Trading Close To Light

by C. M. Simpson

“Hold still,” he said, but she flinched as a blade was drawn in front of her for the second time that day. “Easy. See?”

  Marsh did see, but she didn’t relax until he’d cut her bonds and was rubbing the feeling back into her hands. Farmhand or not, he moved like a warrior, and he knew how to get the circulation back when they’d been bound. Those weren’t traits she usually associated with farmhands.

  “I’ll have to leave,” he said. “I can’t stay here. Not after what happened to the children. Not after you.”

  She wanted to ask what about the children, but the sound of knocking thundered through the house above and he looked up.

  “We’re out of time,” he said, half-helping, half-hauling her to her feet. “Come on. You can lean on me.”

  She wanted to know what the hurry was, but it became clear when he steered her through the back door and around the side of the house instead of taking her through the kitchen and down the hall leading to the front door.

  “I won’t let him use you as a ransom,” he said even as the farmer shouted his name from the front door.

  “Nikolas! Bring her!”

  “Not likely,” he muttered, taking her out through the kitchen door and along the back of the house before turning the corner leading to the front, where her friends were waiting.

  It was a good plan, but they were only halfway along the house when Marsh heard the back door slam open.

  Fortunately, Roeglin hadn’t given up his habit of peering into her head and was trotting toward them by the time Idris turned the corner behind them. The shadow mage didn’t hesitate; he pulled a dart from the dark and flung it through the man’s chest, following it with a second through his throat and a third that penetrated his head as he fell.

  By then, he’d reached where Nikolas had stopped and was trying to keep Marsh from falling over.

  “You’re coming with us,” he said, eyeing the farmhand, and there was no compromise in his tones.

  Nikolas looked back at Idris’s body and then up at the shadow mage.

  “Help me get her on the mule,” he said. “I can’t.”

  Roeglin pulled the memory of his beating by Idris from Marsh’s head and slid from his mount.

  “Stay here,” he told her, propping her against a wall, and he turned to Nikolas. “Let’s get you into the saddle.”

  By the time he’d gotten the man into the saddle of the mule he’d been leading, Gerry and Izmay had arrived to guard them. Zeb followed, leading Marsh’s mount, and he helped Roeglin get her onto it while Gustav and Felicity asked the farmer where Ninetta had gone.

  20

  Competition

  “I tell you, I don’t know where the little brats have gone, and what’s more, I don’t care either!”

  The farmer was shouting now, his disapproval of his vanished daughter and another of the children rolling through the cavern and bouncing back in sharp echoes. When she replied, Felicity sounded like she was the verge of tears.

  “Davide! How could you say that?”

  “How can you stand to be near them? They’re an abomination, a crime against nature. They’re not fit to walk this world.”

  “Davide…” Felicity began, but Gustav cut her off.

  “Don’t,” he told her. “There’s no reasoning with folk this far gone, and our priority is the children.”

  He turned to the farmer.

  “How long have they been gone?”

  “And why should I tell—” Davide’s words cut off in a surprised gurgle. Marsh was surprised to see shadows gripping his throat in the form of a hand.

  Gerry shook the hand he’d extended, his fingers curving as though he felt Davide’s flesh beneath them. His normally dark blue eyes were as black as coal. In the doorway, Davide was shaken by the shadows at his throat.

  “Tell me,” Gustav thundered, and Marsh swore she felt his voice go right through her.

  It made her want to tell him exactly where the children were, except she didn’t know. Maybe she should go find that out. She tapped her heels against the side of her mule, only to feel Roeglin’s hand close over her wrist and pull back so that the reins drew tight.

  The mule bounced forward a step and then stopped, its ears flicking back and forth in confusion. Marsh shook her head, clearing it of Gustav’s voice as she heard Davide’s choked reply.

  “Two…no, three days.”

  His eyes darted to where Marsh and Nikolas sat their mules, a shadow guard on either side. Gerry shook him again and lowered him to the ground.

  “What happened?”

  Again Davide’s eyes went to Marsh, and then his gaze swept Nikolas, Felicity, and Claudette.

  “Answer me.”

  Gustav’s soft growl was just as bad as his shout, and Marsh felt her insides curl. Davide choked against the shadow hand, and Marsh saw Gerry relax his arm.

  It was just a fraction, but it was enough. The farmer started talking. “They were playing out in the yards. You know, as children do. They were supposed to be milking, and they’d almost done that, but one of the other girls said something and Ninetta said there was nothing wrong with what Pierre could do. I’d come to check on them, but I wanted to hear what was wrong with the boy, so I stayed out of sight. The other girl sounded really upset, and the moutons grew restless as if to prove the point, and she said…” He gulped. “She said that Ninetta couldn’t possibly call that natural.

  “Well, I had to see, so I crept up to the corner and looked inside, and there was Pierre building a castle out of stones, only he wasn’t touching a damned one of them! He was just looking at them, and they were moving in the air in front of him. I must have made a sound then because the other girl looked around, demanding I look, and Ninetta just grabbed the boy and ran. She’d tipped over her stool and the bucket, wasting…” He gulped. “All that milk, and she ran away, taking Pierre with her.”

  Davide looked upset, but whether he was upset about the spilt milk or the children running away, Marsh couldn’t tell—and Gustav didn’t care.

  “Which way did they go?”

  Davide shrugged, grabbing the shadow hand and trying to wedge his fingers between the darkness and his throat.

  “Where?” Again, Gustav’s voice rumbled through her skin and caused Marsh’s stomach to churn.

  Davide stopped struggling.

  “I don’t know,” he whined. “I figured they’d be back come supper and we could tan their hides then. They both knew that sort of thing was forbidden.”

  As if using a natural gift was some kind of crime. Marsh felt disgusted with the man, but Gustav had one question more.

  “Where would they go?”

  Davide didn’t know.

  “How would I know that?” he asked. “They’re kids. Unless they didn’t finish their chores on time, we didn’t care where they played.”

  “Do the other children know?”

  He shook his head.

  “No. We asked. The boy’s mother was beside herself. She’s been out there every day. She’d be out there all day if she didn’t want to get paid.”

  “Can we speak to her?”

  “No. Last time, she didn’t come back. The Deeps know where she’s vanished to.”

  Remembering Idris, Marsh had a fair idea, just like she had a fair idea that they’d need to hurry if they were to find the children before the raiders. Kids with magical abilities? That sounded like something those bastards would be chasing in a heartbeat.

  Gerry shook the man again.

  “You know there are raiders in this cavern, don’t you?”

  Davide sneered.

  “So? They don’t bother us, and we don’t bother them. I don’t know why everyone’s so worried.”

  Felicity made a small sound of distress but both men ignored her.

  “What about the empty farms and the people who have been taken?” Gustav pressed, and Davide’s face took on an expression of semi-superiority.

  “Those folks must have done something to draw their
attention. They probably deserved everything they got. They came here asking after children with magical ability. I told them they were welcome to take any they could find.”

  Felicity gasped but Davide continued, oblivious.

  “The little abominations need to have somewhere to go, and I don’t care where, as long as it’s nowhere near me.”

  There was a second gasp, and then a dart flew past Gustav and buried itself in Davide’s chest.

  “What in the Deeps!” Gustav shouted, turning in the saddle.

  The fist curled around Davide’s throat dissipated, and Marsh caught sight of Claudette pulling a second dart from the shadows.

  The girl paused when she caught sight of Gustav’s anger.

  “What?” she asked. “He hurt Ninetta. He was going to hurt Pierre. They’re children, and he was working with the raiders.”

  She shrugged.

  “He deserved to die.”

  She looked over at where Davide’s body lay in the doorway of the farmhouse.

  “He’s not going to hurt anyone else now, is he?” She gave Gustav a defiant stare. “And we have more important things to be doing.”

  In the face of the Protector captain’s shock, she turned to her mother.

  “Don’t we, Mama?”

  Felicity was horrified. She looked at her daughter in disbelief and then at Gustav, as though he could fix anything that had just occurred.

  This is bad…Roeglin mumbled, and Marsh kicked her mule forward.

  “Come on, Claudette. I’ll show you how to ask the shadows for their help.”

  “Come on!” she repeated, wishing she knew how Gustav could make his voice vibrate through a person’s skin or that she had Roeglin’s ability to use his mind to compel people to do what he wanted.

  Yeah, either of those things would be good right now.

  In the end, she reached out to grab Claudie’s reins and towed the girl away from the farmhouse and the rest of the group, leaving Gustav and Felicity to absorb what they’d just seen and heard. When she was a safe distance away from the group, Marsh stopped. From the look on Claudette’s face, the girl was expecting a scolding, so Marsh decided not to say anything about the dart or Davide. Instead, she got on with what she’d promised to teach the girl.

  “You can ask the shadows to help you find things in the dark,” she began, and Claudie frowned.

  “But the shadows don’t speak, and they’re not smart enough to think.”

  Marsh smiled.

  “All true, but look around you.” She waited until the girl had done so. “What do you see?”

  “Shadows and darkness.”

  “Can you see in the dark?”

  Claudie shrugged.

  “Sure. I just make my eyes see differently, and everything is pretty clear.”

  “Heat?”

  Again the girl shrugged.

  “Probably. The shrooms are darker than the insects and the cave bunnies.”

  Cave bunnies. Marsh wasn’t sure what they were, but she figured they might be the small furry shapes she’d been unable to identify earlier.

  “Good. Well, what lies in between the things in the cavern?”

  “Shadows?”

  “And what do they do?”

  Claudie pouted.

  “I don’t know. They kind of just hang all around us. They’re everywhere, touching everything.”

  “That’s why we can use them to show us what we can’t see. They touch everything, connecting everything together. We just think about what we need to find, and if the shadows are touching it, we can find it.”

  “Like the air?”

  It was Marsh’s turn to be a little puzzled.

  “Sure, kid. Like the air. Why?”

  “Because the air touches everything, and sometimes when I lose something, I think about the air it touches and I know where I have to look to find it.”

  Marsh struggled to hide her surprise.

  “There you go, then,” she said, trying to work out what to say next. “Well, Ninetta is surrounded by both air and shadows, and so are Pierre, and Pierre’s mum. Why don’t we see if we can work out where they are?”

  “I’ll have to close my eyes,” Claudie answered, “and I won’t be able to see if any raiders come.”

  They both started when Izmay’s voice came from a few feet away.

  “That’s okay. We’ll hold the mules.”

  Claudette and Marsh gasped, and Marsh kicked herself for focusing so much on the girl that she’d forgotten to keep an eye on the cavern around them. Izmay laughed.

  “Chicken.”

  “You’re a chicken,” Claudie retorted.

  “Uh huh.”

  Izmay sounded unconvinced.

  “You wanna look for your friend or should I do that for you?”

  “You can’t.”

  “Marsh just showed me how. I reckon I’d be faster than you.”

  “Would not.”

  “Wanta see?”

  Before Marsh could stop her, Izmay had closed her eyes.

  “Merde,” Claudie muttered and copied the guard.

  Marsh rolled her eyes and slipped off her mule, reaching out to gather their reins. Her legs felt wobbly as she moved, but she realized she could fix that…just as soon as someone came to hold the mules.

  “I got it,” Roeglin said, and Marsh wondered when he’d arrived.

  “Followed you over,” he told her, then added. “You’re lucky I’m not a raider.”

  “Smartass.”

  “That the best you got?”

  Marsh thought about it, but she was tired from the snot dust and its antidote and she hurt where Idris and Davide had used fist and knife. She decided that it really was the best she could do.

  “Yeah,” she muttered and handed him the reins, kneeling on the ground at the mules’ feet.

  This time it didn’t take very long to pull the energy from the earth and plants around her to make the pain and fatigue from the morning drop away. As soon as she felt all right, she straightened up, moving carefully so as not to startle the mules.

  One of them snorted and stamped its feet, but it didn’t back away. Marsh reached out and laid a hand on its muzzle, letting it take in her scent and sending it thoughts of peace and calm.

  “You done?” Roeglin asked, and Marsh nodded. “Good. Why don’t you see if you can do the same for Nikolas? He’s not doing so well.”

  “I’m fine,” the farmhand protested, but Marsh wasn’t convinced.

  “And don’t pull the energy from yourself this time.”

  As if she needed reminding. Marsh glared at Roeglin, and he raised his eyebrows in challenge.

  “You didn’t?”

  Since she’d been about to do exactly that, Marsh didn’t dignify his challenge with an answer. The fact she could hear him laughing inside her head was not helpful.

  “Give me your hand,” she said, reaching out to Nikolas, relieved when he did.

  This time, instead of kneeling back on the ground, she leaned on the mule and thought about drawing on the energy from the world around her to heal Nikolas’s bruises. The flow came slightly faster than before and she slowed it, turning her head so she could direct the energy to the parts of Nikolas’s body where his life force glowed less brightly.

  The man gasped, his hand jerking in hers as though he’d nearly pulled it out of her grasp but then thought better of it. When she’d pushed in as much energy as she thought he needed, Marsh released what remained back into her surroundings.

  “Ha! Got it!” Claudette exclaimed and looked at Roeglin. “Give me my reins.”

  Roeglin stared at her, and the girl tried again.

  “I said, give me my reins!”

  “To borrow a saying from a five-year-old I know, ‘Ruuude!’” the shadow mage retorted.

  “But…” Claudette was stumped. “But…”

  Marsh glanced at the girl.

  “Won’t you need to focus to keep following the trail?”
r />   Claudette rolled her eyes.

  “No. I can do that with my eyes open. It’s like following a thread…” She looked at Roeglin. “…as long as someone doesn’t make me lose it.”

  She bit her lip and tried again.

  “Okay, pleease give me the reins.”

  “And me, please,” Izmay asked from beside her.

  “What lovely manners,” Roeglin told them, using the same tone he would have used on Aisha when she’d done something well.

  He was met by twin glares as he handed back the reins, and both girl and shadow guard kicked their mules into a trot and headed slightly off the trail.

  “No sense of humor,” Roeglin muttered, following them.

  Glancing around, Marsh saw that Gustav and the rest of the guards had joined them, a pale-faced Felicity among them. She wanted to ask the woman if she was all right, but any idiot with half an eye could see she wasn’t.

  “Best follow them,” Gustav said with a glance at Marsh that told her the situation was all her fault. “Leclerc, you’re riding with Felicity.”

  If the look hadn’t told her whose fault it was, him using her surname did. Marsh waited beside the trail until Felicity came alongside her, and then she rode beside the woman until she decided to speak.

  “Will she be okay?” Felicity asked.

  “Claudette?”

  “Yes.”

  “She should be. Why?”

  “It’s just…the killing…I didn’t think she…I mean, she shouldn’t, should she?”

  Well, that was a hard one to answer.

  “It’s not exactly the way we were going to handle the situation,” Marsh told her.

  “But?”

  Marsh sighed and almost regretted just how much the world had changed in the short time since the monsters had first attacked her caravan.

  “He was helping the raiders,” Marsh said and hurried on when Felicity drew a breath to argue that Davide would do no such thing. “You heard him. He refused to believe that anyone they took hadn’t deserved it, and he totally agreed with those able to use magic being handed over to them.”

  “But they must be looking for magic-users for a reason,” Felicity added. “Surely they wouldn’t hurt them if they need them so badly.”

  Marsh favored her with a stern look.