The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4)

by Garrett Robinson

  All this I took in with a moment’s glance, and I felt my limbs seize with fear. My right hand, holding the arrow, was slack, and my bow arm lowered towards the ground. Oku gave a tiny whimper and slunk back behind my legs.

  But Mag, of course, felt no fear at all—or if she did, she hid it perfectly. Without hesitation she took one step towards the creature, taking no care to soften her footfalls.

  The vampire, which had seemed to be snuffling at the ground, snapped its head up towards her. It bared sharp teeth and let out a long, hateful hiss.

  “Sky above, you are ugly,” said Mag. “Come, let me wipe that hideous grimace from your face.”

  If the creature understood her, it gave no sign, but it did begin to slink towards her. I wondered for a moment why it moved with such caution—it knew something of humans, clearly, and had already killed many of them. Why would it not think that Mag could be hunted as easily as anyone else? Mayhap it was uncertain because Mag was so brazen in her defiance, because she did not show the slightest hesitation or dread.

  And then I recalled that I was not just a spectator, and that I had remained inactive for too long. The vampire was a few scant paces away from Mag now, and soon I would lose my shot.

  The arrow was already nocked. I lifted my bow, drew, and fired straight towards the creature’s heart.

  It moved.

  When people of other kingdoms see the archers of Calentin, they are astounded at our skill. Most who met me thought my bowcraft was something of legend, that I must surely be the greatest bowman who ever lived in the nine kingdoms. Indeed, I am a skilled archer even by Calentin standards—or I was, in those days when I had both arms. And yet, for all my ability, I have met many masters who far surpassed me at the height of my skill. I was trained by a woman who could fire arrows faster than heartbeats, faster than blinking, and send them all with enough strength to pierce chainmail. If an enemy shot at her, she could shoot their darts from the air with her own. I know because I saw her do it. Her eyes were unerring and sharper than an eagle’s, and her limbs were a blur.

  And yet the vampire moved faster than her. It saw the arrow from the corner of its eye, turned, darted aside, and snatched the arrow from midair before I realized what was happening. Then it flipped the dart around and threw it back at me—not with the strength of a bow, but still fast enough to pierce skin. I was saved more by luck than reflexes—I tried to duck, almost too late, and slipped on a patch of loose leaves. I struck the ground hard, the wind driven out of my lungs.

  Sky save me, I thought. How is it so fast?

  I heard an inhuman screech and looked up just in time to see it charge me. All four limbs ripped and tore at the earth to propel it forwards, sending clods of dirt in all directions.

  But as fast as it was, Mag was able to catch it. She ran and leaped in between me and the vampire, and it skidded to a halt before her. But hardly had it paused before it struck with one clawed limb. Mag blocked the swipe, and I heard the deep rending of claws on wood. She stabbed in retaliation, but the vampire spun out of the way. It tried to turn the movement into another attack, but Mag’s shield was there again to stop it.

  It was not until that moment that I realized something about Mag. I had only ever seen her fight another human or animal. When she did so, it was a slaughter. I had never seen her face another opponent who had stood a chance. But now, facing a foe that was so much stronger than a human could ever hope to be, Mag’s skill was displayed in full. My eyes, sharp as they were, could not follow the speed of her swings and thrusts. My mind could not comprehend how she knew where the vampire would strike next, nor how she could twist in just such a way to avoid it, place her shield in just the right position to block its swiping claws. Once or twice the vampire struck her mail instead of the shield, and I winced. But after the first time, I realized that even that was part of Mag’s plan. She only let it strike her when the blow would glance from her armor, and when it gave her the opportunity to attack with her spear. Her armor was part of her, just like her shield and spear, and she fought now with her whole body instead of only her weapons.

  Unfortunately for me, the vampire still outmatched her in strength. That meant she had to be more nimble than it was—and after a few heartbeats of frantic battle, that meant she had to leap out of the way of a swipe, landing on the vampire’s other side.

  It turned on me in an instant and pounced.

  I shrieked—and not a noble battle-cry, either—and barely managed to leap to my left as its slashing claws sailed past. But now it had me backed up against the steep slope, with nowhere to run.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the natural wall that climbed up like a stair.

  Nowhere to go but up.

  I jumped atop the stone surface just as the vampire lunged, and it slammed bodily into the slope. Oku came flying from nowhere, snarling and yapping, and the vampire recoiled from the hound. Then Mag attacked, and the vampire screamed hatred at her as it retreated. But it, too, had nowhere to run other than the top of the wall.

  It hopped up, still facing back down towards Mag. Suddenly my perch was far more dangerous than the ground had been. I edged towards the lip of the stone, readying myself to jump down. But the vampire spotted the movement out of the corner of its eye. It must have thought I was attacking, for it swiped at me again, forcing me a step back.

  Three more steps up we fought that way, and now I was too high up the slope to jump down to the ground without risking a broken leg. Oku stood in front of Mag, trying to help but only, in fact, blocking her spear. And the vampire turned back and forth as it tried to pin one of us down, unable for the moment to do so.

  My bow was useless with the vampire so close, and I drew my sword. But that proved to be even more futile. I swung, and for an instant I thought my strike would be true, for the vampire did not try to duck it. But that was only because it caught the sword in its hand instead. I felt the steel bite into flesh, but I did not lop the hand in half the way I would have a human’s. It only hissed at me through its pointed teeth, dragged the sword from my grasp, and tossed it over the ledge.

  “Blast!” I cried, my hand outstretched futilely towards the sword as it fell to the ground some ten paces below.

  And then I saw something.

  The vampire swiped at Oku, who leaped back only to become tangled in Mag’s legs. She cursed as she spun, flipping over the dog, her green cloak flying about her.

  But the moment’s distraction had given the vampire an opening. It stalked towards me, black eyes glinting in the moonslight.

  “A fair hunt,” I said. “But I do not wish to grant you an easy meal.”

  I leaped over the ledge.

  “Albern!” screamed Mag, her battle-trance breaking for a moment.

  The vampire roared and leaped after me. A fall from this height would likely kill me—but the vampire would survive, and it would have a meal waiting for it at the bottom.

  But then I grabbed the thick, outthrust branch of the pine tree that I had spied from the ledge.

  The vampire’s roar grew much louder, and then faded as it fell scrabbling past me.

  I swung up and landed kneeling on the branch, slinging my bow off my shoulder and drawing an arrow in the same motion. I lined up the shot at the vampire, which was still falling through the air, and loosed.

  The vampire landed. I heard nothing break, but the impact obviously winded it. Still, it looked up at the sound of the flying arrow, catching it in midair. It hissed up at me as it snapped the arrow between its dirty claws.

  Then Mag’s spear struck it in the neck, flying straight through it and into the ground. The vampire’s eyes went wide with shock, even as a black corruption spread from the spear’s wooden shaft through its skin. It looked like rotting meat, but it spread as quickly as flame.

  Around us, the woods settled to silence except for Oku’s throaty growling. I looked across the gap between the tree and the slope, and Mag looked back at me, panting.

 
; “Sky above,” she said. “That was a fight.”

  “It was,” I said. “What do you think of your helpless pet now?”

  “Much the same,” she said. “After all, I still had to kill the thing.”

  My lips formed a thin line. “Only because I distracted it.”

  Mag chuckled. “That does seem to be what you are best at. Oh, do not look so offended, Albern. After all, we have a true pet now.” She pointed at Oku.

  I sighed. “Just get back to the ground. It will take me a little longer to climb down.”

  It did take me longer to reach the clearing than it took Mag, but not by much. When I joined her, she had already extracted her spear from the vampire’s corpse and was cleaning it.

  “We should take the head,” I said. “Just to put Yue’s mind at ease about the truth of our words.”

  “A good idea,” said Mag. “And mayhap now she will not look upon us with such disdain.”

  “Mayhap,” I said. “Where did my sword land?”

  Mag pointed. Then, as I went to fetch the blade, she took the vampire’s head off with one sweep of her spear.

  We found the horses, who shifted nervously at the stench of the vampire’s corpse, and rode back through the woods towards the road that would take us to Lan Shui. As we emerged from the woods into the clearing with the farmhouse, I took one last look at the darkness beneath the trees.

  Something within me was still uneasy. The forest held no answers, only menace—and now a vampire’s corpse. So why did I think I would not rest this night?

  “It is irritating when you do that,” said Sun. “When you ask a question like that, and then the story turns in another direction. You already know the answer. Why are you asking me? You could tell me if you wanted to. You choose not to.”

  “Hush,” said Albern. “Let me have my fun.”

  Pantu paced in one of the upper bedrooms of the Shade hideout. He strained to hear any sound of fighting, of struggle, in the town outside.

  That was a ridiculous urge, and he knew it. Even if the vampire did strike tonight, it would do so in the fields, the farms, a long ways away from Lan Shui itself. He would never hear it.

  If it did strike tonight. But mayhap it would not.

  Tonight was the night. Tonight was the test. Come morning, he would know whether or not his mad scheme had worked—whether he had finally driven the vampire away from Lan Shui for good. He had been trying to sleep, hoping to wake to a bright and happy morning, but he could barely lie down, much less close his eyes.

  A floorboard creaked on the first floor.

  Pantu froze. As he stopped pacing, the floorboards beneath his feet gave another, louder creak.

  Had he imagined the sound?

  But no. Now he heard something else. Someone coming up the stairs.

  Someone? Or something? He heard claws scrabbling on the wooden steps.

  Claws. No. Not possible. Not here.

  He burst out the door of the bedroom onto the second story landing. At the top of the stairs crouched a figure. But it was not the vampire that Pantu so feared. It was a cat, dark of fur with a white tail, like one would find in the mountains. Pantu knew the sight of it well—every child of the foothills knew of mountain lions.

  Even as disbelief struggled to work its way through his mind, even as he tried to reason out how the beast got this far into the town, the lion pounced. It gave two great swipes of its claws. Pantu felt them slice into his flesh like daggers. He gasped, his chest laid open, and felt the alien, terrifying sensation of cool air on his insides.

  He fell on his back, the mountain lion perched on his chest. Its amber eyes, pupils like gibbous moons but wide as coins, stared into his own.

  And then the lion said, “You were the one who was supposed to die.”

  Pantu blinked through the pain, through the darkness creeping in at the edge of his vision. This had to be a dream. A nightmare. He would wake. But then he realized the truth: the lion’s eyes were glowing. It was already partway through a transformation—it had already formed a human mouth with which to speak. As he watched, the transformation finished, and Kaita knelt over him, one hand on his throat.

  “Dellek should be alive,” she said. “All the others should be. Why are you the only one who survived? You are the weak one. The worthless one.”

  Despite the terror, despite the knowledge of his own death, Pantu gasped out a laugh. Blood came with it. “Not so worthless. I have saved Lan Shui.”

  Kaita hissed and narrowed her eyes. “You have saved nothing.”

  “I completed the ritual,” said Pantu, wheezing. “Five magestones. It is finished now. The magic will drive the vampire away forever.”

  He had expected Kaita to grow enraged, to storm at him, mayhap even to finish him off quickly. Instead, she only stared at him in amazement. And then she began to laugh. The laugh grew louder, ringing on and on, even as Pantu felt himself slipping into darkness.

  Mag and I rode back to Lan Shui.

  Though it was the middle of the night, we found many people awake and there to greet us. Yue stood among them, watching from the wall atop the north gate. Sinshi, one of the other constables, was there with her. The gate was closed, but as we rode up, Yue ordered it open before descending the stairs to meet us on the street.

  “What happened?” she demanded, before we could even pull our horses to a stop.

  “We fought the vampire,” said Mag simply. “We won.”

  She cut the leather thong with which she had tied its head to her saddle and threw it into the street. The crowd recoiled and gasped. Yue’s hard features were pale. “I … how did you—”

  Most of the faces in the crowd had turned worshipfully to us, and I quailed under their gazes. “I played but a small part. I merely distracted it so that Mag could strike the killing blow.”

  “He almost killed it twice,” said Mag. “Indeed, he might have had more clear shots if I had not gotten in his way.”

  I could see that Yue was growing frustrated with our modesty, and in the moment I agreed with her—at least when it came to Mag. I knew without a doubt that Mag could have defeated the creature alone, and that the same could not be said for me.

  The small crowd now pushed in close around us, wanting to know more about the battle. Oku was nearly crushed against my legs by the press of people. He slipped through them and stepped away from the crowd, looking somewhat miffed.

  As Mag, suddenly uncomfortable, tried to answer their questions, I looked over the heads of the crowd. There, near the back of the group, I saw the boy Pantu. He wore plain, grubby clothing, his face smeared with dirt. It looked as though he had been working all day. I hoped that meant he had at last found a more honest line of labor. Beside him stood Dryleaf, one hand holding his walking stick and the other hand on the boy’s shoulder. The old man beamed a pleasant smile, his eyeline a bit to my right. But Pantu’s expression seemed strange—eager, but not as joyous as most of the other townsfolk.

  I pushed past the crowd, which seemed preoccupied with Mag, and went to speak with the two of them. As he heard my footsteps approach, Dryleaf turned towards me.

  “Is that Albern?” he said. “I imagine it could not be Mag, for it seems she has quite a following.”

  “It is,” I said. “Greetings, Dryleaf. And to you, Pantu.”

  Pantu gave a start, as though he was surprised to have been noticed, and ducked his head. Dryleaf chuckled and patted the boy’s shoulder.

  “Do not mind him. He is only a bit shy. We heard what you did. This town will never be able to properly express its gratitude.”

  “As I tried to tell them, Mag did most of the work, and all the hardest part of it,” I told him.

  “I suspect you are underestimating yourself again, though I am sure the Uncut Lady fought admirably,” said Dryleaf. “But no matter. I am here for quite another reason. Pantu came to me. He said he had something urgent to tell you, and so I brought him here so that we could both wait for you to ret
urn from your hunt.”

  I looked at Pantu in surprise. He ducked his head again. “Is that right? What is it, boy?”

  His bulging eyes glinted up at me, though he hardly raised his head. “I think you should both hear it at once.” He hardly stuttered, as he had last time, and he did not whine.

  “A moment, then,” I told him, and turned back towards the crowd surrounding Mag. Pushing my way through them, I put a hand on Mag’s arm and spoke quietly. “If you are done playing the grand hero, I think we should return to the inn. I could use a meal and a bath. And that boy Pantu wishes to speak with us.”

  “Sky above, yes,” muttered Mag.

  We excused ourselves from the crowd. They did not wish to see us go, but Mag got rather insistent, and then at last, Yue commanded them all to be off to their homes before she started making arrests. I gave her a grateful nod before we left, but she stepped close for a final word.

  “I will not deny my gratitude for your actions, nor your right to a warm meal and rest,” she said. “But I would speak with you again before you leave Lan Shui.”

  “Why, constable,” I said, feigning surprise. “We would be honored. I thought you could not wait to be rid of us.”

  Her familiar scowl returned. “We shall see if I end up changing my mind on that count.”

  I laughed, and she stalked off. Mag and I went to Dryleaf and Pantu, who now stood alone on the torchlit street.

  “Well?” I said. “Here we are. What do you have to say for yourself, boy?”

  “And why have you said nothing before now?” said Mag sternly.

  Pantu avoided our eyes again at that. “I … I am sorry for what happened before. I was too ashamed to come speak with you right away. But I realized you needed to know something. About the weremage.”

  I tensed, stepping closer to him. “The one working with the Shades?”

  He nodded. “Yes, that one. I know little about her—but I do know where she is going. She told all of us. She said her next destination was the town of Opara, in Calentin. They—the Shades—they are up to something there. She never said what it was, but it sounded important.”