“Anything?” he asked, and Marsh had to wonder why such a welcome sight would bring such immediate suspicion.
Trust me, he has good reason.
Marsh scowled. Roeglin’s commentary was sometimes a lot less useful than he thought, and right now she needed to be focused on the world around them. She took a deep breath, half expecting him to interrupt her concentration once again, but he remained silent, allowing her to search the shadows ahead and try to find what lived in the groves and rocks around them…or who might be responsible.
Once again, she found nothing outside the creatures she’d come to expect in the Dimanche tunnels. There was certainly nothing that would be capable of lighting the glows, and she relayed that to Gustav.
“Nothing?”
From the tone of disbelief in his voice, he wanted proof. Marsh rolled her eyes and slid from the saddle, passing the mule’s reins to Roeglin.
“Come on, Dan,” she said and stepped sideways into the deeper shadow beneath a clump of calla shrooms.
Before Gustav could protest, Marsh had slid into the shadows, becoming one with them, yet not. She felt the hoshkat’s surprise when she kept her hand on Mordan’s ruff and caused her to become the same.
Stay with me, she told the kat, and chose a patch of darkness beside a cluster of rocks farther down the trail. The kat tensed but didn’t try to break her grip, and Marsh took them through the darkness from one patch of shadow to another. When they arrived, she let go of the kat and again scanned the cavern. Again she found nothing, and she wondered if a rock wizard would have noticed something she was missing.
Back down the trail, Gustav had signaled the advance, no doubt getting Roeglin to keep him updated on her progress. To her relief, they didn’t move too fast, and the guards kept watch on the trail on all sides. Izmay even remembered to glance toward the tunnel ceiling. Marsh shifted her attention away from them and paid attention to the new areas she could scan.
Again, she came up with nothing.
Yet the glows still shone. They were a mix of lemon and lime to the usual white, but they shone… and by all rights, they shouldn’t have.
When the trail widened into a junction, Marsh stopped, releasing the kat to explore for herself.
“Thanks, Mordan,” she told her, and the kat rubbed her chin along Marsh’s arm and shoulder in a single quick swipe.
Marsh sighed. One of the beast masters had explained the significance of that gesture.
“You know I’m not your property, right?”
Her only reply was a derogatory flick from the hoshkat’s tail, then Mordan vanished into the tumble of rocks and the fungi that grew between them. Watching the kat’s coat change color with the purple bioluminescence of the calla shrooms overhead, Marsh noticed a soft, greeny-yellow gleam coming from next to one of the rocks.
She crossed over to take a closer look and saw a cluster of low-growing fungi, each shedding greenish-yellow light from beneath a pure-white cap. It reminded her of the glows on this section of the trail, none of which shone in the shades she was used to. Marsh glanced back to the trail, studying the glows—and then she looked at the fungi.
“Oh.”
Hearing the mules approaching, she returned to the trail, looking for a cluster of shrooms growing closer to the glows. Surely…
She found several clusters and inspected the glows to see if their light was a result of some kind of luminescent paint. It wasn’t, and she was crouched beside one, examining it to see if it showed any signs of being alive, when Gustav and Roeglin drew their mules to a halt beside her.
“It’s shroom-light,” she said, gesturing from the glow to one of the gleaming clusters. “Someone’s drawn the light from the shrooms and charged the glows with it.”
Gustav’s eyes sharpened with interest, and he looked at Roeglin.
“Have you heard of this?”
The shadow mage shook his head, but Gustav had to be sure.
“Not even in the time you spent with the rock mages…or on the surface?”
Again Roeglin shook his head.
“No, this is something entirely new.”
Gustav looked down at the fungi, his gaze shifting between them and the glows.
“If this is the work of druids,” he said, “the shadow mages might have help keeping the glows charged on the trail. Perhaps we’ll meet those who did the recharging and ask them.”
He turned his mule’s face back to the trail and kicked it back into a walk.
“Mount up, Leclerc. It’s getting late, and I want to make the waystation tonight.”
Marsh took the reins to her mule from Roeglin and swung into the saddle, reaching out into the dark to see what had become of Mordan. The big kat surprised her by emerging from a cluster of brown noses beside the trail and sending her mule snorting sideways.
“Thanks a lot, kat.”
Mordan’s tail quivered, and the kat looked up at the mule. Unbidden, the mule dipped its muzzle to snuff at the kat’s shoulder, and then it snorted and followed after Gustav.
What was that all about? Roeglin wanted to know, but Marsh couldn’t help him.
Instead, she took her place just back from Gustav and stretched her magic into the caverns, seeking the secrets of the shadows and trying to find what lives might be lurking in the dark. The first stirrings of things that hunted during the night cycle disturbed Marsh’s scans, but nothing that truly promised trouble until the first joffra made their appearance out of a side tunnel.
“We need to be in that station before those things decide we’re the best that’s on offer,” Roeglin said, and Gustav glanced back.
“Joffra,” Marsh supplied, and the Protector captain kicked his mule into a trot.
The waystation lay only a small way ahead, but the path leading off the main trail looked disused, with scattered rock and clusters of brown noses and blue buttons already crowding over it. Drifts of ghost moss hung over sections that would normally be kept clear by the waystation owners. Marsh felt a sudden sense of foreboding as Gustav used a shadow blade to clear enough room for them to pass.
Marsh noticed the bright sparks of life lighting the rock-dark shapes of spiders scuttling away from falling webs of moss. She hadn’t encountered this in her last three years of travel, and she was glad. If the rest of the cavern wildlife was anything to go by, the spiders were probably venomous as well.
You’d better believe it, but they’re also not very aggressive, so short of swatting them, most people find they usually run away.
It wasn’t very comforting.
Neither was the first glimpse of the waystation.
Its stone walls looked like they had been carved from some a dark and distant rock that had been carried into the tunnels from somewhere else.
Almost, Roeglin told her, but he didn’t elaborate. Glancing back at him, Marsh could see that the forbidding cast to the waystation’s façade had caught his attention as much as her own. I don’t think there’s anyone home…
Marsh was about to suggest he try finding someone when his eyes shimmered white, and she knew was already searching for any kind of intelligent thought.
“Nothing,” he said. “You?”
“Nothing,” Marsh agreed a few heartbeats later, although the shadows hadn’t been able to show her what lay behind closed doors or areas blocked by rock falls.
Her ability to sense the bright shades of life showed nothing, even if there were at least two areas where the walls were too thick for her to penetrate.
I saw no minds in there, Roeglin told her, neither beast nor man.
It was something to be aware of as Gustav took them through the waystation’s broken gates and into the small, deserted courtyard beyond. The soldier pointed to Henri and Izmay and indicated the building to the right.
“Check the stables.”
He nodded to Jakob and Gerry.
“Take the commons and kitchens.”
Looking at Zeb and Roeglin, he gestured at the walls.
“Perimeter. Leclerc, you and the kat are with me.”
They ground-tethered the mules, and the others spread out around them. Once they were safely on their way, Gustav turned to Marsh.
“We’re checking the grotto. Stay sharp and keep the big beast close.”
The grotto. Marsh searched her memory but didn’t find any mention of it, and she recalled that Kearick hadn’t sent her to Dimanche via the surface route.
“What am I looking for?” she asked.
Gustav’s answer sent chills to her toes. “Serpents and scorpions.”
Hear that, Dan? Marsh sent the kat an image of a scorpion and a serpent. We need to be careful of those.
The kat gave a snort and stalked ahead of them, her disdain echoing clearly in Marsh’s head.
Even her cubs knew to be careful of those.
“I thought I told you to keep her close,” Gustav protested as the kat reached a small arched entrance into the back wall of the station.
Marsh didn’t answer but eyed the entrance to the grotto that supplied the waystation’s water supply. She wasn’t sure if she should be happy or worried that the station got its water from a natural pool located in a small cave at the rear of the cavern. Even though it was enclosed by the station’s walls, there were no guarantees something couldn’t dig its way through.
“Kat’s got her own mind,” Marsh replied. “Besides, I think she’ll smell them before she runs into them. Any particular reason why we need to go in here?”
Even though neither she nor Roeglin had been able to sense anything, it didn’t seem like a smart move for Gustav to split the group.
“Water,” the Protector told her. “We’re low, and I don’t want to get their hopes up. Besides, you said there were joffra in the cavern, and that means we need to find a secure place to hole up. We can’t defend the entire station. The best we can do is find the most secure position and wait for the day cycle to begin. Joffra are nocturnal, right?”
Marsh nodded.
As far as she knew joffra were nocturnal, coming only during the night cycle. The lizards were voracious hunters, able to camouflage themselves, climb, and run fast enough to bring down a galloping mule—and they hunted in packs, but they were careful what they attacked.
“The pack I sensed has around a half dozen members,” Marsh told him. “They’d be unlikely to take us on unless they had more…or were starving.”
“And what are the chances of that?”
“No idea. It’s not the sort of trouble we’d know about unless we lived here.” She looked around at the deserted station. “And it doesn’t look like anyone’s lived here for quite some time.”
“No bodies, though,” Gustav observed. “Raiders?”
Marsh nodded. Raiders seemed the most likely cause. She followed him toward the grotto entrance, scanning the station as she went. As far as she could tell, there was no one hiding in the station and nothing lairing in its depths, and they reached the grotto entrance without any trouble.
To Marsh’s surprise, it led to a winding set of stairs descending through the rock. After walking the equivalent of two flights, they reached the bottom and followed a short length of tunnel to a small cave. The hoshkat was standing at the entrance, staring out into the small space, and she turned her head to as Marsh approached.
At first, Marsh wondered what was wrong, but then she felt the hoshkat’s awe at the beauty before them. Marsh and Gustav stopped beside her, taking in the view. The rocks at the bottom of the pool glowed, their light painting the walls and towering purple calla shrooms in rippling blue light. Golden gleams as big as barstools shone like suns, and ferns clustered around their feet.
“Why didn’t they turn this place into a base?” Marsh asked, but Gustav didn’t answer.
Instead, he stepped out into the grotto and cautiously made his way to the water’s edge. Marsh followed, surveying the surrounding shrooms for anything that might harm them. She remembered Gustav’s warning and wondered where the scorpions and serpents were, but Mordan curled her lip.
She could scent no threat in the small cave before them.
As if to prove the point, the kat padded over to the pool and dipped her nose to its surface, snuffing at the water. Gustav showed the same caution, kneeling beside the kat as he tentatively dipped a hand into it. Nothing. He glanced at the kat.
“You going to drink this?” he asked, and Mordan turned her head and blinked at him.
He sighed and scooped a palmful of water to his mouth. Marsh tensed, but the guard swallowed and took another scoop before unhooking his canteen and looking at her.
“We’re on water duty.”
Marsh let go of her scans. It had been a long day, and she was beginning to feel the strain of using her magic so often and for so long, even if it was easier than before. Refilling her canteen, she cast her gaze around the grotto once more, and again saw nothing.
The return journey seemed to take longer, and her legs were burning by the time she reached the top.
“Water duty, huh?” she asked, eyeing Gustav where he was standing, his hands on his knees, puffing and blowing like a race mule.
Instead of answering immediately, he straightened and started moving toward the stables.
“We’ll do the mules first,” he said.
10
The Druid’s Defense
In the end, they discovered another secret of the waystation—piped water and hand pumps.
“You are shitting me,” Gustav exclaimed when he arrived at the stables and found the water troughs filled.
Izmay grinned.
“Nope.”
Henri eyed the captain and added, “Not a hope in all the Deeps.”
Gustav glanced at Marsh.
“Well, looks like you’re off the hook, then.”
He looked around the stables.
“How secure is this place?”
“Secure enough to have a tunnel to the commons,” Roeglin announced, coming through a door at the end closest the waystation’s main building.
He looked at Marsh.
“It’s the same as the others.”
Which meant there’d be meals on the table and personal possessions in any occupied rooms. She looked at Izmay and Henri.
“Were there any other mules in here when you arrived?”
Henri frowned and shook his head.
“No.”
“But there were fresh droppings,” Izmay added. “Looked to be no more than a day old.”
“Not the other caravan?”
“Nah. That was three days’ old at least. These were from someone passing through after.”
Marsh thought of Salazar and wondered if the man had managed to avoid the shadow wraith and other scavengers, only to fall victim to his own side…or maybe he’d just spent the night there in peace, the bastard.
“How many?”
“About a half dozen. From the tack, I’d say it was a small trader desperate enough to try to make it to the Ledge on his own.”
“The tack?”
“Sure. It’s over here. Whoever took the mules left it behind.”
Izmay gestured toward some stalls at the other end of the stables. Set on the low barriers between each one were pack saddles, with bridles and lead ropes hanging from the posts at the end. Marsh headed over and took a look. The packs were loaded with shroom fiber and leather, ready to be processed into goods.
There was only one riding saddle, which indicated that Izmay might be right. Before Marsh could make any comment, however, they heard the whisper of claws and a series of short coughing barks.
“Joffra,” Henri shouted and raced for the open stable doors.
Izmay beat him to them, slamming the doors closed and helping him lift the locking bar into place.
“Where are Gerry, Zeb, and Jakob?” Gustav demanded, and they stared in horror at the doors.
“In the kitchen,” Roeglin replied, “making sure dinner doesn’t burn. Whenever the ra
iders hit, it wasn’t too long ago—and they left the supplies intact.”
“Maybe they were going to do what they did at Midpoint,” Marsh suggested.
“In which case, they’ll be back,” Gustav said. Something sniffed along the bottom edge of the stable doors, and the joffra’s chuffing call was heard again.
One of the mules shifted restlessly in its stall, snorting nervously, and Roeglin went to soothe it. Mordan moved over to the door and rumbled a threatening growl. It was answered by a startled screech, followed by the skitter of retreating claws, but the kat continued staring at the narrow gap beneath the door, her ears cocked and her tail flicking slowly from side to side.
When the next joffra call sounded from farther away, Mordan raised her head, gave the gathered humans a scornful stare, and padded away through the door Roeglin said led to the commons.
“Well,” Gustav said. “Talk about being shown how it’s done…”
The mule closest him snorted, and they left the beasts to their dried shrooms and water.
“It’s not normal for the raiders to take the mules,” Marsh murmured.
“Maybe they needed the extra mounts,” Roeglin suggested.
“But why leave the tack?”
“That I can’t tell you,” Roeglin replied.
It was a puzzle Marsh chewed over until she went to sleep, ignoring the banter of those around her to explore the deserted waystation and promise its vanished inhabitants that she would find them.
And if she could, she’d bring them back.
Sleep came slowly, and when it did, it was haunted by dreams, nightmares that exploded from shadow and crawled out of rocks, and the hoots and screams of dark abominations. She woke to the weight of a paw draped over her shoulder and the musty smell of the hoshkat curled around her. She also woke to find she wasn’t alone in the room.
“We ride inside a turn,” said Gustav, staring down at her and giving orders.
Seriously? Marsh thought but didn’t say aloud. Before she could think of a decent response, Roeglin’s voice sounded in her head.
Henri’s trying to steal your breakfast.
It was just the incentive she needed and Marsh was on her feet in a heartbeat, pushing Mordan’s paw off her and shoving back the covers. As her feet hit the floor, Gustav nudged her pack.
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 82
