Trading by Firelight

by C. M. Simpson

  “Valerie,” he said, barely-reined hostility lacing his tones. “Why are you here?”

  Marsh thought he might have at least tried to sound grateful, but the mercenary leader wasn’t surprised.

  “Devin. You’re welcome. We’re here to save your asses.”

  One of the raiders groaned and was promptly impaled from several directions by shadow spears that disappeared as soon as they’d torn their way through him.

  “Why?”

  “Because we need your help.”

  Marsh noted she didn’t add that the mages clearly needed her help, too. She let that fact hang unspoken in the air between them.

  “And why would I help the likes of you?”

  “Because these raiders threaten more than just this cavern. Because you’ve lost people to them, just as the town has, and because you want your people back.”

  Until she’d said those last few words, the look on Devin’s face said he was going to disagree. Instead, he gestured toward a fire that had burned throughout the melee.

  “Come and talk.” His gaze swept the mercenaries and registered curiosity when it came to the shadow guard Protectors. “Bring your people...and your friends.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned away, catching sight of the mage Marsh had helped. She saw him relax just a fraction and a very brief smile crossed his lips.

  “Es, you made it.”

  The mage laid a hand on Marsh’s arm.

  “I had some help from a new friend.”

  Devin looked at Marsh and his eyes flared white.

  Welcome...friend.

  Marsh stared at him, too surprised to react, but his mind touch was light and gone as swiftly as it had come.

  “See to the cleanup,” he ordered, turning back to Es. “Take who you need.”

  He gave Marsh one more assessing look and moved over to the fire, gesturing for the mercenaries and Protectors to join him.

  “I’ll help,” Marsh said when Es looked around.

  “And me.”

  It was no surprise when Roeglin came over. Henri’s arrival was another matter.

  “What?” the big guard asked when Marsh stared. “I can help too, can’t I?”

  “I’m not making you dinner in exchange,” Marsh told him, and Roeglin laughed.

  “Caught,” he said, nudging the guard, and he asked Es, “What would you like us to do?”

  “I need the dead in one pile,” the female shadow mage instructed, “and the wounded through there.”

  She gestured toward an arch formed from a single large fungus. Golden light bathed the area beyond in a warm glow.

  “Infirmary. We grow our own gleams and moss,” she added by way of explanation. “It’s handy to have a supply close by.”

  Roeglin arched his eyebrows.

  “Get hurt a lot, do you?”

  Es scowled at him, her reply short and hard.

  “Not as often as the miners that we have to rescue.”

  Marsh was sure there was a story behind that but just as sure that now was not the time to ask for it. Instead, she followed Es’s orders and helped Henri move the wounded into the infirmary while Roeglin and two of the local shadow mages set the dead to one side.

  18

  Kearick the Slippery

  As soon as the wounded were settled, Marsh returned to where Roeglin and Es were standing by the pile of dead.

  “Where do you want us to dig?” Roeglin asked as Marsh arrived, but Es shook her head.

  “No digging necessary,” she told him. “Not yet, anyway. The shrooms over there could do with the ash.”

  Ash? Marsh thought, but Es hadn’t finished.

  “Stand back,” the mage commanded, and Roeglin, Marsh, and Henri followed the locals in moving away several paces.

  “Now watch,” the female mage ordered.

  They did as they were told, watching as Es moved her hands, drawing long lines of darkness from the ground and wrapping them over the small pile of bodies. Once they were covered, the mage made a scooping motion with her palms as though she was throwing dust into the air and the woven shadows burst into blue-tinged flame.

  On either side of them, the other local shadow mages made a gesture that made Marsh think of they were gathering air into an invisible bundle before them. The flames glowed brighter, going from dark blue to light blue to a brilliant white. When Marsh thought the light couldn’t get any brighter, the mages clapped their hands once and the flames went out, leaving her blinking as her eyes tried to adjust to the cavern’s normal levels of light.

  When she could see again, the pile of bodies was gone, replaced by a pile of ash.

  “We’ll take that to where it’s needed later,” Es told them and walked over to where the mages, mercenaries, and Protectors were gathered around the fire.

  Marsh was just about to follow her when she heard Mordan roar and a man shriek. Everyone turned toward the sound, and Gustav looked at her.

  “Go see if the kat needs help,” he ordered and Marsh took off through the shrooms, aware of Roeglin and Henri running beside her.

  Behind her, she heard Devin’s voice raised in puzzled query.

  “You brought a hoshkat?”

  It was rapidly followed by outrage.

  “To my cavern?”

  Marsh figured that was something she could deal with later. Right now the most important thing was to make sure Mordan hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew. Once again, Marsh called on the shadows and sought the life in the cavern around her. She was surprised to find Mordan was much closer than she’d realized, but not surprised to see the figures running from the kat.

  Or rather, three figures running from the kat, while four more turned to face her.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Marsh muttered, calling a spear from the darkness and hurling it at the nearest raider.

  She had drawn her sword and was running for the next one when Roeglin interrupted.

  Henri and I have them. You go after Kearick.

  Kearick? Marsh scanned the shadows again, this time looking for a thread connected to the rogue merchant.

  There were many.

  She traced them, veering away from the raiders facing Mordan and pursuing the ones that were strongest.

  “Kearick!” she shouted, and one of the human life-signs she was pursuing hesitated.

  “Kearick!” Marsh screamed again, focusing on that life-sign while noting that the other two had also turned toward her voice.

  As she closed the distance, one of the raiders moved to intercept her while the other ran a few paces more, then stopped. Marsh couldn’t see what he was doing until she pushed through a stand of calla shroom and brown noses, and by then the first raider was on her.

  She blocked his first wild slash and he blocked her counter-thrust, sweeping it out to one side. Marsh turned with him, deflecting the blows that followed with her buckler as she prepared her second strike. Beyond him, she could see Kearick, but the merchant seemed more concerned with what the other raider was doing than the fact that she was so close.

  We’re going to lose him, she thought and parried another attack from the raider blocking her path. She followed that with a series of broad strokes that pushed her opponent back even as he parried them. One got through, and he snarled a curse as he broke away and put a few strides distance between them. He remained between her and the other two though, so Marsh followed him, trying to put him down as fast as she could.

  The mage with Kearick was opening a portal on his own, which she hadn’t known they could do. If he let shadow monsters into the cavern, they’d have more on their plates than anyone wanted to deal with. Her momentary distraction cost her—the raider took advantage by darting forward and lashing out.

  Marsh caught the movement from the corner of her eye and barely brought her blade up in time to block it. The impact jarred its way through her blade and down her arm, and it was Marsh’s turn to be pushed back by the flurry of blows that followed.
/>   “Move, Lemos!”

  The order came from the mage, and Marsh’s opponent glanced back. Marsh did likewise in time to see Kearick step through a tear in the shadow. She caught a glimpse of wooden panels, bookcases, and half a dozen soldiers dressed in raider black. Behind them stood several mages, balls of swirling darkness in their hands. This time she didn’t see the raider’s attack coming.

  He didn’t use his blade but swept one hand toward her, pushing a block of shadow into her. It hit hard, crushing the arm holding her buckler into her chest and knocking her off her feet. Marsh gave a yelp of surprise and ended up on her backside in a cluster of blue buttons and golden gleam, watching as the raider ran for the opening.

  Mordan got to him before he reached it. The kat sprang from beneath a clump of calla, slamming into the raider’s side and knocking him from his feet as Marsh scrambled up. The raider’s mage took one look at them and leapt through the portal. Marsh leapt after him, but she was too far away and the rift closed before she could reach it.

  She turned back for the raider, only to find the kat had already ended him.

  “Of all the monsters in the Deep!”

  Mordan raised her head.

  Was Marsh referring to her?

  No, Dan. Never you. You are not a monster.

  The kat raised her lips imitating a snarl and showing Marsh what her enemies saw just before they died.

  Marsh laughed.

  You are not a monster to me.

  The kat relaxed and then slammed a paw down on her victim’s head. Marsh looked away.

  Thanks, kat. Not what I needed right now.

  “Me neither,” Roeglin added and Mordan lifted her head, surveying them both with a look of disdain as she flicked her tail in derision.

  “Thanks, kat.”

  Henri laughed as he came over.

  “Looks like she told you,” he said, and looked at where Kearick and his escort had disappeared.

  There was nothing there now unless she counted the usual display of shrooms and rock.

  “He got away.”

  Roeglin laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “We’ll find him.”

  “Oui,” Henri agreed, “and when we do, we’ll tear the little shit into pieces too small for his momma to put back together.”

  Marsh remembered that Henri had worked for Kearick and had lost a brother in the same attack she’d rescued the kids from.

  “We’ll burn the pieces just to be sure.” She turned to Roeglin. “We go back?”

  He shrugged.

  “Oui. There’s nothing to find here.”

  Dan, walk with me. The locals aren’t happy I brought you to their cavern.

  The kat showed what she thought of that in a long rippling snarl that rolled through the cavern.

  To everyone’s surprise, the snarl was answered in kind.

  Henri snapped around to face the dark. Mordan tensed, her tail lashing from side to side.

  Stay with me, Dan. We don’t want to kill anyone’s friends.

  The kat gave her the impression that if the creatures now stalking around the base of a stalagmite were anyone’s friend, then their friend had better stop them before they did something everyone regretted.

  “They’re wolves, Dan.”

  “Biggest Deeps-be-damned wolves I’ve ever seen,” Henri muttered, drawing his sword and holding it loosely by his side.

  The lead wolf stalked forward, and Marsh saw that he had a point. The wolves were a lot bigger than usual, and heavier set, their fur thick and long and surprisingly unmatted. Someone clearly cared for them. Before she could pursue that idea any further, Roeglin spoke.

  “There’s another mage.” His quiet murmur was pitched for their ears only, and the kat hissed.

  She didn’t have time for another mage. She had too many opponents as it was.

  “He’s a mind mage,” Roeglin added, “and he’s influencing the wolves.”

  “Isn’t that something you can do something about?” Henri growled.

  “I can try, but I don’t think the wolves want to attack. I think they’re being pushed.”

  “Enough talk,” Henri said. “You deal with the mage. We’ll try to keep the wolves from eating you.” He sighed, sheathing his sword. “I could do with a really big stick about now.”

  “Pull one from the shadow,” Marsh told him. “It’s just like the fire you call to your blade, but darker.”

  “Fire, huh? How does that go again?”

  “Just don’t copy Marsh,” Roeglin told him. “The locals are already annoyed with us. They don’t need any more reasons to add to the list.

  Hear that, Dan? You can’t kill them.

  This time the kat hissed at her.

  She would try, but she didn’t like the way the front one was looking at her. In the time before the raiders, such a look would have been worthy of death.

  Just not today, Marsh begged, and the kat’s tail flicked. Please, Dan.

  The kat would try.

  Suddenly the wolves surged forward, all focused on Roeglin. If Marsh had needed proof someone was messing with their head, she had it now. Roeglin was not the greatest threat, and wolves weren’t stupid.

  Beside her, Roeglin sank to the floor, his face contorted with effort. For a moment, Marsh was tempted to try to help him, but that would leave Henri and Mordan facing odds of three to one. With a sigh, she brought her hands inwards, gathering the shadows, then pushed out, sending the resulting wall into the wolf pack.

  Much to her dismay, she heard several yelps as they tumbled away from her, some crashing into shrooms and others into rocks.

  “I thought you said we couldn’t hurt them.”

  “I can fix what I break.”

  “Can’t you fix what we break too?”

  This time, Mordan turned her head to look at Marsh. Apparently, the big human had a point. Couldn’t Marsh fix what Mordan broke?

  “Not funny, Henri, and no, I can’t, Dan. You break things far too well.”

  Even as she spoke, Marsh saw the wolves getting up and shaking themselves off. At least she hadn’t hurt them too badly. She’d also given them someone else to concentrate on.

  “Fine by me,” she said, drawing the shadows together again.

  This time it was harder, and she could feel fatigue nibbling at the edges of her mind. Henri looked concerned.

  “Don’t push it too far, girl. I’m not carrying you back.”

  Marsh waited until the wolves had almost reached them, then pushed the shadows over them. This time she pushed harder. Better they suffer a few bruises than force either Henri or Mordan to stop them. At her feet, Roeglin groaned.

  “Deeps, but he’s strong.”

  Marsh remembered what the mage had said about him not being the only mind mage in the world, and remembered he’d never claimed to be the strongest.

  “Merde.”

  Henri glanced at her.

  “Do what you need to do. The kat and I can hold them.”

  Marsh doubted it, but she didn’t have time to argue. She was about to kneel down beside Roeglin when she thought of something. The shadows formed a wall. She didn’t need to use them to knock the wolves aside. Wolves couldn’t climb.

  “I’m such an idiot.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  Henri didn’t have to sound so much in agreement!

  Marsh scowled, but the wolves were already picking themselves up, so she had to move fast.

  “Get in close,” she said, “unless you like being stuck in shadow.”

  Henri crowded in so close he was a line of warmth up one side of her body. The kat, sensing over their link what Marsh had planned, pressed herself against Marsh’s legs, her chest forming an arch over Roeglin’s kneeling form.

  As soon as they were in position, Marsh pulled the shadows together once more, then she closed her hands as though she was gripping the edge of what she’d gathered. In her mind, she could feel the shadows in her fists. Slowly, she stretched h
er hands apart thinking of pulling the shadows into a wall, of the base of it firm against the ground, the top taller than her head. A wall curving around them, thick enough to stop any wolf and too high for them to leap over.

  When she’d pulled her hands as far apart as she could manage, she let go of one edge and turned in a circle, pulling the other around them until the two edges met. Once they were touching she let go, then she crouched beside Roeglin. It was better than having her body fall down when she was mind-walking somewhere else.

  Now all she had to do was figure out how to get into Roeglin’s head. How had she done it with Monsieur Laberge? Her mind shied away from the memory. Sure, it had been funny at the time, but it had been embarrassing too, and some memories were better not to have.

  Normally Roeglin would have laughed as she thought that, but he didn’t. It gave Marsh a vague idea of just how much trouble the mage was in. She had to hurry, but she didn’t know how.

  Taking a deep breath, she thought about thinking what Roeglin was thinking, of feeling what he was feeling, of seeing what was really going on inside his head. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but Marsh pushed away the fear that Monsieur Laberge had been a lucky guess.

  She had been inside the merchant’s head. She had seen what she had seen and known he was telling the truth. She could do this. After all, Roeglin was in her head all the time. All she had to do was find the connection and follow it back, just like she did with Mordan.

  Taking another breath, Marsh focused. This time it didn’t take her long to find her connection to Roeglin and shift along it into his head. What she found when she did was terrifying.

  The other mage had noticed her wall and given one last command to the wolves. From the glimpse she got of his thoughts, Marsh knew it was because the man was sure the pack would turn on him otherwise. Marsh wondered how she could make that happen, because what he was doing to Roeglin was unforgivable.

  He’d managed to corner her friend in his own mind and was raining a storm of lightning down on Roeglin’s kneeling form. For his part, Roeglin had created a sort of defensive shield over himself, and the storm was beating against it with all the ferocity the other mage could muster.