Marsh hurried over to Roeglin.
“What did I do?” she whispered and then noticed a set of very blue eyes peering at her over his shoulder. “Aisha!”
As the little girl scrambled out of Roeglin’s arms and into Marsh’s, a familiar figure stepped forward.
“Master Leger, we thought you’d be farther ahead,” Master Envermet said.
“We had some trouble on the trail.”
Roeglin gestured toward Marsh, and then the craters pockmarking the floor of the cavern.
“Our mages needed to rest.”
From the look on Master Envermet’s face, Marchant knew the shadow guard had figured out that it had only been one mage that had needed to rest.
“And you couldn’t very well leave them behind, while you went on.”
From the tone of his voice, Marsh couldn’t tell if it was a criticism, a statement of fact, or a gentle dig at Roeglin’s evasion. Roeglin merely nodded.
“No, Master Envermet, we couldn’t.”
The shadow guard leader gestured toward the cabin.
“I take it the inhabitant is missing?”
“Yes, and he hasn’t returned in the two days we’ve been here.”
Two days! Marsh stared, unable to hide her shock at their delay, but Roeglin continued.
“We were just leaving, if you need the cabin.”
Master Envermet shook his head.
“No. We only came this way because the child insisted.”
He indicated Aisha, who rested in Marsh’s arms, her tiny hands wound around Marsh’s neck as she held her close. Marsh felt Aisha stir, but Master Envermet wasn’t finished.
“It seems she shares some of her guardian’s traits.”
Aisha lifted her head as Marsh turned to face the shadow guard master, but Roeglin cut in before either of them could speak.
“I understand.” He glanced at Marsh. “We need to go.”
It was both instruction and apology, and Marsh saw Aisha’s face fall. She pulled the little girl close, looking for Tamlin. The boy appeared at her side as if by magic.
“Come on, Aysh. You found her, but she has to go.”
“To make the trail safe?” Aisha asked, lifting her head from Marsh’s shoulder, her eyes luminous with tears.
Marsh swallowed against the lump in her throat and nodded.
“Yes, so you can follow me all the way to Ruins Hall and fix the glows.”
Aisha regarded her with a solemn stare.
“Fix glows,” she said, and Marsh nodded before putting her lips close to Aisha’s ear.
“Because I can’t, okay?”
She said it like it was a secret, and the little girl smiled, placing a hand on either side of Marsh’s face.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice carrying across the cavern, and Marsh set her on her feet.
“Be good for your brother,” she ordered, trying to look stern.
“Always,” Aisha told her, and Tamlin shot her a look of utter disbelief.
“Always!” the little girl repeated, glaring at him and stamping her foot in a clear challenge for him to disagree. Marsh cut in before an argument could occur.
“Always,” she agreed. “Now, go see what Master Envermet would like you to do.”
The children had taken two steps toward Master Envermet when Aisha turned to look back at Marsh.
“Brigitte no has the cookies,” she said, her small voice mournful.
It was all Marsh could do not to laugh.
“Then I’d better hurry so I can buy you some more when we get to Ruins Hall, okay?”
“’Kay!” Aisha said and turned away with a smile.
Marsh pretended not to hear when Tamlin stooped toward his sister and said, “Con artist!”
“Are not!”
“Are too!”
“Are…”
Marsh left them to argue, looking at Roeglin to see what to do next. While she had been dealing with the children, the rest of her team had emerged from the cabin and set themselves by the side of the path. Once Roeglin and Master Envermet had exchanged a brief white-eyed look, the shadow mage led his team past the others.
Since when could Roeglin mind-speak the shadow captain? Marsh wondered.
Since I’ve been connecting through Tamlin. It made it easier, like the boy was a bridge. He sounded puzzled, but just shrugged and kept walking.
Behind them, Marsh could hear the master giving orders for them to secure the area around the cavern, and for Aisha, Brigitte, and Tamlin to find what glows needed recharging so they could secure the prospector’s camp before they left. She and Roeglin reached where the cavern turned into a tunnel just as the bright purple stars winked into existence behind them.
When she thought about it, Marsh couldn’t remember there being any glows around the prospector’s cabin or on the trail, but they were there now.
“New policy,” Roeglin told her. “They’re making sure all trails and home-claims are marked by glows. We’re hoping to slow the raiders down.”
It was as good a plan as any, even if Marsh didn’t think it was going to work. The raiders were as human as the rest of them, and the glows could be removed by humans. It was only the shadow monsters that seemed to have any trouble with them.
“We should have asked them to build a waystation at the junction,” Marsh said as Roeglin signaled for them to pick up the pace.
“Already done,” he replied. “There’s a fourth…a third team following us—with the Masters of Stone and Beasts in charge. They’ll be leaving a small team of shadow guards at the new waystation, and we’ll be asking Monsieur Gravine to send a small squad to join them. The trails need to be monitored if we’re to keep them secure, and the caravans will need safe points to camp at when they travel.”
“I wonder how the prospector will take it?”
“He’ll handle it better if we can get him back from the raiders in one piece, and he’ll see the point of it. He might even tell us it was better late than never, even if he’d have argued black and blue against it before.”
There wasn’t much to say to that, so they walked in silence. Clarinay appeared and disappeared to scout the trail, but Roeglin told Marsh she was on a mandatory rest day after her display of power the day before. Personally, Marsh thought she was being coddled, but both masters opposed her when she argued, so she focused on the cavern around her instead.
The one time she tried to sense life forces in the area around her, Roeglin nudged her hard enough to make her stumble.
“No magic,” he said. “Not unless we need it.”
Again, they lapsed into silence, concentrating on moving quickly until they reached another junction. Roeglin turned and looked at the team.
“The Master of Shadows wants each side trail checked for survivors or raiders,” he said, leaving Marsh to wonder when that particular order had come through.
You were sleeping.
She’d been doing that a lot.
Overextension will do that to a new mage.
Marsh resisted the urge to tell him to shut up as they turned down the trail.
“Who lives down here?” she asked.
“Shroom farmers.”
Marsh sighed. She’d been hoping for something more exciting, but everyone was important, exciting or not. If there was any chance these farmers had survived the raiders’ purge of the trail and the caverns closest, they had to take it. She followed Roeglin down the tunnel, the rest of the guards moving swiftly and quietly after them.
It wasn’t long before the trail widened into a low-ceilinged chamber that swiftly extended into a larger cavern with a much taller ceiling. The floor sloped gradually upward beneath their feet, and the bands of light stretching down from the ceiling made Marsh think of bright, narrow curtains of warmth. As they moved farther in, the scent around them subtly changed.
Behind her, one of the guards gave an exploratory sniff. He was followed by another, and then a third. Roeglin traveled a few more step
s down the trail, and then he stopped. Marsh stopped with him, as did the guards, their heads raised as they sniffed at the air. Gerry and Izmay were gazing around the cavern, looks of frustrated wonder on their faces.
“I smell chocolate,” Izmay said, and Gerry nodded, his eyes searching the ceiling and the shrooms around them.
Roeglin smiled.
“Of course, you do,” he said and started back in the direction they’d been going. “Thierry’s Truffles is known for it. Where did you think Marc gets it from?”
“Ariella’s,” Izmay told him. “She grows the only cocoa beans in the area.”
“Ah, but Thierry’s has the only chocolate truffles in the world.”
“How would you know?” Izmay challenged, and Roeglin grinned.
“There’s a reason they call me the Wanderer.” His face grew sober. “Let’s see how the Thierrys are.”
But the Thierrys weren’t anywhere to be found, not in the neat bungalow at the center of the cavern nor in the processing shed that towered behind it, and not on any of the ladders or scaffolded walkways that took them along tunnels cut into the earth above. After seeing the truffles stacked in baskets and boxes, Marsh thought she could see something similar growing amidst the tangle of tree roots between the galleries.
Here and there, she found where someone had dug something out from in the middle of a root tangle, and, half-way along one of the walkways, she found an upturned basket. More of the ugly black fungi lay scattered over the boards, and a trowel teetered on the edge. As Marsh moved to pick it up, the vibration of her footsteps shook it off the walkway.
Down below, Marsh saw that Roeglin had stepped out of the bungalow and into the path of the falling trowel.
“Look out!” she shouted, and the shadow mage looked up.
If he’d moved, he wouldn’t have had to conjure a shield to protect his head. He was just lucky he was fast enough—but he wasn’t impressed. Marsh finished her search of the walkways and headed back to where he was waiting.
“Find anything?” she asked, and he frowned.
“It’s just the same as the prospector’s.”
Around them, the guards murmured in agreement.
“We’re not far from Ruins Hall,” Clarinay said. “We can be there by midnight if we don’t stop.”
Roeglin glanced at Marsh.
“I can do it,” she asserted before he had a chance to ask. She looked at Zeb. “You?”
He turned back down the trail and broke into a jog.
“Race you there,” he said, but he didn’t increase his pace as she fell in beside him. The others formed up around them.
They jogged all the way back to the junction and then fell into the traveling pace the Master of Stone had used to reach the shadow-mage monastery. Jogging twenty paces and then walking twenty was still hard work, but they could keep it up for ages. They traveled along the dark and empty trail leading to Ruins Hall, stopping when they arrived at the turnoff for Cleon’s farm, Under-Paris Cheeses. Marsh looked at Roeglin.
“Are we going to stop, or do we need to get to Monsieur Gravine first?”
He looked torn.
“We should…” He let his words trail into nothing and looked up the road.
Jogging toward them, three abreast, was a trio of heavily armed warriors. Instead of the leather armor worn by the caravan guards, these guys were wearing tunics that looked like someone had sewn small overlapping plates of metal together. Four interlocking circles were outlined in bronze on their chests. The warriors raised their weapons as they approached.
“Halt in the name of the Four Caverns!”
Given that they’d already stopped, Marsh thought that was overkill. She tried to see if there was anyone among them that she knew, but their helmets obscured their eyes and cheeks, and she couldn’t see enough of their features to be sure.
She looked around for Mordan, and was relieved to see the kat and her kits had vanished into the surrounding dark.
“Who—” she began, but Roeglin raised his hand.
“I’ll take it from here, Trainee.”
Right. This was official business. Marsh held her tongue, but it was hard. She was used to dealing with her own problems, and working inside a hierarchy was harder. As she waited, Roeglin stepped forward. His movement was mirrored by one of the warriors blocking the road before them.
“State your business.”
“We have urgent news for Monsieur Gravine from the shadow-mage monastery.”
“That trail is closed.”
“We are in the process of re-opening it in accordance with the agreement we made with the founder, but we need to see him.”
“You will surrender your weapons.”
“I will n—” Marsh began, only to find Gustav’s hand over her mouth as he lifted her sword from her belt.
“We will surrender our weapons,” Roeglin confirmed. Marsh wanted nothing more than to flee.
You could run, Roeglin told her, but it would be better if you did not.
His voice inside her head reminded her that he could walk the pathways of other people’s minds, and Marsh steadied her breath and nodded. Gustav removed his hand and passed her the hilt of her sword.
“I trust you can take it from here,” he said, and Marsh’s face heated even as she nodded again.
She accepted her sword and then removed the dagger from her belt, careful to hold them in such a way that she posed no threat when she walked up to the waiting soldier and handed them over.
“They will be returned when the founder orders it,” the woman assured her, and Marsh was sure she’d heard the voice before.
She couldn’t put a name to it, though, so she just nodded once more and stepped back to where Roeglin and the others were waiting.
“Form a single line,” the warriors’ leader ordered, and the shadow monastery’s emissaries complied.
The warriors formed up around them, and they headed to town.
“Keep up,” was all the warning they got before the squad broke into a fast trot that took them through the town and out along the road to where Monsieur Gravine had built his mansion.
10
Ruins Hall Arrival
The squad rattled their way through a pair of gates set in a high wall jutting out from the base of the cavern wall. To Marsh, it looked like the road led to a dead end, except for the wall and the gates. She could see figures walking along a balcony set inside the wall, and some stopped and glanced down at their arrival. They were armed, she was sure.
Marsh came to a halt with the rest of the squad, careful not to run into Roeglin’s back. When they moved forward at a quick walk, she went with them. The soldiers who had escorted them in stayed in a tight formation around them until the outer gates were closed and a pair of heavy metal-bound doors set into the cliff opened.
By the time that happened, Marsh had a lot of questions she wanted to ask, but she didn’t say a word. She also resisted the urge to look for the kat, trusting Mordan would stay close by until Marsh could find her. Instead, she followed Roeglin’s lead. After all, he’d pulled the Trainee card, and he hadn’t done that often. Time she trusted someone, right?
Right.
Marsh sighed.
Especially when that someone could see right into her head...
Before Roeglin could add anything to that, the inner doors stopped moving and the patrol led them through. They found themselves in an entry hall large enough to accommodate them, but not big enough to accommodate much else.
“This way.”
They followed the squad leader through to a smaller room, the squad peeling away from them as the leader directed them to line up along one wall.
“Hands,” he said, pulling a set of handcuffs from his belt.
Marsh stepped back. Roeglin put a fist on one hip and cocked his head.
“You want to tell me why?”
“There have been attempts on the founder’s life. Cuffs make that harder.”
Roeglin locked eyes with him, and Marsh caught the flare of white that told her he was checking the truth behind the man’s words. After a short moment, he sighed, shrugged, and presented his hands.
“Sure,” he said, but his sigh was echoed by Gustav and more than one of the guards.
“Do it,” Gustav ordered, and the brief shuffling of feet stilled.
They were cuffed quickly and efficiently, then led out the door at the opposite end of the room and along several corridors before the squad leader stopped in front of a large steel door.
“Come.”
Marsh tensed. Somewhere in her journey along the corridors, she had started to worry that they weren’t in Monsieur Gravine’s mansion at all. That someone else awaited them, and their fate was uncertain.
You have no faith in people.
Marsh ignored Roeglin’s comment. Given that her parents had neither returned nor called for her to join them when they set up Downslopes, she had her reasons.
That was a long time ago.
Marsh refrained from telling him Kearick hadn’t been the best example of humanity, either.
You need to make better friends.
If he kept it up, she was going to kick him.
“Roeglin!” Monsieur Gravine’s exclamation of delight brought Marsh abruptly back to the present and she blinked, but the founder hadn’t finished speaking. “Get the emissary and his escort out of those handcuffs and return their weapons.”
“Oui, Monsieur!” The squad leader snapped to, freeing them in double-time and returning their blades.
He didn’t apologize, though, and the founder didn’t expect him to.
“Thank you, Andres,” he said. “You are dismissed. Finish your shift.”
“Oui, Monsieur.”
The founder watched his men leave, but that didn’t mean he was alone. Marsh recognized the guards standing around him and they recognized Gustav, as did Monsieur Gravine. He stepped out from behind the large desk that dominated the center of the room’s back wall and hurried to greet his guard.
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