feel the darkness coil deeper in the crevices and hollows that were their home. She tried again, but they shrank and fled from her fingers.
“Any time now, Leclerc,” Gustav urged, and Marsh gave a grunt of effort as the shadow still refused to come.
Tamlin snickered, and Marsh wondered what was going through the boy’s head...oh, the boy’s head...
Well, there was more than one way to peel a shroom. She continued to try to grasp the shadows while reaching out to touch Tamlin’s mind. It took her a moment to find it, and she almost slid into Roeglin’s instead.
That would have been easy. She’d been there once before, saving him from a raider’s mind mage. Now she could only hope she hadn’t alerted him to what she was doing and given him any ideas of his own. Tamlin’s mind, when she found it, was focused and alive with mischief.
The little rat was enjoying keeping the shadows out of her control. It almost made her smile, but she went in and gave him a mental poke. His concentration faltered.
What?
It was only for a moment, but then he realized what she was doing and tried to focus once more.
A moment was all she needed, however, and she pulled the shadows out of his control, swirling them down onto the path, over the shrooms, and over the mules and their riders. Tamlin gave a cry of dismay, but it was lost amidst the startled cries of the rest of the group. Several mules snorted nervously, their hooves clattering in an uncertain dance.
That’s cheating, Marsh. That accusation came in two voices, and Marsh realized she’d let down her own mental guards. Roeglin had, indeed, noticed her when her mind had brushed his looking for Tamlin. Let’s even this up.
Marsh didn’t like the sound of that and pulled out of Tamlin’s head fast enough to face a shadowy attack from Roeglin.
Not bad, but you let go of the shadows.
She had? Marsh reached for them and found Tamlin banishing the darkness from the trail again.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
She pulled the shadows back down, but the moment of inattention had cost her. Claws raked the inside of her skull, and her world blurred red and then came back into focus. Keeping a firm grip on the shadows, she turned back to Roeglin and caught his next strike, deflecting it.
Not. Nice.
He laughed, and Marsh gave him a mental smile.
Uh-huh. Let’s see how you like this, then.
She gave it less than a moment’s thought, then called lightning from the shadows in her head.
“No!” That cry came from outside, and Marsh looked around. As she did, a shield of white light slammed into place between the lightning and Roeglin’s presence in her mind. Tamlin dropped the shadows and looked around for the danger, and Marsh shrouded them all in darkness so thick they could feel it.
Inside her head, the lightning struck the shield and was pulled into it. Outside, she was so startled by the total loss of light that she let the sh
adows go. They stayed.
“That’s enough for today.” Gustav didn’t sound impressed, and Marsh couldn’t blame him. She could feel her mule trembling beneath her, frozen by the sudden onslaught of the dark. Marsh didn’t respond, though. She was too distracted by what was happening inside her head.
She didn’t even hear it when Tamlin gave a heavy sigh and said, “I’ll do it.”
In her mind, the shield had caught the lightning and dipped, almost touching Roeglin’s mental presence, which had dropped flat beneath it. As she stared, the shield flared white and then turned gray, cracks sharding through it as it split and crumbled apart.
A shockwave echoed through her mind, and her world faded just as Roeglin cried out and vanished from her head.
Her world came abruptly back into focus as she slid off the mule, then bounced off a clump of brown noses and onto a patch of rosebud toadies. The brown noses gave off small clouds of gray-green spores before disintegrating into slime and the rosebuds squelched beneath her.
“Eww!” Aisha exclaimed as a smell that had nothing to do with roses drifted up around Marsh. Tamlin snickered, but Marsh ignored them both.
She rolled onto her knees and looked for Roeglin.
“Ro?” Her voice quavered, and she shook her head. Immediately, she regretted it and slammed her palms onto the cavern floor to help her keep her balance. “Ro? You all right?”
He groaned and she lifted her head, tracking the sound to where he lay. Scrambling to his side, she pulled his head into her lap.
“Ro? I thought I’d killed you...”
“Damn near did...” he managed, his voice creaking as he tried to focus on her face. From the way his eyes flickered he was having trouble resolving her into one space, and Marsh watched him anxiously until he closed them again. “I’ll be okay.”
Gustav dismounted, landing beside her. “What did you do?”
Marsh looked up at him. “I...” She let the sentence die. “I called the lightning...”
“In your head?” Gustav might not know how it all worked, but he was very good at making guesses.
“Yes.”
“But how did that...” He gestured at where Marsh and Roeglin sat on the ground. “How...”
“I intervened,” Elise interrupted, riding her mule over to them. She gestured toward Roeglin. “He’d be dead if I had not.”
“Dead?” Marsh felt mildly dizzy, and Elise regarded her with solemn brown eyes.
“Yes. Without the shield, he would have died.” Elise frowned. “How did you not know?”
“Apprentice...” Roeglin muttered, his words slurred and his eyes closed.
Elise raised her eyebrows. “With that much power?”
“Reasons...”
“We’re camping here tonight,” Gustav announced and those gathered around them groaned.
Elise hadn’t finished. She turned to Marsh. “And you’d be dead too.”
“I...”
“Dumbass,“ Henri chimed in, taking her mule’s bridle and leading it away. Izmay led Roeglin’s.
Zeb and Gerry came alongside her, Zeb sliding his arm under Roeglin’s shoulders while Gustav looped his hands under her arms and pulled her to her feet. Gerry took Roeglin’s legs, and he and Zeb carried the fallen mage to a patch of stone floor under a stand of callas. Gustav guided Marsh in their wake.
Henri and Izmay had already tethered the mules and unsaddled them. They dumped their gear to one side of the space and spread Roeglin’s blankets so he could be set down. Henri looked at Marsh and rolled his eyes.
“I suppose you want to be tucked in as well.”
Marsh blinked at him. She was still feeling nauseous and her head was starting to pound, but really?
“Gustav’s got it,” she managed, and Henri snorted.
“Doesn’t Roeglin have the privilege?”
“He’s kinda out of it right now.”
Henri smirked. “Fine. I won’t tell him if you don’t.”
He might have said more, but Izmay thumped him in the chest. “What?”
“Mules need grooming.”
Henri glared at Marsh as though the mules were all her fault. Marsh closed her eyes. The man had a point.
“You owe me another dinner.”
This time, Marsh was too tired to argue. “Fine.”
Henri took two steps and stopped.
“But you’re only preparing it. I don’t want to eat with you.” Marsh stared at him, and he continued, “Yup. Dinner for two, but for Iz and me. Four of them.”
Marsh continued to stare, her reply almost lost amidst the catcalls from around them. “Uh-huh.”
He glared at her, but Izmay grabbed him by one arm and smacked him in the chest with a grooming brush. “Enough!”
“I agree,” Gustav said and set Marsh on her blankets. “Enough.”
He glanced at where Elise was standing close by. “Can it wait until after they’ve slept?”
The dark-eyed woman nodded, pulling a small bottle from her tunic with slender fingers. “Everything can wait until after they’ve slept, but they both need a mouthful of this so their minds rest, too.”
She held it out and Gustav took it, raising his eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“Sleeping draft,” Elise told him and he nodded, uncorking the flask and raising it to Marsh’s lips.
“You heard the lady.”
Too tired to argue, Marsh obeyed, not making it into her bedroll before the draft took effect. When she woke, it was to the warmth of Mordanlenoowar curled up behind her and Aisha’s small form against her chest.
She propped herself up on one elbow, ignoring the mutter of complaint from her head as she took a look around. The camp was starting to stir, figures moving slowly around the mules tethered on the other side of the trail. Recognizing Gustav’s stocky outline, Marsh looked for the others.
This hadn’t been the ideal campsite, and it took her a little while to make out another two clusters of mules. That only by the figures moving around them.
“You okay?” Roeglin’s voice made her jump, and it worried her that he’d spoken out loud instead of mind to mind, as he’d started to do.
A lump formed in her throat and she nodded, taking a moment to gather herself before she spoke. “You?”
“Feels like Mordan and the kits chased a horde of shadow monsters through my skull, but I’ll live.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “You weren’t to know.”
“I should have guessed.”
“I didn’t give you time to think.”
“That’s no excuse.”
A new voice intervened. “No, it’s not, but you both lived and got to learn from your mistakes. Others haven’t.”
Elise stepped out from the shrooms behind the blanket rolls, stooping to scratch Mordan’s head. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” came as a chorus, and she smiled.
“You’re both terrible liars, you know. Let me take a look.” They stilled, and she knelt beside Marsh. “You first.”
Fear woke in Marsh’s chest, but she swallowed, kneeling before Elise and resting her hands on her thighs. The mind mage was surprisingly gentle, her presence feather-light and silent. Marsh felt her for but a moment and then she was gone.
“Now you,” she told Roeglin and Marsh held her breath.
For a very long moment, there was silence, and then Elise spoke.
“You’re both incredibly lucky,” she said, “but you need to refrain from exercising your magic until at least tomorrow.”
Marsh wanted to ask her how she knew, and the woman gave her a soft smile.
“Child, I have been a mind mage for longer than you have walked the caverns, and I have three children who all have the gift. I know.”
Three? But...
“If you don’t keep your mind still, you’ll need to sleep again.”
Marsh tried hard not to think as she pushed to her feet. Elise reached out and steadied her when
her head protested and her vision swam.
“Slowly, now.”
As if she needed to be told.
Across from her, Roeglin groaned and rolled slowly to his knees. Elise let go of Marsh and moved alongside him.
“You need to stay still,” she told him, and he raised his eyes.
“We need to get moving,” he replied. “I’ll stay as still as I can in the saddle.”
“What if we get attacked again?”
“I’ll knock both of them out of their saddles if either of them does more than pull a sword,” Gustav rumbled, his boots crunching over the stone as he approached, “but the mage has a point. We need to move.”
Elise’s brow creased, but she didn’t argue. “I’ll get the children ready,” she told him and held her hand out. “Come, Aisha. You’ll ride with me today.”
The girl scrambled to her feet and wrapped her arms around Marsh’s waist. “Be good,” she instructed and took Elise’s hand. “Mina?”
Elise smiled. “Yes, let’s go and find Mina. You can wake her.”
Aisha gave a yip of delight that summoned both Scruffknuckle and Perdemor from the shadows, and the three of them bounded off in search of their friend. Marsh smiled, watching them go, and Elise followed in their wake. Her smile died as Gustav laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Sit,” he instructed. “You’re on light duty today—and that does not include saddling a mule or chasing children.”
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