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.”
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.
You could have helped, Marsh snapped, remembering to keep her angry response in her head. She felt the mule’s lips whiffling over her palm and slowly moved her other hand to capture the reins. Forcing herself to move slowly, she looped them over its head and came around to its side.
It chewed contentedly as she mounted, not reacting when Aisha came over to it and laid her palms against its cheeks. The little girl’s eyes flashed green, and the mule nuzzled her face.
“I’m coming,” the child announced, and reached up for Marsh’s hand.
“No, you’re not,” Marsh argued and tried to turn the mule away.
Aisha put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. The mule dropped its head, planted its feet, and stood as still as a stone.
“Aysh, I don’t have time for this!”
“Then I come,” the girl told her firmly and stretched her hand up again.
The mule shook its head, watching the child, one ear swiveling to follow the sound of her voice. Looking at the girl’s upturned face, Marsh caught sight of the green limning her eyes.
“I come.” This time Aisha was adamant.
“Fine!” No sooner was the word out of Marsh’s mouth than Obasi stepped forward and lifted the girl into the saddle in front of her. “But when we finish this, you and I are going to talk.”
The clatter of hooves caught her attention, and she looked toward it to see Tamlin and Brigitte mounted and leading more mules.
“Good girl, Aysh,” Brigitte said, nodding to the girl and then to Henri, “and you. That took balls.”
“Nearly cost me balls, too,” the big man grumbled as he moved to take one of the spare mules.
Brigitte snickered. “I warned you.”
Obasi took another of the mules.
You, too? Marsh wasn’t impressed, but the warrior was unrepentant.
Master Envermet said I was to do my best to keep you alive.
I’ll be speaking with him when he gets back, then, Marsh grumbled, but the mule had lifted its head, so she gathered her reins and kicked it into a trot.
“Bristlebear, which way?”
The wolf took off down the street, and Marsh urged the mule into a canter. Mordan had gone ahead, and the kat had no intention of waiting. Marsh wondered what her familiar knew that she did not.
Bristlebear’s response said it all. We picked up the scent of hoshkat on one of the raiders, a male. The female is sure the scent is familiar.
Why was I not told?
The kat needed to rest.
Marsh wondered how the wolf had managed to convince Mordan to do that.
We told her we needed to scout to give us the best chance her cub could be retrieved, and that we would not let her pass until morning.
Given Mordan’s temper, that had taken some courage. Marsh wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not. Bristlebear offered no comment.
For that matter, Marsh wondered how she was speaking so clearly to the wolf. She had some druidic talent, but not this much.
I help. Aisha’s simple response was unexpected, but it made Marsh smile.
Tucked around the girl as she pushed the mule forward, she could do little more than give her a mental hug. Thank you.
Happiness bloomed around her but was quickly replaced by a series of images, some from Mordan and some from the wolves.
I see why Master Envermet tasked me, Obasi said, his voice fading as he took the information and began directing his troops.
Marsh wondered how much longer it would take them to reach the fortress. The raiders had been camped an easy half-day run from Briar’s Ridge, but that would be a hard day’s slog for prisoners. How much farther was their fortress?
She tried to see through Mordan’s eyes and found the kat overlooking a fortified ruin. It had been built partway up a hill, and there was a small park beside it that had been enclosed and turned into fields. The smell from the windows nearest the field caused the kat to wrinkle her nose and move her tongue in an attempt to dislodge the scent.
More prisoners?
Mordan twitched her tail in irritation. What did Marsh think?
Marsh shrugged the response away and went back to studying the fortress. She could worry about prisoners later. Right now, she had to work out a way to get to them.
The fortress was a multilayered structure with an open roadway before it. It was surrounded by a combination of old iron fences and stone and rubble walls. Observing it, Marsh counted only two guards on the walls and a small cluster of a half-dozen men on a makeshift balcony overlooking the fortress’s forecourt.
The leader? she thought, focusing on the man in the center.
He was standing at the balcony’s edge, looking pensively out into the rubble, his voice carried c
learly in the cat’s thoughts.
“They’re late,” he growled, and one of the men beside him—his lieutenant—grunted in agreement. “Do you think they’ve been taken?”
The lieutenant shrugged, his face pensive. “Only if the rebels returned earlier than anticipated. The runners said they only left two, maybe three, nights ago.”
“But is it possible?” There was a tension in the leader’s voice that grabbed Marsh’s attention. She wondered why.
It came to her after several moment’s concentration.
The raiders’ leader had overextended himself. No matter what it felt like, he didn’t have a never-ending supply of troops. What he did have were prisoners and what he thought were two killing machines.
Aisha poked her. “Hey!” she whispered in what might as well have been a shout. “That’s rude.”
“Is not,” Marsh hissed back, becoming aware the mule had come to a stop. She tapped it forward, only to have Obasi come alongside and grab its bridle.
“We walk from here,” he murmured, and Marsh looked around.
“What?”
“You went mind-walking.”
“But I can’t!”
“Can so, too,” Aisha retorted.
“I didn’t mean, too.”
“Tell me,” Obasi urged, “just how hard were you concentrating on the people in the stronghold?”
Marsh blinked. “I wanted to know how many people they had, but I didn’t...”
Obasi tilted his head. “You linked with Roeglin, did you not?”
She licked her lips and nodded.
“And you can talk to the children.”
Two sets of eyes focused intently on her, and Marsh shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“So, you’re developing mental magic.” It was his turn to shrug. “It happens, especially once you’ve been exposed to others who are able.”
He smiled. “Which you most certainly have been.”
“It never used to work,” she grumbled. “I mean, I don’t remember that ever...”
He frowned. “No. Something has changed, but that is an answer we must seek another time.”
He glanced cautiously around the rubble. “We have a kat to aid and prisoners to rescue.”
“You know that how?”
“Mordan walks your mind and the wolves scout. It is time to go to war.”
Marsh followed his example and peered around the ruins’ edge. “What did you have in mind?”
“First, the kat is going to let the kits know she is there. If she can re-establish contact with them, we’ll have two fewer problems to deal with. Our job is to get to the humans before the leader and his core of guards can.”
“And the wolves?”
“Will try to take down the guards before they reach the prisoners and us.”
It was a start.
27
One More Fortress
The plan held together right up until they couldn’t find a way in.
The wolves threaded their way around the walls, and Mordan patrolled the nearby buildings, but the space between the fortress and the closest ruins was too large. Marsh looked at Brigitte, Tamlin, Izmay, and then at the impi warriors.
“Who can shadow-step?” she asked.
“I can try,” one of the warriors informed her. “I can touch the shadows.”
Marsh looked at Obasi, and the impi leader nodded.
“Move from there to there,” he ordered, indicating two patches of shadow. He looked at Marsh. “You first. I will show him.”
Marsh arched an eyebrow. Oh, you would, would you?
It is the quickest way.
It might have been the fastest way, but the warrior needed more time.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized when he couldn’t.
Marsh laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be. It will come, just not in the time we have. I am sure Obasi can use your skills another way.”
Obasi nodded. “I will need you on this side of the gate.”
Marsh rose. “We’ll drop in just on the other side of the gate.”
“Be careful,” Obasi told her. “They have noticed the wolves. They know we are here.”
“They can’t be sure, can they?”
A bell rang out from the fortress, its chimes echoing off the ruins around them.
“They’re sure,” Obasi reassured her. “Be swift. They don’t know which way we’ll come from, but they’ll keep a close watch on the gates.”
“Can you...” Marsh hesitated, but Obasi caught the rest of the thought in her mind.
He shook his head. “I need to have my head clear. I cannot mind-walk them. We’ll have to do this blind.”
She gestured at the others, and he shook his head again. “We need them clear too. I’m sorry.”
Marsh wanted to ask what good a gift was if it could not be used as needed, but she didn’t. She also wondered how they were going to divert attention away from the gate, but Mordan solved that problem for them.
The big kat roared, letting her kits know she had come for them. The soldiers on the walls scrambled toward the sound, and the men on the balcony pivoted.
Mordan roared again, commanding, demanding, pleading.
At first her cries died away to nothing, and then a snarl replied. It sounded like rejection to Marsh. Worse, it sounded like it had originated from the forecourt.
Moans of fear were carried on the wind, and then the wolves replied. This time the snarl that came back was more Mordan’s roar in miniature.
“Merde.” Henri’s murmur said it all, but Mordan didn’t give up.
She roared, again, and Marsh tapped Brigitte, Izmay, and Tamlin on the shoulders. “We need to go now.”
The kat had conveyed that much. She was going in to speak to her cubs, whether or not Marsh and the others could join her, and Marsh was determined that she wouldn’t do that alone. She was not surprised when Aisha came up beside her.
“I’m coming,” the little girl declared, and Marsh knew she had no time to argue. This was one battle of wills she wasn’t going to win.
She pushed away the idea that it was another battle of wills she wasn’t winning, ignoring Tamlin’s snicker and Brigitte’s muffled snort. Instead, she led them into the dark, threading her way through bushes and rubble until she reached the roadway.
There she paused long enough to get the all-clear from Obasi. Aisha, however, had other ideas. While Marsh waited, the little girl laid both palms on the stone wall and asked the stone to move aside.
It obliged, forming an arch tall and wide enough to admit one adult—and causing expletives to ripple through the druids.
“A la poutain!”
“Merde!”
“Daughter of the Deeps-be-damned Deeps.”
Henri chuckled, the sound of his heavy steps coming after them loud in the still night air.
“Well, that’s screwed that,” Izmay commented, slipping through the gap before Aisha could get the bright idea of trying it for herself.
Only Tamlin’s quick thinking and rapidly cast shield saved her from the hoshkit’s attack.
Aisha’s cry of “Bad kitty!” was not what Marsh wanted to hear. Nor was, “You get back there NOW!”
The kit’s startled hiss came as a surprise, but Marsh ignored it. With Tamlin, Izmay, and Brigitte close by, the child was safe.
“Tams, follow Marsh,” was not an instruction she welcomed, and Aisha’s hasty strengthening of the connection between her and the boy was far from subtle.
She didn’t have time to either forbid or rebuke them, though. There was movement on the balcony, and the first crossbow bolt burred past her to bury itself in the stone wall.
“Go!” Obasi shouted in her ear. “We’ve got this.”
“Don’t hurt the kits!” she yelled, focusing on a piece of shadow behind the leaders.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” was his whisper as she leapt into a patch of shade cast by the wall and stepped out in the room behind the commanders.<
br />
She moved forward straight away, remembering Aisha’s instructions and the child’s clumsy link between her and Tamlin. Izmay’s presence came as a shock and a relief, but by then, they’d been noticed.
One of the lieutenants pivoted, turning and firing in one smooth movement. The other mirrored him as the leader unsheathed the arm-length blade at his back.
“You,” he said, gesturing at Izmay, surprised when the woman ignored him to take on the soldier coming at them from his far right.
“No. Me,” Marsh demanded, dragging a blade and shield from the shadow. This time, she added a touch she’d learned from Aisha.
She cloaked herself in shadow, a second layer of armor that covered her usual leathers. It moved with her like a second skin.
“Shadow warrior!” The man grinned. “I’ve always wanted to add one of you to my tally.”
“Try it,” Marsh challenged and called a shower of darts from the walls behind her.
They flew past her, and he dropped to one knee, realizing too late that he wasn’t their target. The crossbowmen had discarded their bows after their first abortive attempt to shoot the intruders and were in the midst of drawing their blades when the darts caught them.
They went down, choking on their own blood as the darts pierced their chests and then dissipated. The two swordsmen closed the gap between them and their boss. Marsh had time to wonder where the sixth man was when Izmay gave a cry of pain and followed it with a shout of sheer outrage.
“Son of the poutain-a-morte Deeps, you Deeps-forsaken dag-ended, ass-stained excuse for a man!”
Marsh had time to think the woman had been hanging out for too long with Henri before her opponent demanded her attention. The blade he wielded required two hands and more space than either of the weapons used by his counterparts, and they parted to give him room.
Brigitte laughed as she took one down with a spear and stepped between Tamlin and the opponent who had just driven him to his knees. The boy was a fierce fighter, but weight and strength counted against him when he took on an older fighter—especially one the size of this one.
The shadow mage didn’t give the man time to recover, dragging a dagger from the shadows and thrusting it into his throat. He’d been committed to delivering the killing blow to the boy and had no time to recover, although he tried.
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 162
