He bowed his head, oblivious to his surroundings, and Marsh suppressed the urge to scold him. Instead, she scanned the area around him, hoping she could reach him in time if danger emerged.
She relaxed a moment later when Mordan stepped quietly from the shadows to stand beside him.
The big kat’s eyes gleamed as she watched the cavern, and her tail twitched. She lowered her muzzle to sniff Roeglin’s back and he shifted one hand to rest on her shoulder, using it to haul himself back to his feet.
Marsh was not ready for him to raise his fist and bang loudly on the double door, and she tensed at the reply that came from within.
“Stand where I can see you.” The voice reminded her of Obasi’s grandmother, save that the accent was different. Thicker somehow, and more guttural.
Roeglin sighed and moved so he stood in front of the gates.
The voice came again. “Is that all of you?”
“No, we are three impi strong,” he replied, and Marsh heard several sharp intakes of breath from those around her.
“Three?” To her surprise, the door cracked open, and a face peered out.
It turned as the woman scanned the cavern, her eyes glowing a vibrant green. “Why, so there are.”
When none of the impi or guards moved, the woman glanced at Roeglin. “I take it you’d all like a bed for the night?”
“If it’s not too much trouble, Mistress,” Roeglin replied, and she gave a throaty laugh.
“With manners like that, it’s no trouble at all. Tell your friends to come ahead.” She glanced down at the kat as though noticing it for the first time. “So, you are real, then?”
Mordan stretched her nose toward the woman, snuffing loudly. The lady chuckled and held out her hand, palm up. “You may come inside, too. With what stalks the hills at night, it would be better.”
“There’s danger here?” Roeglin asked, his voice suddenly alert.
The old woman snorted. “When is there not danger, young man? Come in. You can help with the stabling.”
Roeglin sighed. “As you wish, Mistress.”
Marsh disliked the phrasing, and he sensed it. It’s not what you think.
Uh-huh. You tell me what I’m supposed to think, then.
That it’s a term like Mother?
A likely story!
His sigh floated clearly across the cavern. Have it your way.
When you’re quite done Master Envermet was not impressed.
Neither was Mordan, Marsh realized as the cat glared at Roeglin and then at her. Was Marsh seriously going to stop for the night?
I have to sleep, Dan. I won’t be able to rescue anybody if I drop dead from exhaustion.
Mordan did not find that amusing, but she followed Roeglin into the sturdy fortress on the other side of the cavern. Henri and Izmay rode past Marsh and Master Envermet to lead the way through the gates.
“Precautions,” Izmay explained, and Master Envermet shrugged. He looked back at Kwame.
“Has this always been here?”
The warrior shrugged. “This is the first time any of our people have been this way.”
“I do wonder, though,” he added as Master Envermet turned back to the front, “how they survived the raiders unscathed.”
“Raiders?” The voice from just inside the wall made them all jump. “The slaving scum who pass us and do not see the walls for the illusion we cast?”
Roeglin? Marsh called, panic flowing through her as a young man appeared by the gate. Roeglin!
I’m here, he replied, his mental voice slightly faded. There are others. I...did not feel them.
We know.
They will not harm us.
Your contact, it’s fading.
Rocks... came as faintly as a whisper, but it wasn’t one.
Marsh turned to Master Envermet. The rocks...
I know. I heard.
He nudged his horse forward, and Marsh stayed with him. She felt for her link to Mordan. The kat was not happy, but she was not alarmed. It was more disappointment that she had been caught unawares by the extra people in the cavern.
Marsh received a jumbled impression of children and half a dozen adults.
The impi followed them into the walled courtyard beyond, then through a second set of gates into a broad stone hall. Stables lined one wall, and three levels of small dwellings lined the other.
Balconies of stone had been carved out of the rock, and a low white-stone wall separated a garden from the rest of the space. The first set of gates closed behind them, then the second, but they ignored the sound.
The dozen people arrayed in front of them were their sole focus. Roeglin and Mordan stood with them, and neither of them looked under threat.
Ro!
We’re okay. Surprised is all. Out loud, he said, “This is Mistress Toya and her sons Nikita and Ilya and their families. They run the waystation here.”
“Trading post,” the woman corrected, her accent sounding thicker with the walls closing in. “We came to trade with the caverns below and built a home here.”
“Why here?” Master Envermet asked.
“It is where my sons were born,” she explained, and gestured toward the garden, “and where my husband died. Where else would I go?”
Marsh thought about suggesting she go “home,” wherever that was, and Master Envermet gave her a sharp glance. Mistress Toya indicated the other adults standing slightly behind her.
“My sons married locally and we had to give our children a home, so we made new lives here.”
“And you hid from the raiders?” Master Envermet said, his tone indicating he’d like to know more.
Mistress Toya gave him a mysterious smile. “We hide from many,” she told him. “It is safer that way.”
Marsh wanted to know why and from who, but decided it was a question for later. Mistress Toya hadn’t finished.
“Please, accept our hospitality.”
Master Envermet regarded her solemnly.
“Please, forgive my directness,” he began, “but—”
Mistress Toya pre-empted him.
“Why do we offer you hospitality but hide from others?” she asked.
Master Envermet nodded.
“You came seeking,” she explained and gestured at Roeglin. “More precisely, he came seeking, and he was not seeking us, but something else.”
“You are mind-walkers?” Master Envermet asked, but Mistress Toya shook her head.
“Not in the way you mean,” she told him. “We cannot read minds, but we are able to read intent, and yours is to find the ones you have lost.”
She looked at where Kwame and Tabia sat quietly on their mounts. “And yours is to protect the people who dwell with you below. None of you were hunting for us, or looking for the enemy that dwells in the cavern.”
“The enemy?”
“The bone-eaters. Your raiders lost people to them, but could never spare the time to hunt them from the cavern. They became a known threat, tolerated but guarded against.”
“Tolerated?” Marsh was horrified.
“They were a known risk and easily driven off. Most times, they would go in search of easier prey.”
“And you have not driven them out?”
Mistress Toya gave a soft, sad smile. “They are too strong for us. We forage in numbers and confine our hunting to the day. In the first case, they do not take us on, and in the second, they sleep.”
“And you do not try to take them while they sleep?”
“They outnumber us three to one and would wake too quickly for victory.”
“We can drive them out,” Master Envermet offered, and Toya cocked her head.
Her eyes flashed green and then white. “You have places to be and people to find,” she told him.
She glanced at Kwame and Tabia. “But I would be grateful for your assistance.”
“I thought you said you were not mind-walkers,” Kwame began. “Your eyes flash white when your powers are in use.”<
br />
“We sometimes catch glimpses of what lies in another’s mind,” the woman admitted, “but it is not a power we wield. It comes and goes as it pleases.”
“And the one where you sense intent?”
“Oh, that one, we can control. It has saved us on many occasions when we did not cover the gates fast enough.”
“Like tonight?”
Toya nodded. “Like tonight.”
She gestured toward the stables. “You are welcome to stay the night. We will not be opening the gates until dawn.”
Marsh frowned, and Master Envermet frowned at her. Don’t say it.
Marsh shook her head, and the world wavered. Roeglin walked over to stand beside her mule.
“Here, let me help,” he ordered, reaching up to steady her as she slid from her mount.
They were shown to rooms in the ground-floor dwellings, while Toya’s family moved to the third floor. Marsh couldn’t help wondering who—or what—dwelt in the second-floor apartments.
No one, Roeglin informed her, and we do not want to venture up there. They treat it as an extra layer of security for them.
They ate trail rations, their hosts having offered only a safe place to sleep, and nothing more.
Marsh thought it a strange way of showing hospitality until Roeglin showed her the jumble of thoughts in the five-year-old’s head.
So much for not being bothered when they forage, and the raiders leaving them alone. she said when he was done.
We are lucky they let us in at all.
Marsh agreed and stood. I need to sleep.
Roeglin indicated the bed. They assumed we were together.
Marsh blushed, and Mordan gave a disgusted sigh. You should allow him to couple, the cat observed, and Marsh blushed harder.
The kat did not understand. He would be a good mate for you.
Not the time, Dan, Marsh told her. I need to sleep.
Sleep after, the kat suggested, and Marsh rolled her eyes.
I do not want cubs yet.
Why? They would be good for you. The kat’s absolute certainty wrapped around her and Marsh stifled a groan.
Goodnight, Mordan.
3
The Search Begins
Marsh woke wrapped in Roeglin’s arms, with her face pressed against Mordan’s back. She struggled upright, surprised to feel as good as she did.
“You slept,” Roeglin told her. “How did you expect to feel?”
They ate a cold breakfast, then Marsh pulled a day’s worth of rations from her pack.
“Will it be enough?” she asked, setting the rations at the foot of the bed.
“It will be if we all leave some,” he told her and cocked his head. “Yes. We are all leaving a day’s worth of rations. It will not cripple us, and it will make the difference for them. We can inform Tabia and Kwame when we have left.”
“Tabia and Kwame already know.” Master Envermet’s voice intruded from the doorway. He’d arrived, stepping into their room and pulling the door closed behind him. “I informed them when I rose this morning. They are horrified and relieved, and will find a way to offer assistance.”
“Is that what you wished to speak to us about?” Marsh asked, wondering if the trading post sold bells she could tie to his ankles.
His lips curled with amusement. “I do not think bells would be appropriate, Shadow Mistress.”
Marsh blushed. She had not even felt the captain’s mind touch. Roeglin snickered. Captain Envermet raised an eyebrow and studied them both, and Roeglin’s merriment died.
“I am here because it is time to leave, and I wanted to make sure you were ready and not...otherwise distracted.”
Otherwise distracted? Marsh wondered, and couldn’t stop a swift glance toward Roeglin. To her surprise, the mage’s face was crimson.
He cleared his throat. “No, not distracted.” He indicated the room. “As you can see, we’re almost ready to leave.”
Master Envermet studied them and nodded. Turning back to the door, he said, “I will see you both in the courtyard. Do not be long.”
He took a step, then stopped and glanced at Marsh. “You owe Henri and Izmay another dinner. They have prepared your mules.”
“Merde,” Marsh muttered, lifting her pack from the ground. “Come on, Dan, before Henri decides he needs you to hunt him something special.”
“He hasn’t thought of that yet,” Master Envermet told them. “Give him time. His ambition grows.”
“I just bet it does,” Marsh told him wryly. “We’re coming.”
They were in the courtyard and mounted shortly afterward.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Master Envermet told Toya. “We look forward to trading with you.”
The woman beamed, and Marsh caught the faint hope that stirred in her mind. Perhaps they would be saved after all.
She resisted the urge to send assurances that they would be. Master Envermet sent them instead and then wheeled his mule away, ignoring the look of surprise on the druid trader’s face.
The Shadow Guard captain rode over to where Tabia and Kwame sat at the head of their troops.
“We must go,” he said. “Thank you for your companionship.”
“Thank you for saving our homes and families,” Kwame replied. “It is a debt we might never be able to repay.”
Marsh couldn’t help thinking that if anything happened to the children because of their delay, he’d be absolutely right. She didn’t say it, although both Roeglin and Master Envermet gave her a sharp glance.
“You have not checked our defenses,” Kwame told him. He would have said more, but Master Envermet cut him off.
“I will inspect them on our return. It would be unfair of me to judge them when you’ve had no time to judge them for yourselves, and we must go.”
Some of his shielding slipped, and Marsh saw there was something else underlying his sudden fixation on leaving—that worry about her and Roeglin’s morning activities was not the only reason he had come to see them.
Just as quickly, the shields returned, and she lost her insight into his mind. What had that been about?
None of your business, Master Envermet told her. At least, not yet.
The way he said it made her worry, but she kept a firm grip on her tongue and followed him into the outer courtyard.
“Scanning, if you please,” he ordered as the inner doors closed behind them and the outer doors started to move.
Marsh closed her eyes, keeping a firm grip on her reins as she did so. Master Envermet’s sigh was accompanied by the snick of a lead rope being attached to the mule’s bridle.
It will stop you from falling, he explained.
Marsh ignored him, blending mental and druidic magic and sending it out into the cavern. Things stirred on the edges of her consciousness—dark desire and hunger as life energy flared brightly.
She almost called a halt but summoned the shadows instead. Around her, harness jingled and weapons rattled as the guards and mages came alert. Marsh ignored them.
Show me what moves here, she demanded, waiting for the right tendrils to answer.
Several threads thrummed and she drew the images they touched, her gasp echoed by Roeglin and Master Envermet. Swords slid clear of their scabbards and the creatures at the end of the strands fled deeper.
Marsh had never seen anything like them. They were like wolves or hunds, but their muzzles were shorter and legs longer. With shaggy hides and horizontal stripes on their legs, they kept their heads and tails low as they slunk hurriedly away.
Marsh observed them as they wound their way through the shrooms, avoiding the glow surrounding stands of calla and the brevilar. The creatures kept their heads low and their brushy tails tucked close to their hindquarters as they went, casting many furtive glances toward the riders.
Marsh breathed a sigh of relief as the last of them disappeared, and Master Envermet stirred restlessly beside her, kicking his mule into motion.
“They’ve gone, b
ut stay alert,” he ordered. “We don’t know what else is out there.”
The mule moved forward and Marsh switched most of her focus to the ground that lay ahead, although she still kept some attention on the bone-eaters as they headed for their den. Before long, they had moved out of range of her druidic senses, but the shadows showed her all she needed to know.
“They don’t look that dangerous,” she murmured, remembering what Toya had said about the traders having to forage in numbers.
“Neither do wolves,” Roeglin told her, and sent her the image of a wolf observing them from a distance, rapidly followed by one of a pack coming in for the kill.
Marsh shuddered. “Well, there is that.”
She kept half an eye on the shadows following the bone-eaters and concentrated on scanning ahead. To one side of the cavern’s broad expanse, there was a tunnel leading up. Yellow light gleamed along its walls, showing where ancient building materials had crumbled, leaving space for fungi and grass to take root.
Vines sent snaking tendrils into the cavern, their branches growing thicker the further into the light they grew. Henri and Izmay rode forward, but Master Envermet called a halt.
“If you need eye coverings, now’s the time,” he told them, and Marsh listened to the rustle of gauze strips being pulled out of pouches and fastened.
“Tighter, Henri,” Izmay griped. “I’m not made of glass!”
The comment made Marsh smile. If anything, Henri was the one more likely to shatter of the pair. She forced herself to focus on the world ahead and around them, and relaxed just a fraction.
The only lives she could sense were the small ones—the insects and small mammals that moved among the shrooms. Closer to the surface, there were more. Some were unfamiliar, but others reminded her of the animals she’d encountered in Kerrenin’s Ledge—the small long-eared ones the wolves found so hard to catch.
“It’s clear ahead,” she said, and the others stilled.
“How do you know?” Henri challenged, and Marsh opened her eyes.
She knew they blazed green.
Trading Into Daylight (The Magic Below Paris Book 6) Page 2
