“There’s more than one of them?”
Marsh turned away from the entrance long enough to take in their three young faces.
“There are four,” she told them, “but Gustav and the others will help us.”
She looked around the cavern.
“We can’t fight in here,” she said. “There’s not enough room.”
“We’re going to have to fight to protect the door. You kids stay here. We’ve got this.”
She glanced around at the wolves, catching the leader’s eye and showing it what she wanted them to do.
He flattened his ears against his skull and then looked right and left, selecting three others from its pack. Marsh gave the children one more stern look before going back through the crevice.
“Stay here!” she said and led the wolves out.
She wasn’t entirely surprised when the leader and only three of the pack emerged, Mordan following them.
“Where are the rest of you?” she asked, sending a question to the leader. He answered by sending an image of pups and the need to protect the mother and the coming cubs, as well as the children.
Well, that explained a lot.
“We can do this,” Marsh reassured him. “See? My pack stands ready to help you.”
Your pack is going to kick your ass, Roeglin told her. Get your tail back in the cave.
You and what army? Marsh wanted to know.
Roeglin rolled his eyes.
“We have incoming.” Zeb’s voice was soft but firm. “They’re trying a pincer.”
“They’re not smart enough for that…surely…” Felicity murmured, and Gustav and Zeb shot her an incredulous look.
As if in answer, the unearthly howls split the air again, coming from either side and sending tremors of fear running through them. Marsh started when rocks rattled quietly behind them, and she tilted her head so she could see. It was exactly as she had expected and feared.
Claudette was slowly emerging, one hand helping steady her as she came out of the crack, the other hand in Ninetta’s.
“Get back in the cave,” she ordered.
22
The Hunters Hunted
Claudette heard Marsh’s order. She cocked her head, folded her arms, and then took a step forward, her arms swinging down to her sides and back up again to reveal a ball of shadow spinning between her hands.
“Not likely.” she snapped, giving Marsh a look that said the shadow mage could try what she liked but Claudette was joining the fight.
“What in all the Deeps is that?” Marsh asked, staring at the spinning ball of shadow, and the child flashed her a grin.
“You can call the lightning from the shadows,” she said. “You work it out.”
Marsh took another look at the ball, this time seeing the faint purple streaks glittering inside it.
“How did you do that?” she asked, but Gerry’s voice cut across them before Claudette could reply.
“Here they come!”
“Don’t get bitten!” Gustav ordered. “And keep those wolves back. Tell them we’ll deal with this. The kat, too.”
Marsh sought the faint connection she’d made with the lead wolf and found it, willing them to hang back behind the line of shadow mages and protect the children if the lycanthropes broke through. She didn’t dare look to see if they obeyed. She’d just caught her first glimpse of a lycanthrope.
The wolf’s memory hadn’t shown her the half of it.
The monster was more than seven feet tall and built heavier than the biggest surface worlder she’d ever seen. It surveyed them with hunger and disdain, and then its eyes caught on hers and it roared. As if its outrage was a signal, the other three came bursting through the shrooms and scraggly bushes, hitting the line of shadow mages as one.
Marsh saw Zeb stagger back under the weight of the first one’s attack, saw Gerry barely raise his shield in time to stop it reaching around and clawing his fellow guard. Marsh watched as Roeglin took shelter behind his shield from a second beast’s attack. The shadow mage pulled a blade of pure shadow from the dark, as Gustav came in beside him, drawing his sword and raising his shield to hold off its attack. The third beast went for Izmay, and the lycanthrope facing Marsh, leapt away.
“Lightning, Marsh!” the captain ordered, effort wheezing through his words. “Lightning. Now!”
Claws reached around the shield, only to abruptly release it when Gustav lunged forward with the sword. There was an agonized yip followed by a howl of pain, but the lycanthrope continued its attack. As she surveyed the battle scene, Marsh realized what the Protectors were doing.
They’d created a perimeter—an edge for her to aim for.
She glanced at the ceiling, calling the shadows, willing them to gather, asking them for lightning and destruction; asking them for protection. Even with the sun’s interference, there were shadows to find. Daylight might edge the cavern, but the cavern was still the shadows’ home. Time they defended it.
She focused. Now that she could see it, she realized that calling the lightning was just like calling a dart or spear from the darkness and throwing it. She should even be able to hit the lycanthropes without cratering the entire perimeter.
A sphere of glittering darkness flew past her, catching Gerry’s beast full in the face as it tried to yank the shield from his hands. It roared in pain and anger and stumbled back, the smell of burnt fur and flesh tainting the air.
“Move your ass, shadow mage!”
Gustav was having problems of his own. The lycanthrope was leaning on his shield and trying to reach around it. Every time the captain lifted his head to see where it was, it took a snap at him, its jaws perilously close to his skin.
A dart of shadow lightning it was, Marsh decided and pulled her hand abruptly down in front of her, noting how a shaft of darkness lanced out of the ceiling and skewered the lycanthrope through the back. She sent three more after it, then looked for the next target.
A second sphere flew past her, and the lycanthrope menacing Izmay’s shield pulled its head back in time for the ball to skim its face. It snarled and raised its head, its eyes searching out the source of the ball. When it saw Claudette, it snarled again, the sound almost forming words.
“You!”
The child was unfazed.
“Me, pooh-breath!” She hurled a second ball made of shadow and light.
This one caught it on the shoulder and throat, and it howled with rage as lightning scalded fur and flesh. Izmay took advantage of its distraction to stab it with the shortened blade she’d drawn from the shadows. Marsh finished it off with a glimmering spike of shadow, saw Zeb put a shadow spear through the third, and then turned, looking for the fourth.
The mages fell back, tightening the circle and looking nervously around. Mordan found the danger before them. Marsh got the impression of a monster climbing around the pile of rock inside which the children had hidden, and then the kat was gone.
“Dan!” she shrieked, directing the shadows to protect the big beast.
It was like pulling a blanket of storm-lit dark from the ceiling and dragging it between the kat and the lycanthrope’s first strike. Claudette followed that with another ball of lightning and then collapsed to the ground. Felicity cried out in alarm and Gustav swore, but Marsh kept her eyes on the lycanthrope her kat had challenged.
She willed the shadows to coat Mordan in darkness, willed the lightning to flow around the outside of them so that anything touching her would regret it, and then she called another bolt from the ceiling onto the lycanthrope. The crackle as lightning arced above it caused the beast to look up, and it leapt to one side, landing at the base of the rock-pile.
The lightning followed, lancing down in a series of jagged strikes, each one missing the beast by a hair’s breadth. The lycanthrope was so busy trying to avoid it that it didn’t see Izmay leap forward, calling on the shadows to lengthen the blade in her hand until it became a spear. Running until she was behind the beast, she set th
e spear haft against the rocky floor and leveled the blade at the lycanthrope’s back.
It caught sight of her just as the lightning flared again, and this time it could not twist out of the way of either. It died with a pained yelp, Izmay barely leaping clear of its flailing limbs and snapping jaws. As silence descended over the cavern, Felicity could be heard sobbing by her daughter’s side. Marsh hurried to see what could be done, aware of the wolves slinking cautiously back into the crevice of rock.
She was aware too of Mordan picking her way down the rock pile and of the little boy moving to stand in front of Ninetta. It was hard to focus on Claudette.
I’ve got him, Roeglin said, moving past her. Marsh relaxed, crouching beside Felicity.
The woman turned a tear-stained face toward Marsh.
“Will she be all right?”
Marsh caught the faint rise and fall of the girl’s chest and nodded.
“Yes, but she’ll need to sleep. Let me see what I can do.”
Felicity shuffled to one side, giving Marsh room to work. As she expected, there wasn’t a mark on the girl.
“She’s just used too much of her magic,” she explained. “Her body needs to replenish its energy.”
She let her words sink in while she lifted Claudette’s hand and held it in her own. Again the energy came at her request and she had to steady it, aware of the way it flowed from her and into the child. Claudette murmured in her sleep, took a deeper breath, and turned onto her side, pulling her hand from Marsh’s grasp.
“She’s fine,” Marsh reassured Felicity. “Just needs to sleep.”
“That’s damned inconvenient.”
Trust Gustav not to be impressed. Marsh looked up at the Protector captain.
“It’s the best I can do.”
He stared at her and then gave a heavy sigh.
“Of course, it is,” he said, “and we don’t need to get to the Outlet after all. Just back to the farm.”
Marsh looked at him in alarm, Felicity doing the same beside her.
“But…but why?”
“Because we have to see if these two have a home to go to, and” he continued, holding up his hand in the face of their protests, “and we have to make sure there are no more raiders.”
He gave another heavy sigh.
“We also have to confirm that they all shared Davide’s view, and then we have to report back to Kerrenin’s Ledge to see what the verdict is regarding their alliance.” He looked at Felicity. “I’m sorry, but we have to get the council to clear your daughter of any charges.”
He held up his hand as the woman started to protest.
“I will speak for her.”
“We all will,” Izmay said from behind him.
She’d returned from where the lycanthrope had died. She looked at the captain.
“It’s getting late. We could camp here tonight.”
She glanced over to where Roeglin had convinced the boy to say hello to Mordanlenoowar, and then she looked at the lycanthrope bodies.
“We need to clean up here, and I believe someone,” she gave Marsh an accusing glare, “promised some wolves some meat.”
Marsh sighed and pushed to her feet.
“You’re right.” She frowned. “Wanna help me hunt?”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Izmay told her. “You caused that problem knowing you didn’t have a clue how to solve it. She walked back to one of the mules and unhooked a shovel from her pack. “You can dig the latrines while the boys and I do the hunting, and then you can help us bury these critters.”
Marsh looked from the shadow guard to the captain and met Gustav’s look of amusement. He raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the shovel.
“Better get to work, shadow mage. We’ll bring back kindling for a fire.” He glanced at the crevice. “It should be safe enough in there.”
Marsh wanted to argue but Roeglin laughed, rising to his feet and dusting off his trousers. He came over and patted her on the shoulder.
“Remember what Clarinay said?”
Marsh frowned. Master Clarinay had said a lot, so what…and then she had it. Scouts got to the campsite first, and their first responsibility was usually to make sure the latrines were dug.
“Really?” she complained. “You’re in this too?”
Roeglin merely laughed and followed Izmay to the edge of the camp. To her surprise, Gustav didn’t join the hunters. He merely crossed to the mules and led them into the space in front of the crevice, unsaddling them while Marsh found a suitable site for latrines. She was well into digging them when he joined her, shovel in hand.
“Mules are done,” he said, “and the wolves have set up house in the cave.”
He could only mean one cave, but Marsh knew she’d have to negotiate a sleeping place with the wolves once she was done.
“Has Roeglin said how the hunt is going?”
“They’ve struck it lucky. There were goats and deer grazing on the slopes above the cavern.”
“They went outside?”
Gustav shrugged.
“Sure. It wasn’t that far off. No wonder the wolves came in here. They probably thought it was just a cave they could hide in. They’re lucky it was more.”
They finished the latrines, and Marsh went to negotiate space inside the small cave for the humans.
“The pack is hunting for you,” she told the leader, giving them the impression of the shadow guards returning with a goat and hoping they’d had that much luck.
The wolf leader gave her the impression the pack was welcome to join them if it brought meat and then tilted its head to where Mordan had settled herself in a corner with Pierre resting between her paws. Marsh frowned.
“You can’t keep him, you know…” she began, and the big kat opened her mouth in a mock yawn, showing all her fangs as she curled a paw around Pierre. Marsh sighed and hoped this didn’t mean more trouble ahead.
Gustav followed her gaze and smiled.
“Someone’s got a new pet,” he said, and Marsh glared at him.
“Oh, really?”
He turned to her.
“Well, do you want to be the one to tell her she’ll have to give that cub up?”
In all truth, Marsh did not, even though she couldn’t see how she was going to avoid it. Gustav nudged her.
“It’ll be all right,” he said and indicated the wolves. “Now, if these guys agree, I’d like to bring the girls inside so they can sleep…and I’d like to start a fire so we can cook the meat.”
One of the wolves growled.
“Our portion of the meat,” Gustav amended, and the wolf laid its head on its paws.
It was up and moving minutes later, and Marsh followed it to the crevice and out into the cavern proper. The daylight was fading to a more tolerable grey, and none of the returning guards were wearing the gauzy eye-bands Felicity had given them. The wolf pricked its ears and gave two excited yips that drew the others from the cave to join it.
If the hunters were surprised to be greeted by a small but very happy wolf pack, they didn’t show it. Instead, they called Marsh over so the wolves could let them know which of the two goat carcasses they preferred. It was an easy choice, and they put it down so the wolves could feast uninterrupted.
It didn’t take them long to dress the second carcass, leaving the discarded innards for the pack to enjoy. The mules watched the whole proceedings with unease, not letting any of the humans near them until they had washed the blood from their hands and arms. Everyone ate well that night, the wolves surprising the humans by returning to the cave to take their places by the fire.
Marsh caught the eye of their leader, and it reminded her of the druid they had lost, allowing her the image of a young man with dark-brown curls and laughing brown eyes. Pointed ears and a lithe build caught her eye and then the image was gone, the wolf resting its chin on its paws with a huff of sadness.
“Would you like another to run with you?” Marsh asked it, and the wolf raised its head.
Another?
“There are more druids coming from the Deeps,” she told it. “There should be at least one among them who would like to walk the upper caverns.”
This one? the wolf seemed to ask, giving her the impression that the pack liked the cavern they had found. They particularly liked the small cave inside the cavern, although it would seem lonely without a human to keep them company.
“I can ask,” Marsh told them. “Would you like to come and meet them or should I bring them to you?”
She pictured the options and let the wolf think about what it wanted. In the end, it decided it would accompany Marsh back to Kerrenin’s Ledge, and that its pack would come with it. There were many hunting grounds, after all, and who was to say that this one was the best?
“The wolves are coming with us,” she said, and Gustav froze mid-bite.
He met her gaze and then took his bite, chewed, and swallowed, his eyes roving over the gathered pack. It took him a few moments, but finally, he spoke.
“What, all of them?”
Marsh nodded.
“They want to find another druid.”
He glared at her.
“I suppose you told them there would be druids coming to the Ledge and they could take their pick?”
He sounded so unamused that Marsh wondered if she’d done the wrong thing. Roeglin snorted with laughter but said nothing, focusing on his dinner when she looked his way.
Uh-uh. You’re on your own with this one, he told her, but his face was alight with amusement. You Deeps-ridden troublemaker, you.
“I…” Marsh stopped as Felicity put her hand on her knee.
“He’s teasing you.”
Roeglin took a sharp breath and Marsh scowled at him, then saw the funny side of it.
“You forgot, didn’t you?”
The look on his face said it all and Marsh started laughing.
“You forgot. How does it feel when someone does it to you?”
“Does what?” Gustav wanted to know.
“Reads his mind,” Marsh replied and glanced at the shadow mage. “Not nice, is it?”
“I… It’s been awhile,” Roeglin admitted, and Felicity smiled quietly and went back to her meal.
Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more Page 71
