“Bristlebear says the pack must go quietly, for the bad men know they have taken friends of the pack. He will tell me what they see.” She turned to Obasi. “He says you are the strongest and can relay the plan to the two-legged pack.”
She cocked her head. “Is that true?”
The Grotto warrior cracked a smile. “It is so. Can I link with you?”
Aisha’s face lit up. “Yes! That would be fun.”
She looked around, and Marsh got the impression she was looking for Mordan to ride. After a minute, Aisha realized the kat was unavailable and gave Obasi a beseeching look. “Can I ride your mule?”
He nodded and held out his hand. “Yes.” He glanced at Brigitte. “If your teacher does not mind.”
Brigitte waved them toward the mule. “I have no objections, but you must both teach me what you just did.”
Aisha frowned. “You don’t know how?”
Brigitte flashed her a feral smile. “Exactly,” she told the child. “Every teacher must be willing to be a student if it means they can learn to be better.”
25
Rescue Party
And every teacher should deserve their student’s respect as much as this one does, Marsh thought, watching Brigitte go to war, Aisha by her side.
The little girl’s eyes were solid black edged with burning green as she coated herself a moving wall of stone and kept Obasi in contact with the kat and the wolves. Brigitte stayed with her, but the shadow mistress’s usually red eyes were the color of pitch. Shadows glimmered in her hand, and the nearby darkness shot black darts into the nearest raiders.
Marsh could feel Aisha’s intrigue and partial envy as the child saw some of her teacher’s skills with an element she hadn’t mastered.
No fair and Oooh rattled through the girl’s mind, even as she raised a forearm and used a floating shield block to a raider’s strike.
“Dan!” the child wailed as the kat swept her attacker’s legs out from under him and then tore out his throat.
It is not good for a cub to have too many kills, Dan explained to Marsh, keeping the comment just between them. They begin to think they can conquer the world.
Sadness edged her words, and Marsh caught a glimpse of the kat’s longing for her own cubs before it was tucked swiftly away. Mordan’s next two kills were swift and terrifying, as if the kat were trying to use the bloodshed to compensate for her loss.
We’ll find them.
A wave of sadness and disbelief was her only reply, and she stumbled, her eyes blurring at the depth of Mordan’s grief.
We’ll find them, Obasi echoed, and a wolf howl followed in affirmation.
The pack will assist. This pride will be complete.
Shouts of agreement rolled through the battlefield, and Marsh felt the kat’s chagrin and mortification.
That was not meant for sharing.
Obasi was unrepentant. I know. I shared without permission. I will not ask forgiveness.
This left Mordan baffled and upset, so the kat focused on taking out her outrage on every raider in reach. She attacked without thought for her own safety, a mother mourning the loss of her children, a storm of vengeance without any hope of self-preservation. It wrenched at Marsh’s soul.
Obasi!
I have her!
And the warrior was true to his word. He leapt into battle alongside the hoshkat, deflecting attacks that would have dropped her and striking back to make sure those attacks weren’t repeated. Marsh felt the turmoil boiling through the Mordan’s mind and didn’t try to reason with her.
She knew that feeling. It had been with her when she’d thought she’d lost Roeglin. When the children had been taken. When she’d found Gustav.
Marsh! The mental cry was echoed by an all-too-real shout. “Marsh!”
Tamlin came alongside her, slamming a shield between her and the next raider’s attack, even as she gutted the man or woman before her and turned to take down the next.
“Marsh!”
Marsh glanced across the battlefield and decided there were still too many raiders active, but it was the one who had raised her sword to a prisoner who proved too much.
“Just the raiders!” Obasi shouted, his eyes gleaming white as his presence poured into her mind and over the battlefield.
Shortly afterward, his voice was joined by a dozen others as Grotto warriors and shadow guards alike shouted the same plea. “Just the raiders. Only the raiders.”
Marsh felt the lightning bend in her hands, but the presence moving it wasn’t trying to wrest it from her control—just redirecting it solely at the raiders.
Well, she could live with that!
“Take them all!” she snarled, then bent to the weight of a dozen desperate minds. “Just the raiders. Leave nothing of them to remember!”
Lightning roared, and the other presence uttered several phrases she didn’t think appropriate for someone so young. Tamlin laughed.
“I learned them all from you.”
That gave her pause, but his next question was tentative, almost pleading.
“Can you tell the lightning it can rest now?”
Please was a chorus of fear and admiration. Sobbing echoed through a space from which the sound of battle had fled. The scent of fear overlaid the stench of blood and spilled intestines.
Merde, but Mordan could be Deeps-be-damned selective about what she shared!
“There are no more raiders,” Tamlin added.
No more, Aisha’s voice repeated, floating into her head like ointment over a wound.
“Please, no more.” Obasi’s hand weighted her shoulder. “We are safe.”
“We are safe,” Marsh told the lightning. “Thank you for your service. Be at peace.”
“At peace,” Tamlin reiterated, adding his control to hers. “We are safe.”
The lightning settled reluctantly, and Marsh leaned into Obasi’s hand.
“That is some temper you have,” the warrior told her, and Marsh heard an all-too-familiar snort behind him.
“You’re telling us,” Henri commented, and this time Izmay was in full agreement.
“Yup, a terrible temper. The kat, too.”
Mordan’s rumble of protest garnered scattered laughter, but Brigitte brought them back to the present.
“We need to get these people back to town.”
“I have asked Sulema to send reinforcements,” Obasi informed them.
He searched the faces of the captives until he found Master Olderman. The mayor sported a black eye and a deeply bruised cheek, but he stood slowly as the warrior came toward him.
“We can offer you shelter at Ariella’s Grotto if your people need it,” he told the man, and Master Olderman bowed his head.
Gesturing to his people, he replied, “That is not a decision I can make on my own. Can you let us have some time to decide? A day, perhaps?”
Obasi nodded. “I can give you two, but we must know so that we can either provision a guard force at Briar’s Ridge or prepare space for you in the Grotto. Either way, the choice is yours, and the aid comes with no debt attached.”
The mayor’s jaw dropped, and for a moment, Marsh thought he might cry, but he closed his mouth, firmed his jaw, and nodded. “Your patience is appreciated.”
He paused and then laid a hand on Obasi’s arm. “We know the way home,” he began, but Obasi shook his head.
“That is not an option. As much as we want to pursue the raiders to their lair, we cannot do that until we know you are safe.” He glanced at Mordan and Marsh. “I am sorry.”
“But we are going after them, aren’t we?” Marsh demanded, the kat’s penetrating gaze echoing her question.
“Oh, yes,” Obasi reassured her.
“And soon. Tomorrow. Before winter.”
Again, Obasi replied positively. “Yes. Tomorrow, and before winter. We will not let them either strengthen or disappear in the cold. They will be ended before we are forced to return to our burrows and dens.”
/> Marsh was sure that last was added for Mordan’s benefit, but she agreed. The raiders would not get one more season’s peace, and she needed to be back at the Library fortress and at Roeglin’s side before the season set in.
Something told her that this battle was not over and that the space Below had to be dealt with—and quickly.
It was a somber return to Briar’s Ridge, and much slower than either Marsh or Mordan desired. Even Bristlebear was impatient at the delay, and that was with the pack leader being in full agreement with the need to return the humans to their dens.
It was nightfall by the time they got back, and Obasi insisted on settling them into the recently vacated community hall. “We can protect you better, here,” he told them and refused all arguments to the contrary.
Rocko and Joanna joined them shortly after their arrival.
The pair hadn’t been idle while they’d been away. They’d gathered supplies from every house, starting with the smithy, carefully bundling food, equipment, and personal possessions into family piles inside the community center.
“We didn’t have time to bring the furniture or the crockery,” Rocko explained.
“And we weren’t able to go through every home,” Joanna added, her admission bringing gasps of protest from the other townsfolk.
“How dare you!”
“What gave you the right?”
The protests died as the mayor held up his hand.
“My thanks to you both,” he told the blacksmith and Marius’s sister. He indicated the pile of belongings that had been gathered from his home. “I appreciate you bringing this down.”
He stooped and began undoing a bundle marked as food. Turning to Obasi, he said, “I don’t have much to share, but what I have is yours.”
His gesture was swiftly followed by others. “I have something here, too.”
“And me.”
“I have spare blankets.”
“I am sorry we didn’t get more done,” Rocko apologized and was quickly hushed to silence.
“You brought plenty for the night,” the mayor told him. “That is enough. Tomorrow, we will decide what to do next.”
“And we will wait until the reinforcements from the Grotto get here,” Obasi added, drawing a growl of protest from Mordan and Marsh.
The response was so closely timed that it drew laughter from the gathered townsfolk, but Aisha looked worried and laid a hand on Marsh’s knee while burying her other hand in the fur of the kat’s neck.
Tamlin, too, laid an awkward arm around her waist, and Brigitte shuffled closer. Even Henri pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning on.
“Don’t make me come over there.”
Mordan hissed, and Bristlebear wove his way through the gathered townsfolk to stand in front of the big man. Henri’s look of surprised delight was almost enough to break the tension in and of itself.
“See? Even the wolf agrees!”
Bristlebear gave him a yellow-eyed look of disapproval and lifted his leg on the man’s boots, and that was enough for Marsh.
She started to laugh.
Even Mordan’s ears flicked forward, and the big kat curled her lip.
“Oh! Hey!” Henri protested, shuffling back a step, but Bristlebear kept his gaze fixed on the kat until Mordan huffed out a sigh and sat up to groom her forepaw.
Obasi breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, that’s settled then. We’ll stay here tonight and let you decide what you want to do next. The relief from Ariella’s Reach rode out this morning and will reach us sometime tomorrow. When they arrive, we’re going after the slavers, and they’ll help you with whatever you’ve chosen to do. Bien ça?”
The mayor looked around at his people, catching their solemn nods as they moved to prepare for the night ahead.
“Bien,” he confirmed. “Let us see what tomorrow brings.”
“That’s another Deeps-be-damned set of boots you owe me,” Henri grumbled, but quietly, and with a wary eye on Bristlebear.
Izmay covered her mouth with her hand, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Henri took one look at her and rolled his eyes.
“Not you, too!”
26
Mind-Walking
The warriors from Ariella’s Reach surprised them by arriving shortly after the sun rose. Their mules were snorting with the effort of a long jog, but not exhausted. Marsh was roused by Mordan launching herself from the bed.
The kat didn’t use her as a take-off point, but the sudden loss of warmth alerted her that Mordan was gone. Marsh opened her eyes in time to see the big beast arc over her.
She scrambled back, raising her arms before her in an attempt to ward the monster away as the kat reached the floor on the other side. Mordan wasn’t amused.
If I was a monster, you’d be prey, the kat told her tartly.
Marsh scowled at her. If you were a monster, I wouldn’t have let you sleep on my bed to start with.
Mordan did not dignify that with an answer but bounded for the door. Hurry. Our hunt begins!
Our hunt? Oh, Deeps, no! Wait up! But Mordan didn’t wait, and Marsh hurriedly shoved the blanket aside and grabbed her boots. As much as she wanted to run after the kat, she’d never keep up with her barefoot.
You need to toughen the pads of your feet, the kat told her.
Marsh rolled her eyes. As if a kat would know.
The response to that was a distinctive kat’s ass, and Marsh jerked the laces of her boot tight. Not what I needed!
I agree, Obasi told her, and she wondered when she’d given him permission to look through her thoughts as if he were Captain Envermet.
Strange that you should mention him.
Oh, he didn’t.
I’m afraid so. Obasi sounded troubled. He didn’t consult you?
He Deeps-be-shagged-and-shaded DIDN’T!
Obasi withdrew. I am very sorry for the intrusion.
No, you’re not.
He was back in an instant. Indeed I am. This level of intrusion is usually only undertaken by mutual consent.
Well, someone needs to teach the good captain what that is, then. Marsh jerked the leg of her trousers down over the top of her boot.
I am truly sorry. He started to withdraw again, but Marsh stopped him.
Did he say why?
Only that it was necessary to coordinate the troops and to keep you safe.
Keep me safe?
Yes. He was most adamant about that. Obasi hesitated and then added, And I would agree after yesterday.
Yesterday, it was something Marsh would rather not think about, and her heart sank. For a moment, she’d let her emotions overtake her. No. I’m the one that’s sorry. Master Envermet has a point.
There was a hopeful lift to Obasi’s voice when he replied. So I can stay?
As long as you stay away from anything personal and give me room to think without interference.
Done.
Marsh thought his agreement came too quickly, but she really didn’t care. Right now, her only priority was catching up to the kat.
There is a mule waiting, and one of the wolves will guide you. You will never catch her on foot.
Thank you. Marsh grabbed her pack and hit the door at a run. There were people in the corridor, and they scattered in front of her.
She drew curious glances as she crossed the dining hall, but no one tried to stop her. Bristlebear was waiting for her when she got to the door, but he gave her a clear path to the mule.
Marsh was in such a hurry that she only remembered to slow down when the mule skittered sideways, laying its ears back at her approach.
“Really?” she whispered. “We have to do this now?”
“Now?” she repeated when the mule’s ears came forward and its nostril’s flared.
“You’re gonna need a shroom ball to get anywhere near him.” Henri’s drawl might have been welcome if Marsh hadn’t thought there were strings attached. “He’s not fond of wolves.”
&n
bsp; Marsh acknowledged that by thrusting her hand out behind her. She snapped her fingers. “Donne!”
“Ooh, now, where’s my ‘please?’”
“Give me the Deeps-be-damned shroom ball, or you’ll be without yours!”
There was a tiny gasp, followed by a “That’s rude!” and Henri started laughing.
“You gonna try that again, or do you want that example of extremely bad manners to stand?”
Marsh pivoted to face him, lashing out with one hand to curl her fist around the collar of his armor while she pulled a blade from the shadows. “Give. Me. The. Deeps. Be. Damned. Shroom. Ball!” she demanded, trying to shake him with every word. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I think she might actually be serious,” Izmay informed her partner, “and I’m rather fond of the bits closest to that blade.”
Henri had paled, and he swallowed convulsively before opening his fist so Marsh could take the ball. He still had to have the last word, though.
“Are...are you sure this is the example you want to set for the child?” he asked in a voice that creaked.
Marsh shot a quick glance at Izmay.
“Mais oui,” she told him. “This is exactly the example I want to set. I don’t want my children bullied by someone who should know better.”
Izmay rolled her eyes. “Told you, dear. She’s got her momma instincts in a tangle, and you’re standing in the way.”
“Over a damned kat?” Henri asked. “She’d nut me over a damned kat?”
“That damned kat has saved our lives a dozen times over,” Marsh snarled, “and now I need to save hers. Get the Deeps out of my way, or you’ll lose more than your nuts.”
Slowly, she unclamped her fingers from his neckline and dismissed the blade back to the shadows. Sweeping the shroom ball from his hand, she turned back to the mule.
It was an effort to keep herself calm as she approached the animal, but she managed it...almost. She still radiated enough hostility that it balked at her, but the shroom ball won it over, the candy shroom appealing to its natural desire for sweetness.
Sweetness, Obasi told her. It works better with the beasts.
Trading By Stormlight (The Magic Below Paris Book 7) Page 21
