Mordan looked toward the tunnel they’d discovered that led to the surface. It was less a narrow trail through the shrooms than a well-used road.
“He’s been lying to us about their ability to trade with the surface and how much they wanted to stay isolated, too,” Sulema added. “It seems to me the only ones who were isolated were us.”
Roeglin arrived from the other direction. “I take it that’s going to change?”
Sulema nodded. “Oh, yes, but not before we’ve fortified the entrance here, and the one on the surface. We’ll be mounting a standing watch, and building a waystation and trading post. It’s the only way we can truly monitor the area around the sinkhole entrance.”
“So, that’s what Kwame and Tabia will be doing?” Marsh asked, and Sulema looked at her.
“Along with a small contingent from your monastery. It is time we had a presence beneath the sun, again.”
“Master Envermet knew?” Marsh demanded, and the Shadow Guard captain answered.
“Master Envermet did,” he said, strolling out from between two buildings, leading their mules. “He also said this was the last time you could be delayed, and that you would be leaving directly after the battle.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Are you ready?”
Marsh looked down at her blood-spattered armor and then at Mordan. “Deeps, yes.”
Master Envermet turned to Sulema. “If we have done all you need?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“I will call Sergeant Sewa—”
“I’m here, sir.”
She stepped out of the shadows of a nearby building and gave Marsh a quick smile. “I didn’t want to hold you up.” She turned to the captain. “I’ve called the troops into the town square. You can let them know.”
It was as close to an order Marsh had heard anyone give the captain, and he looked mildly surprised.
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
She stepped back into the shadows and disappeared, her voice floating in the darkness. “I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sulema told him. “It’ll make the transfer official.”
“And your people?”
“Some will be in attendance. The rest are mopping up.” She gave Marsh a stern look. “We didn’t kill them all.”
Unlike some, hung in the air between them, and Marsh’s cheeks burned.
She stalked over to her mule, taking the reins from Master Envermet’s hand. Roeglin followed.
Master Envermet looked at her. “I’ll keep this brief,” he promised.
Marsh said nothing, but she was pleasantly surprised when he did exactly as he’d said.
“I know this is not what you expected,” he began, addressing the gathered Shadow Guard, “but the people of Ariella’s Grotto thank you—and so do I.”
Heads turned to survey the cavern around them, but the guards’ attention returned as he continued, “I will be joining Mistress Leclerc in her rescue mission, but I leave you in able hands.” He indicated his sergeant. “Captain Seward will lead you in my absence. Work for her as you have worked for me, and I will have no complaints when I return.”
The shadow mages and guards stirred restlessly at his words, but Master Envermet ignored them.
“Captain, if you would step forward?” he ordered and gave her a brief smile. “I see you are out of uniform.”
She was blushing as he reached into his shirt pocket, and his smile returned at her expression of surprise.
“I had them made up before we left...just in case.”
“You knew?” she asked.
He shook his head. “When I chose you as my second in command, I chose a very competent sergeant who showed great promise. You have lived up to that promise and earned your stripes. I trust they will be in place by morning.”
“Yes, sir!”
“And this,” he added, holding up a small silver badge, “marks your status as the First Captain in Ariella’s Grotto. It will require the appropriate engraving, but will serve to mark you as long as these men and women stand witness.”
He raised his head and surveyed the gathered troops. “And do you?” he challenged.
“Sir! Yes, sir!” echoed back at him, and he pinned the medal to Seward’s chest.
“Congratulations, Captain.”
The troops cheered until Envermet held up his hand. He indicated Sulema. “You are to provide the leadership of Ariella’s Grotto with every assistance in securing their territories until I return or Captain Seward identifies a higher priority. Am I understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Again, they stilled as he raised his hand.
“This is my last order until I come back.” He gestured at Seward. “Look to your captain.”
“Sir!”
Master Envermet was smiling as he turned to Seward. “Take care of my troops.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
He gave her a single nod of acknowledgment and turned back toward the entrance leading to the surface. Marsh hovered, torn between following him or calling for her team.
Captain Seward seemed to read her mind, and her voice rang out over the square. “Advance team, you are dismissed to Shadow Captain Envermet’s command.”
Relief flooded through Marsh as she watched Izmay, Henri, Jacob, Gerry, and Zeb moved forward, each of them leading a fully laden mule. She breathed a sigh of relief when Brigitte accompanied them.
As they filed past to stand behind her, one of the young Grotto warriors stepped forward. “I will be going, too,” he declared, and Sulema turned toward him.
Before she could speak, he continued, “They saved my family and my grandmother. This is how I will repay them.”
“By becoming a thorn in the foot,” an elderly voice sniped.
Several chuckles followed, and the young man threw a look of exasperation over his shoulder.
Sulema spoke quickly to calm him. “I am sure you will be of greater help than that,” she assured him.
“Then I can go?” He sounded surprised, and Sulema gave a throaty laugh. “Yes, Obasi. We will look after your grandmother until your return.”
He hurried over to the settlement leader and clasped her hands in his, raising them to his bowed forehead. “Thank you, Mother.”
Mother? Marsh wondered.
Roeglin replied, It is a term of respect in the Grotto, one given to an older female who is not old enough to be a grandmother.
But... Marsh began.
Or to one you do not wish to call old, Roeglin added, a smile in his mental contact.
As soon as Obasi had said his farewells, they headed for the tunnel the settlement had claimed no longer led to the surface.
“We should have killed them all,” Henri muttered, observing the well-worn trail.
“Not all of them agreed,” Izmay reminded him.
He grunted, not entirely convinced.
“And some had their children held hostage,” she reminded him.
“Tell me we killed everyone responsible,” he rumbled, looking thoroughly disgusted.
She gave him a fierce smile. “Those who felt no remorse, yes.”
“And those who did?”
“The Grotto will ensure they pay.”
Henri grunted, scowling fiercely as he thought about it, but he said nothing more. They rode toward the surface in relative silence, Mordan padding through the dark ahead of them.
2
Unexpected Refuge
Marsh settled into silence, tamping down the urge to kick her mule into a fast trot to reach the surface faster. Mordan’s anxiety fed over the link between them, and she reached out to soothe the big kat.
Her answer was a snarl that rippled through the dark and set the mules to snorting.
Roeglin raised an eyebrow and looked at her.
“She wants us to go faster,” Marsh explained, and the guards around her groaned.
“Speaking of going faster,” Master Envermet called back, “I need you up here scanning ahead
.”
Marsh sighed and kicked the mule forward. When she arrived, Master Envermet held out his hand for the reins.
“I’ll make sure you stay alongside,” he told her, and Marsh nodded.
She closed her eyes and sent her senses out into the dark. The impis moved in their wake, content to let them take the lead.
They stopped where the trail widened into a cavern. Marsh blinked and looked around as Master Envermet nudged her and handed back her reins.
She caught the remains of square-edged pillars stretching up to a ceiling that was unnaturally flat beneath the slow growth of stalactites and the seepage of dirt. They were not the first travelers to stop there, she noted, seeing the remains of a campfire at the cavern mouth.
As they surveyed the space, she caught sight of the solid stone walls of a shelter. The doors were firmly closed but wide enough to allow two mules and riders to walk abreast.
“Think they’ll let us in?” she asked when she caught Master Envermet studying the structure.
“I think we need to scout it out before any of us go near it,” he replied and frowned at her. “How are you feeling?”
Marsh opened her mouth to say she felt okay when she realized just how bone-tired she was. Her body ached with the fatigue of fighting a battle followed by a long day’s ride.
Master Envermet grunted and looked back to Roeglin.
“Shadow mage, I need to know how many minds are behind those walls.”
For a moment, Marsh wondered how Roeglin was feeling, but his mind touch was firm and strong. I don’t use as much magic as you when I fight, he told her, and I haven’t been scanning for life for the past six hours.
The man had a point, Marsh thought, and she subsided. He slid from his mule and stepped into the nearest patch of shadow.
He reappeared as a dark patch on the edge of a cluster of calla shrooms, then vanished again to reappear at the base of the walls. Marsh watched as he crouched, stretched out a hand, and laid it on the solid timber of the structure’s gates.
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 rega
rded 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.”
“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.”
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 120
