I’m sorry?
His voice intruded in her head as she set her hand on the handle of the door she’d chosen, and the one at his end of the room continued to slowly open. Marsh was tempted to slam the door in his face again. That thought was followed by footsteps moving hastily into the room and over the rug.
She thought about warning them about the hoshkat rug’s head but was far more interested in getting the door in front of her open. If she hadn’t taken some of her seeker training into her own hands, it might have been a problem. As it was, she was at a loss as to what to use until she remembered she could draw darts from the darkness.
The one she needed was smaller than the darts she threw, but it was just as easy to select. The shadows seemed to be waiting for her to ask. Calling a long, narrow needle to her hand, Marsh fitted the shadow tool to the lock and worked it carefully back and forth. Before long, the lock gave, and she opened the door.
The room beyond was lit brightly enough to make her eyes water and she winced, adjusting her vision so she could see. It took a minute, but Marsh kept moving, ducking low and sliding to the left as she listened for a crossbow bolt or axe to smash into the wall beside her head. Neither object came, and her eyes adjusted.
Marsh glanced around the room, scanning for danger; for shadow mage or shadow monster, and for Madame Monetti herself. To her surprise, she found none of them. The room was completely and utterly empty save for its furniture.
Marsh stared. The woman hadn’t done anything by halves. The display cabinets in the other room had been white marble and glass-fronted, and worth more than Marsh could imagine earning in her lifetime. The bed dominating the center of this room was several grades higher than that…and the glows!
It might have answered where the glows taken from the trade routes had gone, except these were the wrong color. Marsh stepped closer to the nearest one. It wasn’t purple, but a single clear crystal blazing with pure white light. She stretched a tentative finger toward it, only to freeze as Roeglin hurtled through the door.
“Don’t!”
Keeping her finger poised, Marsh turned her head to look at him. His dark hair was tousled, and his hazel eyes reflected gold in the light. He cast her a pleading look.
“At least wait until we can test it outside. If it explodes in here…”
He waved his hand to indicate the room and the other strange glows, his worry clear. It was the first time Marsh had ever considered the chances of a glow exploding, or setting off a chain reaction of other glows.
“We just don’t know,” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “Guillemot is checking the other room.”
Marsh nodded, and lifted her hand away from the glow, pretending not to hear his sigh of relief. She indicated the room.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think we have time for sleeping,” he replied, and Marsh realized she’d pointed at the bed. As an answer, it could have been worse, and her face heated with embarrassment.
“The room,” she growled. “What do you think of the room?”
He looked around, taking in the lavish wall hangings, the marble wardrobe and dresser, the mirror made of polished mica, its edge dotted with small blue and purple stones, and the bed. He walked into the middle of the room, and paced his way around it, noting the corner posts that rose almost to the ceiling, the delicate glistening fabric hanging in white and gold curtains, held back by thick gleaming sashes.
When he’d made a complete circuit, he came back to stand beside it.
“I think this would be the perfect place to hide a secret entrance.”
Looking around and taking note of the clutter, Marchant had to agree. The problem was that she had no idea of where to start looking.
21
Madame Found…and Lost
Marsh and Roeglin surveyed the room, letting their eyes travel over the expensive furnishings. Marsh noted that the display cabinet was empty and wondered if Madame Monetti placed as much importance on her garments as she did on her “treasures.” With that in mind, she crossed to the wardrobe.
Apart from satisfying her curiosity about Madame Monetti’s priorities regarding clothes, the hefty chunk of marble would also be the ideal front for a secret door. It was empty, and nothing Marchant did revealed a hidden panel or caused its solid sides to shift. She was beginning to wish she’d brought Aisha so the little girl could ask the rocks to reveal their secrets when Roeglin gave a victorious shout.
“Found it!”
Marsh shook her head. Trust him to find the secret door.
“Not a secret,” he said, closing a divider that had been arranged to obscure a perfectly unconcealed and ordinary door. “Just a privacy screen.”
He paused, his palm resting on the handle.
“Do you want to do the honors?”
“Oh, no. You found it.”
Nerves crawled through her stomach and Marsh stretched out her hand, as he turned the handle.
“Stop!”
Roeglin was in the middle of pushing the door open when she shouted, and by then it was almost too late. Howls split the air, and the door was yanked out of Roeglin’s hand. Calling back the sword and buckler she’d discarded when she entered the room, Marsh leapt forward to rescue him, and was surprised when the first hands to claw their round the edge of the door were human.
Roeglin didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his fingers around the slender wrist he saw and yanked the woman through to safety. He was too slow to grab the door before it swung fully open, but he dragged Madame Monetti into the room and then turned to pull her across it.
“Run!” he shouted when he saw Marsh advancing with her blade. “Run!”
“You run!” she shouted in return, because there was only one person who could close that gate, and he would be lurking close by, probably in whatever room lay beyond.
She had no choice. If she was to stem the flow of monsters, she had to destroy the man or woman who’d opened the gate for them to pass through. Without the mental connection willing the passage between places, the gate would close, and the monsters would be thwarted. Marsh ducked around the woman and under Roeglin’s reaching hand.
“Sorry, Ro,” she said, sliding through the door, and catching the edge of it with her fingers as she passed.
With a flick of her wrist, she got it traveling back toward the doorframe, but that wasn’t what she was watching. The thing that caught her eye dominated the rear wall of the room, and she was sliding right toward it!
She could only hope she could… Marsh saw the legs of a cabinet sweep past and lashed out with her sword hand, releasing her blade to grab it and stop her slide toward the open maw of the gate before her. Shadows swarmed in the darkness beyond the edges, and red eyes turned in her direction when she gasped in pain.
The cabinet rocked as she jerked to a halt, but Madame Monetti’s love of heavy furniture saved her, and it stayed upright. Marsh heard another unhinged scream break the silence, and someone just beyond the cabinet cursed. She scrambled back, pulling herself to her feet and recalling her sword from the shadows.
Another scream broke the stillness, and the hooting gibberish of a dozen ever-hungry mouths rose from the darkness beyond the gate. Cloth rustled, and Marsh didn’t hesitate. She lifted the sword in a two-handed grip and swung around the edge of the cabinet, putting herself side-on to it and sidestepping far closer to the gate than she ever wanted to be.
Marsh felt something catch the end of her blade, and the mage hiding on the other side of the cabinet cursed again. This time his voice was ragged with pain. Marsh didn’t let that, or the approaching howl of a hunting shadow monster, break her focus. She pulled the blade back toward her, adjusted her aim, and thrust it forward, shifting her hand to the pommel to give herself more leverage as she drove it into the mage’s chest.
He gasped but didn’t have time to scream, and the gate snapped shut beside her. Another unearthly scream broke the air as it did so, and a dark limb tipped in i
vory claws thumped heavily onto the tiles beside her. Marsh glanced down at it, watching the ebony flesh start to steam in the light, and then she looked at the now-solid back wall and listened to the absolute silence that had descended on the room.
For a minute she just stood and stared, and then she remembered the dark-haired woman Roeglin had towed into the bedroom beyond and turned toward the door. As she did, she scanned the room, looking for a second mage. The Deeps knew there had been two of them every other time she’d seen a gate opened.
After a cursory search showed that no one was hiding in the large bathtub that stood to one side or in the alcove between the cabinet and the wall that the first mage had been standing in or behind the door leading to the privy, Marsh stepped back into the bedroom, but she did so slowly, searching for Roeglin and Madame Monetti.
It took her a second to register the clash of blades, the two figures in black raider armor, and the way Roeglin fought to keep himself between Madame Monetti and the dark-clothed intruders. With a shout, Marsh jumped into the fray.
The flash of darkness lashing out at her from beside the doorway came as a surprise, and she felt metal slide across her armor as she turned to face it. She managed to parry the dagger that followed, but only just. Even though she didn’t want to turn away from the two men attacking Roeglin, she couldn’t afford to ignore her ambusher, so she turned, blocking a second strike with her buckler as she brought her sword across her attacker’s gut in a vicious swing.
He choked out a cry even as Marsh used her buckler to block a second strike, pulling her sword back before thrusting it into the man’s chest. When she jerked her blade free, he dropped to the floor and didn’t move. Seeing he was down for good, Marsh turned and took in the situation across the room.
Roeglin was still holding his own, and still successfully blocking their path to Madame Monetti. As long as the woman stayed behind him, she’d be safe, but the lady clearly had her doubts about Roeglin’s abilities. As Marsh moved to help the shadow mage, Madame Monetti made a break for the door leading to her office. Her movement pulled Roeglin’s attention away from his opponent for just a heartbeat, but it was enough.
He dropped his guard enough that the raider swept his blade across Roeglin’s shoulder, slicing through the armor and flesh, and making the shadow mage’s dagger fall. As it dropped from his hand, dissipating into darkness, the other raider broke from the melee and went after Madame Monetti.
Marsh didn’t need to be told what to do. She darted after Madame Monetti, trying to reach the raider before he could reach her. It was going to be a close-run thing.
Madame Monetti made it to the door, yanking it open and darting through before the raider could reach her. Marsh raced across the room and slid to a stop, bringing her buckler around before striking out with her blade.
The raider caught her arrival from the corner of his eye and turned, just managing to parry the blade swinging across his body. He glanced back at the door and Marsh struck out again, forcing him back a step before catching his blade in a parry as she rammed her buckler into his chest, knocking him back against the wardrobe. Finding herself too close, Marsh shuffled two hasty steps back and readied her next strike.
As the raider pushed himself off the wardrobe and back onto his feet, Marsh thrust forward, driving her blade through the center of his body before pulling it back out. Seeing the raider fall, she turned for the door, hurrying to catch up with Madame Monetti. There were three ways out of her office. Who knew which route she’d take?
To Marsh’s surprise, Madame Monetti hadn’t left the room. She was standing in the center of it, facing a dark-cloaked figure.
“Take me to—” she began in clear tones of command, but the figure wasn’t listening.
It took a single swift step for him to cover the distance to Madam Monetti’s side and thrust a dagger through her throat.
Marsh gave a shout and sprang forward, but the figure stepped away from the dead woman to disappear through a slender slit in the shadows. The gate was so narrow that Marsh hadn’t seen it. She bounded forward, but light flared in a wavery vertical line and her reaching hands found nothing. The assassin was gone, and he’d closed the way behind him.
Marsh stepped back and cast a quick glance down at the woman she’d tried to save, but it was clear she was dead. That made Marsh’s next decision easy; she pivoted and ran back through the door to see how Roeglin was faring. It didn’t take her long to see he was in trouble.
His opponent had the shadow mage backed up against a wall. Roeglin’s injured arm hung limply by his side as he parried dagger thrusts and sword swipes, and it was clear he couldn’t hold out much longer. Marsh didn’t bother shouting. She figured the raider had noticed her entry, and, if he hadn’t, it didn’t matter. He was going to die all the same.
She did not hesitate, but thrust her blade into his back, stepping back to let him fall before lashing out to cut deeply into his neck. The man was dead before he’d made it all the way to the floor, but Marsh was already moving toward Roeglin. He looked at her and gave her a wobbly smile.
“Help me out of here?”
The sword faded from his hand, and Marsh released her weapons back to the shadows as she came alongside him. Sliding his good arm over her shoulder, she helped him reach the main office as Captain Guillemot led his squad back in from the third door in the room.
“You found her, then,” he said, taking in Madame Monetti’s body, and then he noticed Roeglin. “What happened?”
“There were raiders,” Marsh answered. “I took out one, but an assassin got through and killed Madame Monetti before I could get to her.”
“Four,” Roeglin said, his voice thready and weak. “She took out four. I just kept them busy.”
Then he slid sideways, his full weight almost pulling Marsh off her feet. She lowered him to the ground and looked at Guillemot.
“I need bandages,” she said, and he glanced at his squad.
Before he could say anything, one of his men shouldered his way to the front and knelt beside Marsh, inspecting the wound and pulling a threaded needle from the large satchel at his waist.
“Ilias,” he said. “I try to keep them alive. Let me see him.”
Marsh moved back, helping when she was asked and doing her best to keep out of the medic’s way otherwise.
“Help me lift him,” she said when he was done and Roeglin’s shoulder was bandaged, but Ilias shook his head.
“I’ve got my own packhorses for that,” he told her, and Marsh couldn’t help but look past him at the squad.
He smiled when she frowned, puzzled because she couldn’t see the mules he was referring to.
“Jonas,” he said as a stocky young man with a shock of dark hair and even darker eyes made his way out of the group and stooped to lift Roeglin from the ground. He was followed by an equally stocky woman with red hair and brown eyes. Ilias included her with a gesture of his hand. “And this is Lilian. She’ll take over when Jonas needs a break. I believe we have a journey before us.”
As he said it, he straightened up and looked at Captain Guillemot.
“Ready when you are, captain.”
Guillemot spared Marsh a moment as he passed.
“We’re camping at one of the abandoned farms. We can’t stay here. Couldn’t hold off an attack if we did, and I can’t be sure we got them all. Monsieur Gravine will be sending an escort tomorrow. We’ll meet them on the road.”
He didn’t say anything else, just led everyone from the Monetti mansion out to the road, stopping briefly to speak to the small squad guarding the junction as he passed. They melted back into the shadows as Guillemot led his squad away, and Marsh was surprised at how well they’d vanished when she looked back.
She was relieved when Mordan joined her, padding silently out from beneath a stand of calla shrooms. Marsh stayed close to Jonas, her hand resting lightly on the kat’s neck as they walked. She was glad of the big beast’s presence on a road that se
emed suddenly empty without Roeglin’s companionship.
22
Poisoned by Shadow
Marsh woke to the sound of hurried, quiet movement, rolling out of the bed she’d been given at the farmhouse on the way to Monsieur Gravine’s mansion. Silently she pulled a sword and buckler from the shadows, then hit the floor in a crouch and scanned the room.
It was empty, but the corridor outside was not. Strangers passed her door as she cracked it open, and lamplight cast a golden glow in the hall beyond. It was the lamplight that made her relax enough to let her sword and buckler return to the dark, glad no one had seen her, even if the activity had her concerned.
The strangers were all wearing the uniform of Monsieur Gravine’s Protectors, and she realized they weren’t strangers after all. She’d walked with them the day before, even if she didn’t know their names, and there weren’t that many, only two. Marsh stepped into the hallway behind them as they turned into the room beside hers—the one she’d watched them set Roeglin in before she’d been ordered to rest.
She hurried to see what was going on and arrived in time to hear the medic speaking.
“…going to need golden gleams, yellow moss, and lava weed,” he ordered, and Marsh stepped hastily aside as the two Protectors she’d followed hurried out of the room.
One of them started when he saw her, and the other had her sword half-drawn before she recognized Marsh. Neither of them stopped to apologize, but rushed toward the stairs leading to the ground floor. Marsh waited until they were clear and then stepped into the room.
Ilias had a basin of hot water beside him and was dipping a cloth into it. He looked up when he caught sight of her and nodded, wringing out the cloth and wiping Roeglin’s shoulder.
“Raiders use shadow poison on their blades,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
The man sounded disgusted with himself, but Marsh shook her head.
Trading into Darkness Page 19
