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

by C. M. Simpson

  Marsh frowned. “Aisha, is there anything special about that section of the wall?”

  “Special?” the little girl asked, but she didn’t wait for Marsh to answer. Instead, she inspected the wall very carefully, placing her hands on the stone. “Oh!”

  “Oh?” Roeglin asked.

  “Gimme a minute,” the child ordered, reaching into the wall. “Dere’s a fing.”

  Baby talk? Marsh frowned and glanced at the wall. As she did, the rock around the edges of the wall shifted under Aisha’s hand, and the sound of breaking metal echoed briefly around them.

  “Oops.”

  The mantids had crowded around the hole and were looking down it.

  Yes. This was the way we took, Tok confirmed. But why was it concealed?

  “To stop those taken from trying to escape?” Evan suggested. “I mean, I know I would run if I came face to face with that!”

  Marsh had turned away from the door to see what Aisha was breaking. Now she turned back, registering the soft red gleam starting to light the tunnel.

  This is not a good place to be, Tok observed, receiving several disbelieving looks from those around him. They will be coming.

  “Who will be coming?” Roeglin demanded as the first shrieks split the air.

  Master Envermet came alongside him, drawing his weapons from the air.

  “Aisha, get out of here. Tamlin!” Marsh shouted, arming herself from the shadows and pulling a thick layer of shadow armor around herself.

  Roeglin grabbed the back of her tunic and pulled her slowly back as Master Envermet moved between them and the door. “We need room to fight,” he told her.

  “Fall back to the junction!” Gustav ordered. “Kat! That means you, too.”

  Mordan rumbled at him but bounded to Aisha. The little girl didn’t argue but scrambled immediately onto the kat’s back, burying her hands deep in Mordan’s fur.

  The kat didn’t stop to see if she had a good grip. She bounded down the corridor with her kits and Scruffknuckle by her side. Three of the mantids hurried after them, but Tok and Etk’k slipped into the side tunnel.

  Henri and Izmay took one look at them and slid in after them.

  “You’re not getting all the fun!” Henri told the mantids, and Izmay grinned.

  It will not be fun if they see us, the mantid advised, guiding them farther down the tunnel and around a slight bend. We will emerge after they pass.

  “You know what’s coming?” Roeglin asked, not stopping as he and Marsh reversed quickly past the opening.

  The image that floated into their minds in response was enough to turn Marsh’s stomach. The creature looked like an orange-furred humanoid with spindly limbs. It was almost cute, save that its head was bare and shaped like an elongated egg, its eyes dark almond-shaped discs, and it had no nose that she could see.

  Worse still were the small blue tendrils around its sharp-toothed mouth and the tentacles that emerged as a twisting orange and blue mass from its back.

  “What in all the Deeps is that?” Henri demanded.

  Death has called them “Ooken,” Tok informed him, but they are merely the enemy’s tools.

  “Well, poutain a merde!”

  “We can kill them, right?” Jakob called back through the tunnel.

  Yes, they can die, but they come in numbers.

  Marsh shook off Roeglin’s hand and bolted toward the cavern at the junction. The noise was getting louder, and she didn’t want to be out of position when the creatures making it reached her.

  “We need to block the door!”

  “I can do it,” Aisha called back. Mordan would have carried the child back up the tunnel if Marsh hadn’t snatched her from the kat’s back as she passed.

  Mordan skidded to a halt and doubled back on herself. The light behind them turned scarlet and then dimmed to a sullen crimson glow. Master Envermet arrived at a run, standing with them as he faced the tunnel.

  Here they come. Tok’s warning didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know.

  Marsh reached the mouth of the junction and whirled around. The creatures came through the portal in a rush. If Marsh hadn’t known any better, she would have sworn they knew they were there, because they raced down the tunnel.

  If they noticed the gap in the tunnel wall, they didn’t stop to investigate it. It was as though they were sure of the team’s location.

  “I’d like to know how they knew we were here,” Gustav muttered, watching the furry mass screeching toward them.

  He raised his blade and frowned slightly, smiling as flames rippled along it from tip to hilt. Jakob chuckled, doing the same. Henri groaned, drawing two blades and finding a space he could work in. The mantids shifted, finding their own places.

  Marsh glanced at Roeglin and grinned. He grinned briefly back, then the creatures were upon them. As the first of the monsters followed them, Aisha’s shout of defiance was accompanied by a ripple of stone spikes erupting from the floor.

  “No fair, Aysh!” Tamlin protested, making it hard for Marsh to resist the urge to look for the pair.

  Mordan roared, and the Ooken paused.

  They were uglier in real life than they had been in the mental image Tok had shared, and the rancid odor that accompanied them made Marsh wish she couldn’t smell. As the floor erupted beneath them, they took to the walls, using their tentacles to full advantage.

  Marsh stared as the nearest survivor used its tentacles to navigate the wall and come up and over its head.

  “How many of them are there?” Jakob asked, his voice faint with disbelief. It was rapidly followed by anger. “Oh no, you don’t. You might smell worse than a shade, but you don’t scare me. Zeb!”

  “I got you!”

  There was a brief flare of red light, followed by an Ooken screech, the smell of singed fur and burnt fish, and Jakob’s victorious shout.

  “Come, get me, you ugly sons of the Deep!”

  It was the most vocal Marsh had ever heard him. She was tempted to look back, but she was too busy. Ookens didn’t fight fair. They came from all directions, lashing out with their tentacles and slashing with razor-sharp claws.

  “Aysh!” Tamlin’s shout of alarm was almost Marsh’s undoing.

  Marsh glanced around in time to see the child disappear into the rock wall, and only Roeglin’s quick thinking saved her. A shadow shield slammed down in front of her, catching three Ooken in mid-leap.

  Focus! They will be fine! The shadow mage’s voice growled through her head, and she saw he was right.

  Several Ookens tore at the wall Aisha had stepped into and a smooth dome of shadow had appeared where Tamlin had stood, but the children were untouched.

  We are okay, Aisha informed her. Don’t make me come out there.

  Marsh choked back a bark of laughter and parried a murderous slash of claws with her blade. Looking past her attacker, she saw more Ooken emerging from the portal.

  Just how many are they sending? she thought.

  Tok answered, They will keep coming until they think they outnumber you ten to one.

  So they’re cowards as well as smelly?

  Tok chuckled. We will join you in battle shortly. They will either stop emerging, or they will investigate their broken technology and force us to act.

  Just tell me when you think they’re all here.

  Tok caught a glimpse of what she was planning. You do not fight fair, he observed.

  They started it, Marsh snapped back. I’m just going to finish it.

  Tok chuckled in mantid fashion. Henri will not be pleased.

  “Henri will Deeps-be-damned just have to get over it,” Marsh snarled out loud, earning a curious glance from Roeglin.

  “Eyes. On the. Fight!” she rapped out, slashing through another tentacle with her blade.

  That one would have wrapped itself around the shadow mage’s head.

  The Ooken on the ceiling screeched in outrage and dropped. This time, the shadow mage was ready. He sidestepped
, dropped the buckler from his forearm, and pulled a second blade from the shadows, slashing the half-dozen tentacles that tried to ensnare him.

  As the creature hit the floor beside him, he drove one blade between the ridges on its misshapen skull and swept the second blade hard against its neck. In the short struggle that ensued, he used the first blade to keep the Ooken where he wanted it while he removed its head from its shoulders.

  It took several strokes, and he had to kick the monster clear when he was done.

  In the meantime, Marsh fought to keep his left flank clear, feeling inordinately relieved when one of the mantids protected his right. This time the insectoid warriors weren’t using their slingshots, but the short blades they carried strapped to their torsos.

  They did not bother with shields but fought with both hands and their feet. Marsh hadn’t realized their feet were clawed as well, or that they’d developed a fighting style that used all six limbs. If she hadn’t been so busy trying to defeat incoming attacks and destroy their source, she’d have been fascinated.

  Focus! Even Roeglin’s mental voice sounded breathless, but Marsh took his advice and kept her attention on her opponents.

  There were far more of them than she liked. It was almost as though the death of one spawned another two.

  “Where do they keep coming from?” she asked, blocking another attack with her shield but wincing as the tentacle looped past the shadow and wrapped around her forearm.

  “Let! Me! Go!” she shouted, punctuating each word with a sword strike. The last syllable ended on a thrust that buried her blade in the Ooken’s throat. She kicked it free, turning so that its body and her tentacle-wrapped shield arm formed a barrier between her and the next attack.

  Movement alerted her to the danger coming in from behind, but it ended with a shout from Zeb and several meaty whacks.

  Marsh dispelled the shield to the shadows and tried to shake the tentacle loose, but it was wrapped too tight and small barbs were embedded in her arm, keeping its coils in place.

  “Sons of the Deep!” she cursed, forced to send her blade back to the shadows.

  Rather than distract Zeb or Roeglin, she dropped to her knees and pulled a dome of shadow over her head. “Give me a minute.”

  “I got you,” Zeb reassured her, and she saw him take out another of the furry monsters on the other side of the dome.

  Roeglin was fighting on the other side, but he was more than holding his own and Master Envermet was guarding his back.

  As she worked the tentacle loose, Marsh observed the battle through the walls of the dome. What she saw wasn’t good.

  Tok, are they done yet?

  Almost. The last of them should cross in three…two…

  As the mantid reached one, there was a startled roar from one of the kits, followed by three more roars of outrage and a torrent of angry barking.

  “Mordan!” Roeglin shouted. “Marsh! You have to stop them. They’ve taken one of the kits!”

  His warning was followed by a treble shriek. ”You put dat down! You give dat back! You give dat! Back! NOW!”

  “Merde!” Marsh came out from under the dome without looking to see what was waiting.

  “Duck!” Only Jakob’s warning and the flash of movement she caught from the corner of her eye saved her.

  Marsh ducked, and a clawed hand slashed through the air where her throat had been.

  Jakob’s “I’ve got it!” was followed by the sound of heated metal meeting flesh and the dying screams of another monster.

  “Marsh, we need the lightning! We need it now!” Roeglin’s voice was hoarse.

  Hurry. We will try to save the kit. Tok’s voice had never been more welcome.

  Marsh took a quick look around the battle zone and glanced up the corridor leading to the gate, and then she dropped to her knees. As she did, she reached for the lightning in the shadows.

  “I need you,” she told it, pushing that need into her request. “I need your strength and your vengeance. I need your swift strike. Those creatures must die.”

  As she spoke, she pictured the Ookens in her mind. “Kill them all. Sear them from the cavern. Let none leave alive.”

  Mordan’s roar was accompanied by others and followed by Ooken screams.

  “Help me NOW!”

  As the lightning answered her call, she became aware of a second presence in her mind.

  Aisha!

  The little girl reached along her link and then picked up another—Tamlin’s.

  He will help you.

  Marsh wished she’d thought to call on the boy. They’d been practicing contacting each other, but Marsh’s ability was still growing, and Tamlin struggled with even the most basic of connections. With Aisha holding the link open, their minds touched.

  As one, they reached for the energy lurking in the cavern’s shadows, finding it also in the mushrooms and the rocks. She paused. There was a surprising amount of lightning lurking in the rocks.

  “Come,” she commanded it and felt Tamlin reach out with her. What was less comforting was the feel of Aisha’s nimble mental fingers reaching out to touch the lightning in the stone.

  “Ooh, pretty!”

  Tamlin summed it up. “Merde.”

  There was no time to debate the consequences. They had a kit to save.

  “Come!” Marsh told the lightning. “We need you. Take only these.”

  Again, she showed the lightning the targets she needed it to take. “Just these.”

  “Only the Ookens,” Tamlin echoed.

  “Kill them all,” sounded no less sinister in Aisha’s childish tones. “Just the Ookens.”

  “Hurry it u—” was as far as Roeglin got before Marsh released the lightning.

  “Just the Ookens,” she told it, forcing her mind to stay focused on the tentacled invaders. “Kill only them.”

  “Only them,” Aisha echoed stoutly.

  “Just the Ookens,” Tamlin agreed.

  Roeglin’s voice filtered through her concentration. “Uh, Marsh?”

  She didn’t answer him, but he felt her brief attention.

  “You can stop now.”

  His words were followed by Jakob’s fervent tones. “You can. You really, really can.”

  17

  Forearmed

  They had saved the kit, but only just. Aisha ran to where he lay. Of the Ooken carrying him, there was nothing left, and the kit had been dropped just in front of the portal. The child wrapped her small arms around his head and neck and tried to drag him farther away.

  “Not safe,” she mumbled. “It’s not safe here. Not safe.”

  She was still mumbling those words when Henri came and knelt beside her. The warrior didn’t say a word but gently lifted the kit from the floor.

  “Where to?” he asked the child, and she looked around uncertainly.

  “Um.”

  There is no debris in the side tunnel, Tok advised them, and Henri carried the kit to where he, Izmay, and the mantids had hidden earlier.

  He was accompanied by an anxious Mordan and the remaining kits and the cub. As he passed, Marsh cast an anxious glance at the kit in his arms.

  His eyes were open, and his breathing came with a rasping unevenness that indicated a long, hard run, or fight, or shock. Strips of fur were missing from his body, and the exposed skin was laced with circular cuts and bruises where the numerous tiny mouths lining the tentacles had bitten through.

  “Will he be all right?” she asked, turning to the mantids.

  They cocked their heads, chattering between themselves, and then they looked back at her. Marsh waited for their response, startled when they all tensed and Tok darted toward her, pulling his blades free.

  She ducked, dodging to one side as he lashed out in a two-strike combo that saw him reach past her and slash through the tentacles that had extended out of the portal. There was an unearthly shriek from the other side as the mantid struck.

  The red light flared a brilliant shade of crims
on and then went out, and Marsh found herself staring down the corridor that lay beyond, her breath coming faster than needed.

  “Can… Can this thing open two ways?” she asked, looking at the frame where the portal had once stood.

  In theory, yes, Tok told them.

  “Then we need to see where that tunnel leads,” Marsh stated. “We need to know every direction they can attack from.”

  She glanced at the tunnel that had been hidden. “Why couldn’t we see it?”

  They have technology that creates an illusion over what is really there.

  “Technology?”

  You would know it as ancient magic, the mantid explained. They have a lot of technology.

  Tok tilted its head, staring pensively at the portal’s empty frame. They will bring more of it the next time they come.

  “So, there will be a next time?” Roeglin asked, his tone suggesting he knew it was inevitable but hadn’t wanted it confirmed.

  I am sorry, but there will, the mantid confirmed.

  “And it will be worse than this time?”

  I am afraid it will, Tok replied.

  “Then we need to block as many of their access points as we can.”

  “We could just destroy the gate,” Marsh suggested and pointed at the rock. “Do they need the frame to make it work?”

  Tok stilled, every line of his body showing he was giving the question serious consideration. They should not, he answered, but perhaps they need it as a focus for the coordinates. It is as if they wish to remain unknown, so they are trying to conceal its presence. The ground provides natural shielding.

  “Shielding?”

  From both sight and to conceal the energy released by its activation.

  “Energy?” Marsh asked. “Like lightning?”

  Tok glanced at one of the other mantids. A brief exchange followed, then Tok looked back.

  Yes, exactly like your lightning.

  “Can the portal be destroyed by lightning?”

  Again, that pause, and another brief exchange.

  We think so, but it would take a direct strike in a more concentrated form than we have yet seen you summon.