One of them looked at the crates.
“I haven’t got anything in my pack beside my blankets and my eating equipment,” he said, “and I don’t think they’ll want any of those.”
Marsh stayed still and quiet, letting herself slip from the shadows to a more solid form, and waited. In the corridor outside, she could hear Gustav’s footsteps coming closer. The older man and three younger ones moved closer to the door.
Marsh bit her lip, resisting the temptation to call out a warning. Gustav was an old soldier. He’d know better than to come through the door without checking first. She pushed aside the thought that neither Aisha or Tamlin was very old and that they were both likely to come through the door without checking.
What she didn’t expect was Mordan.
The kat came through the door at an angle, knocking one of the younger men off his feet as she passed.
The woman screamed, and one of the men shouted in dismay. The girl scrambled back, taking her pack with her until she fetched up against the wall. Her eyes were wide with fear, and her gaze didn’t leave the kat as she pivoted and came to a halt beside Marsh.
The girl stared at the kat, then noticed Marsh.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “And how did you get in here?”
The older man slid a glance at Marsh but kept his attention on the kat.
“When did you arrive?” he demanded. His eyes narrowed. “And what do you want?”
Movement at the door signaled Gustav’s arrival. “I think she wants to ask you what you’re doing here and why you took our trade goods,” he stated, answering the man’s question. “I’d kinda like to know that, too.”
Marsh noticed that he hadn’t drawn any weapons, but Perdemor came to stand in the door beside him.
“What are you?” the man demanded, studying Gustav intently. “Are you some kind of druid or something?”
“Or something,” Gustav replied.
He made a show of looking at the others gathered in the room, but the woman didn’t give him a chance to ask any more questions.
“Are you raiders?” she asked, her eyes wide in her pale face.
Gustav snorted, his lip curling in scorn. “No. Them, we killed about a month back.”
He glanced at Marsh. “Or was it longer? I forget. It’s been a while.”
“We killed the ones in the Library about a month ago,” Marsh agreed, “and I took out the rest of them the week before last.”
She looked at the strangers gathered in the room. “Is this all of you?”
The oldest man made a show of looking around and then nodded. “Yup. Looks like it.”
“Not true.” Aisha’s piping voice lanced through the room. “There are two, no four more.”
The strangers looked at each other, their eyes wide.
“Mind-walker,” Gustav supplied before any of them could comment.
“Sounded like a child.” The man grunted.
“Am not a child!” Aisha shouted. “Am six, no, seven!”
That brought fleeting smiles, some of which remained when Tamlin’s voice was heard.
“Six, Aisha. It’s not nice to lie.”
“Seven.” The little girl’s mutter was just audible, but the strangers were already turning back to Gustav.
“What do you want with us?” the woman asked. She indicated the packs in front of her. “We were looking for payment.”
Gustav cast a questioning glance at Marsh.
She nodded. “It’s true, but what I want to know is what they’re doing here.” She turned to the woman. “I mean, you’re clearly not raiders, so what are you?”
“Travelers!” the man broke in quickly. “We’re travelers.”
“Refugees?” Gustav asked, studying their worn clothes. “Where from?”
“Scruffy, fetch!” Aisha’s voice interrupted the conversation, and the pup barked in reply.
Perdemor vanished from beside Gustav, but the soldier ignored him.
“We won’t harm them,” he said as the men moved toward him.
“We don’t know that,” one of the younger men snarled.
He swung his club, and Gustav jumped back.
“Have we hurt you?” he demanded, drawing his sword and setting it alight.
The younger man stepped back. “You’re a mage?”
Gustav shook his head. “Not by a long shot.”
“I am, though,” Marsh told them and dropped a shadow dome over the woman.
She squawked in alarm and protest, but Marsh wasn’t concerned. She was more worried about the two men turning toward her. While she could drop a dome over each of them, she didn’t want to. She needed to restrain them. That became a lot harder when fire appeared in the hands of one of them.
“You’re mages?” she asked, calling a shield to her arm.
It materialized in time for her to raise it and stop the fireball aimed at her head.
“Why else do you think we left Arcadia? It’s not safe for the likes of us.”
“Arcadia? Like in the stories? Where in the surface world is it, anyway?”
She blocked another fireball. A shadow dome was looking really good right now, but she’d still have to fight them when the domes came down. What she really wanted to do was tie them up and stop them from making the gestures they needed to get the magic to answer their demands.
The second man came at her with a sword, so she pulled her blade from the shadows and parried his first thrust. It took her a moment to pull more shadow and add a layer of armor to her body, and she deflected three more attacks while she did it.
She needed to do something similar to her opponents but not armor, more like rope. Holding her foes at bay and resisting the urge to return their attacks and teach them a lesson, she called on the shadows.
“Bind them,” she commanded, wrapping dark tendrils around their arms and shoulders.
“Blind them,” she added, dropping miniature domes over their heads as she wound shadows around their feet.
It was hard to do with her sword in her hand, but with their arms bound, she was able to release both sword and shield. With their feet bound, they toppled to the floor.
“A little help?” Gustav said, seeing she was free.
He was holding the doorway against the other two men and doing his best not to harm either. It was hard, given he hadn’t unslung his buckler and had only his blade to defend himself with.
Marsh nodded, looping shadows around his opponent’s feet and drawing them tight with a flick of her wrist. They shouted in alarm and fell, even as Marsh wrapped their arms and torsos.
“Excuse me.” Tamlin’s voice made Gustav look over his shoulder.
What he saw made him step hastily out of the doorway.
“By all means,” he told the boy, and Marsh was surprised when Tamlin and Aisha walked into the room.
Tamlin had his hand wrapped firmly around Aisha’s arm, and the little girl’s eyes were sheeted white. Marsh watched as Tamlin guided his sister across the room. They were followed by four more figures.
When they’d reached the other side, Aisha turned to the people following and gestured sharply at the floor in the center of the room.
“Sit!” she commanded.
The four strangers sat, their faces turned expectantly toward the child.
“Stay right there,” Aisha ordered, and the white left her eyes. She swayed and leaned against her brother. “All good?”
Tamlin wrapped an arm around her and led her over to the edge of the room behind Marsh. He gestured at the people they’d brought in. “You wanna do the same with these guys?”
His voice jerked Marsh into action.
“Mais oui,” she told him and called the shadows once more.
As she was finishing, Perdemor and his siblings padded into the room. Scruffknuckle followed but stopped beside Gustav, leaning into the soldier’s thigh.
“Good boy,” Gustav told the dog, patting his shoulder. “Very good boy.”
&n
bsp; Scruffknuckle panted happily, his eyes dancing with amusement as the kats laid down in front of the prisoners.
“Maybe now they’ll talk to us,” Gustav suggested, gesturing toward the men.
Aisha’s eyes flared white. “Answer the questions,” she ordered and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
Marsh made a note to speak to the child later and ask her how she’d done what she had.
Or maybe I should talk to Tok, she thought, dismissing the shields she’d dropped over the woman and the heads of the two men she’d been fighting. The two men she’d tied up for Gustav watched, fear and anger in their eyes.
“Where are you from?” Gustav asked, and the lead man glowered at him.
“Arcadia, like we said. It wasn’t safe for us to stay, so we left.”
“What do you mean, not safe for you to stay?”
The man looked around at the others. “We’re not nobles, so we’re not the right kind to be wielding magic.” He shrugged. “I was worried the Hunters had found out, so we left before they caught up with us.”
“Didn’t Hannah stop that?” Marsh asked, remembering the stories she’d heard from other travelers.
“We’re not nobles,” the man said as if that explained it. “Hannah changed everything, and we got the blame for a lot of things that weren’t our fault. We didn’t feel safe there anymore.”
“But no one actually hurt you,” Marsh said it like it was a conclusion she’d pulled from their words, not a question.
“We didn’t give them a chance to,” the woman broke in. “They’re savages, those people from the Avenue. With them in charge, who knows what would have happened?”
“They couldn’t have been any worse than the guy who was in charge before, though?” Marsh asked. “What was his name?”
“Adrian.” The man said it like a curse. “We don’t know, and we didn’t want to risk it.”
“So, where are you heading next?”
“The coast.” The man swept his hand at the crates. “We usually avoid settlements, but we ran out of food.”
“And you thought we had enough to spare?”
“We were going to pay for it,” the woman protested. “We were looking for something to leave in exchange when you arrived.”
Marsh glanced at Aisha, and the little girl gave her a solemn nod. “It’s true,” she said, and Tamlin looked down at her with concern.
“You need to rest,” he told his sister.
She folded her arms. “Do not.”
He ruffled her hair. “Fine, you don’t, okay?”
“’Kay,” Aisha replied.
The strangers stared at her.
“That has to be the youngest mind mage we’ve ever seen,” the older man told them. “Where did she learn?”
Gustav answered that before Marsh had a chance. “Not your concern, unless you want to stay. You’re welcome to since you won’t make the coast by winter.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a druid?” the man challenged.
“I’m not, but the druids tell me winter is not far away. One week, maybe two, but no more than that. It’ll take you longer to reach the coast.”
Marsh wondered how exactly he knew that and marked it as something she’d have to ask him later. She eyed the strangers and then moved a bit closer.
“I’m Marsh,” she told them. “What are your names?”
“I don’t see why we should give you our names,” the man grumbled, straining against the shadows that held him. “It’s not like we’re free to leave.”
“Bonne,” Marsh growled and snapped her fingers, watching them as the shadows fell away.
To her relief, they didn’t move from where they were sitting. She shrugged and glanced at Gustav.
“We can offer you shelter for the winter, or a more permanent home,” he repeated. “That’s if you want it, but we’ll wait over by the stairs to give you a chance to discuss it.”
She moved toward the door, only to be stopped by the man’s voice.
“How far away is the coast?”
Realizing the question wasn’t addressed to her but to Gustav, Marsh kept going. She stopped just long enough to lift Aisha into her arms and then moved into the corridor and down the hall to the staircase. Behind her, Gustav spoke.
“It’ll take you the same amount of time to get out of the Devastation as it has for you to cross it so far.”
His response was met with cries of dismay.
“And the coast?” the man persisted.
“Another couple of weeks after that,” Gustav replied.
“So, we really won’t make it before winter,” the woman stated.
“No,” Gustav confirmed, and she sighed, looking up at the man.
“Give us a moment to talk it over,” he told them, and Gustav and the kats and Scruffy followed Marsh.
5
A Matter of Trust
It didn’t take the strangers long to decide, but they were still cautious. When the door opened, only the man emerged—and he closed the door behind him.
“I’ll need to see your setup,” he told them. “Have to make sure it’s safe.”
Marsh bit back her anger. As insulting as it was that he didn’t trust them, it was also perfectly understandable. She exchanged glances with Gustav and nodded.
“It’s this way,” she advised him, and led the way down the stairs, carrying Aisha.
Tamlin walked on one side of her, and Mordan walked on the other. Brigitte followed her, walking beside the man.
“You never did tell us your name,” she said. “Mine is Brigitte.”
“And where are you from?” he asked, and then blushed. “I…It’s just, I haven’t seen anyone like you before.”
I just bet you haven’t, Marsh thought and made herself keep walking.
Rude, mumbled through her mind in Aisha’s sleepy voice.
Shhh, Marsh soothed her, stroking her back with one hand.
“The Four Caverns,” Brigitte told him. “They’re to the southwest.”
“Underground?”
“Underground,” she confirmed.
“I’m not sure we came close enough to notice them,” he told her. “Not that we would have gone near you if we had. The first time we stopped in a town, someone hid us in the cellar so they wouldn’t be forced to turn us over to the raiders, and even then, we were nearly caught.”
“How?” Marsh asked.
“The raiders came and took the town. Our host told us to get out, and we ran for it. We don’t even know if they escaped. It wasn’t like we were looking back.”
He quieted, blinking as they left the building and walked out into the sunlight.
“It’s like these ruins go on forever,” he muttered, looking around them.
“They don’t,” Gustav told him abruptly, “but they do go on for a good bit longer.”
“And they’re full of remnant,” the man added.
“Yes, although there aren’t as many as there were before.”
“I noticed there have been fewer in the last week,” he admitted. “We just thought we’d hit a good patch.”
Gustav grunted and followed Marsh. They didn’t speak again until they walked into the dining hall and introduced their new companion to Roeglin.
The shadow master saw them coming and rose from his seat, excusing himself from the table of village leaders. To Marsh, it looked like he’d been holding a meeting with the chief druids, farmers, and guard captains.
“Master Leger, this is…” She hesitated, realizing that their “guest” had yet to give his name.
“Abner,” the man supplied quickly. “Abner Mirrow.”
“Abner,” Marsh finished. “He is the leader of his family.”
Now that she thought about it, the men and women traveling with him hadn’t looked like family.
If Roeglin caught that thought, he didn’t show it. Instead, he held out his hand. “Welcome, Abner. I’m Roeglin, one of the community’s leaders.”
>
“One of?” Abner’s gaze swept the room, pausing briefly on the men and women who had shared Roeglin’s table. “Just how many of you are there?”
Aisha stirred against Marsh’s shoulder, and she rubbed the child’s back again to soothe her.
Bad, Aisha murmured, her small hands forming fists in Marsh’s shirt. Bad, bad, bad…
Her mental voice trailed into nonsense.
“I understand your people are short of supplies,” Roeglin replied instead of answering the question.
Abner dipped his head. “Yes, we were looking for something to leave for the goods we took when your people found us.”
“We have other supplies if you need them,” Roeglin told him. “I am more concerned with whether you will be able to reach your destination before winter…or find shelter in the meantime.”
Abner sighed and indicated Gustav. “Your man tells us we are more than three months away from the coast, and that winter will arrive sometime in the next two weeks.”
“I see.” Roeglin pretended to need a few moments’ thought, then sighed. “You could, if you wanted to, winter here with us—and move on at first thaw.”
Abner frowned. “I’d need to be sure it’s safe.”
Marsh resisted the urge to roll her eyes behind the man’s back. What was he thinking? That if he came back to the Library with them, the rest of his family could sneak into the ruins? Somehow she doubted they’d get very far.
After all, she had the kats and the wolves, and her people were in better shape than Abner’s family. Surely he’d thought of that?
She felt Roeglin’s agreement in her mind and knew he’d drawn most of what had happened in the ruins from her memory. Part of her was grateful they didn’t need to speak for him to understand the situation, but another part of her was annoyed at the intrusion.
Mind walkers. They took some getting used to.
Do not, came Aisha’s sleepy murmur.
Roeglin’s snicker echoed in her head, and she smothered a smile in response.
“Why don’t I show you around?” Roeglin offered. “You could speak to whoever you wished and then make your decision.”
Noooo, Aisha protested, moving restlessly in Marsh’s arms.
“Sshhh.” Again, Marsh stroked the child’s back to soothe her.
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 169
