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

by Garrett Robinson

  Mag nodded slowly. “And this pact,” she said at last, “between the Telfers and the trolls. It has lasted ever since?”

  “Without once bringing us into conflict,” I said. “Sometimes our people have settled in lands that, strictly speaking, are beyond the borders. But the trolls also come into our lands on occasion. As far as anyone can remember, the relationship has been amicable, and any problems have been resolved quickly. The trolls are easy to deal with, and they enjoy most human foodstuffs, which makes them easy to bribe if all else fails.”

  “Yet now they are agitated, and no overtures towards peace seem to have been effective,” said Dryleaf. “Assuming the Rangatira has made such overtures.”

  “She would have,” I said. “But it is clear they were unsuccessful.”

  “Because of the Shades,” finished Mag. Her face was solemn, but a light danced in her eyes. “I understand. If we investigate this matter with the trolls, it should lead us to the weremage. And we can hope that slaying her will end the problem with the trolls as well.”

  “We can hope,” I said grudgingly. “Whatever the Shades have done to direct the trolls’ wrath at Kahaunga, I only pray we can turn it in another direction before they have torn my family’s home down to its foundations.”

  “I have faith in your abilities,” said Dryleaf with a smile. “The name of Albern may save these mountains again.”

  “Not if we never get started,” said Mag. “Where do we begin?”

  “If we are right in our guess, the Shades will be found lurking somewhere in the mountains,” I said. “They could not interact with the trolls from here in the city.”

  “They say the trolls have been pushing into human territory,” said Mag. “What if we find them when next they attack, and follow them back to their home? If they have been dealing with the Shades, we can find them that way.”

  “No,” I said at once, and more sharply than I intended. “You know little of trolls, and so you cannot understand how dangerous such a plan would be.”

  Mag shrugged. “We have faced danger before. No one thought we could fight a vampire and win.”

  “This is nothing like that,” I said grimly. “You were fast enough to wound the vampires with your spear, and to avoid their blows. But speed will not help you against a troll. You can strike it as much as you like, but your spear will do nothing against their hide. Nor will my arrows, unless I hit one in the eye. And such a small wound will do little beyond angering them enough to crush us beneath their fists. The only thing that can truly harm them is fire, and only the Rangatira’s forces have the oil one needs to fight a troll.”

  She grinned at me, which only served to make me more annoyed. “We will be careful,” she assured me. “We will not let the trolls see us. I may know little of them, yet I know they do not have eyesight or a sense of smell as good as our own. They should be easy to track, and without them ever being the wiser.”

  I huffed through my nose. “We can try. But if you have any sense at all—a doubtful prospect at the best of times—you will follow my guidance when it comes to these beasts. I would rather not see you meet an undignified if long overdue end, crushed by a troll in mountains far from home.”

  Mag snatched my shoulder and pulled me into a side-armed hug, bouncing me up and down and ruffling my hair. “There is the cheerful Albern I have so missed. This whole matter will be resolved in no time.”

  I heaved a great sigh, knowing she was wrong, and knowing, too, that I would never be able to convince her.

  We returned to the common room and asked the innkeeper about the last settlement the trolls had attacked. She told us everything she knew, including where to find it. It was a small town called Ahuroa. Hearing the name sent a chill up my back. I had visited it in my youth, both with and without my mother.

  Ahuroa was an overnight journey away from Tokana. We left Dryleaf at the inn, with a plan for him to continue gathering information in the common room and mayhap elsewhere in the city. Mag and I took Oku, as well as our travel packs, and set out into the countryside. My mother was much on my mind as we made our way through the city streets. I remembered journeys we had made, with me riding beside her just as I rode beside Mag now. I remembered trips to Ahuroa, when she had me wait in our dwellings while she tended to business. And I remembered returning from journeys I had made on my own, and Mother being furious that I had left the city without telling anyone.

  Indifference when I did my duty, and wrath at any dereliction. It was a fair encapsulation of what life had been like with her.

  The guards at the north gate were less watchful than those we had met the day before—leaving the city, it seemed, was less suspicious than arriving at it. When they asked what business we had in the wilds, I told them I had a cousin who had not come with the other refugees from Ahuroa. The trolls had not killed anyone, so I said he must be lost in the wilds. The guards eyed our weapons, but Lord Matara’s writ permitted us to be armed, and they wished us luck as we rode out.

  The moment we passed into open country, I felt my whole body ease. It was a relief so sharp that it stunned me. Only the day before, I had ridden these same mountains in the open air. One night in Kahaunga had made me tense as a bowstring, yet I had not realized it until I felt it bleed away. A rueful laugh slipped out of me, and Mag glanced over.

  “There is no one else around, so I know I did not miss a joke.”

  I shook my head. “I was just reminded of riding from the city as a child. I always found my home less comfortable than solitude in the wilderness.”

  Mag was silent for a little while. “I suppose that was true for me as well,” she said at last, her voice low. “I spent many years in the woods on my own, when I was young, and forests are still my favorite place to be by myself. They remind me of the peace I knew before I went out into the wide world—before I met you, if I am being honest. It is why I fell in love with Northwood. The trees were only a stone’s throw from my tavern, and I would walk among them often.”

  I will admit I was shocked. Mag had rarely spoken to me of her youth before we met, and I had never pried. She would tell me if she wanted to, I knew. Hearing her suddenly speak of it now was not unlike when I had heard the satyrs speak of a Lord—the words were not strange on their own, but the source turned them quite shocking. I very badly wanted to ask her to tell me more, but I could hear the nervousness in her voice. She was clearly uncomfortable having said so much. I worried that if I pressed her, she might not speak of it again. And so I said nothing.

  We rode on for a while in silence after that. Northwest of Kahaunga, the mountains rise up to sharp peaks, which fall steeply away until they flatten out in the little dale overlooked by the stronghold, with gentler slopes on the eastern side. We rode a narrow path that had been cut into that sharp western face, mostly used by rangers who needed to reach far villages and settlements with speed. It gave us a wonderful view down into the dale—though that was spoiled, for me at least, by the sight of how far the city had spread across the mountains. Many trees had been felled, so that the once tranquil forest had been cleared to beyond the dale’s eastern side, and homes and settlements had begun to edge up the slopes there. Though it was early morning, a thin pall already hung in the air below us, the smoke of hearths and cooking fires trapped by the mountains, giving the lower city a blurred, hazy appearance, like something half-glimpsed in a nightmare. It was a darker, dirtier thing than the thick, grey cloud cover above us.

  At last our path turned around the edge of a mountain, and we were in the wilderness proper. There the road struck the top of a wide ridge, and we were able to kick our horses to a trot, making better time. Oku padded along happily with us. On occasion he would go ranging far ahead, though never out of sight, and then sit by the side of the road until we had caught up to him, before making two turns around our horses’ hooves and then running forwards again. The road grew somewhat narrow again, and began to wind around the side of peak after peak.

 
Shortly after we lost sight of the city, we came to the first stone bridge spanning the gap between two slopes. We stopped at its western end. By the lip of the cliff into which the bridge had been built, there was a small shelf just visible. I tried to ignore it, tried to avoid looking at it entirely. I did not succeed. A dark and hazy memory swam into my mind—a relic of my youth, and a reminder of something I would much rather have forgotten.

  Mag, meanwhile, sat staring at the bridge in wonder. It was a half-span long, with its foundations set into the mountains on either end. But it had no supports in the middle, only open air between the bridge and the ground, which was a span below.

  “How did they build it?” said Mag. “With no pillars, and no way to have any while they worked?”

  “There are tricks,” I said. “Not that I know what they are. I am a guide, not a mason. I will admit the bridges never held much interest for me.”

  “Keen eyes and a dull mind,” said Mag. “I am hardly surprised. But an evil mood, as well. Why are you so grumpy?”

  “Bad memories,” I said. “Let us ride on.”

  We crossed the bridge. Soon the chasms before the peaks grew less deep and less sheer, and the ground rose to meet the road. We came to another small dale like the one where Kahaunga had been built, and there was the lake that flowed off into the river that ran through the center of the city. But most of the ground here was hard and rocky, ill suited for farming. This vale could support no more than a single small village; I saw it there, on the other end of the lake, its homes perched at the water’s edge. A few boats were out.

  Our side of the lake was far less gentle. We had to pick our way between boulders and across craggy breaks in the land, sharp fissures that pinched to nothing a few paces down. Oku moved more slowly now, sticking close to us, unsure of his footing on this new terrain.

  I found myself growing tense again, distracted, almost irritable. I had to force my attention back to the path ahead of us. It had turned from a solid road to little more than an animal trail, and almost all my focus was required to pick the right path through the rocks and avoid dead ends.

  Almost all my focus, but not quite. Suddenly I realized why I was so distracted. My mind was not wandering—it was drawn to something. Tiny noises, which I had passed off as an echo from the stones, but which carried on when we paused for breath.

  We were being followed.

  I drew an arrow, nocked, and turned in a flash. I paused for a heartbeat before loosing, not wanting to harm some innocent passerby.

  There, high above. A woman in grey clothes and a blue cloak, with hard-bitten features.

  I fired. If I had not hesitated, I would have struck her in the thigh. As it was, the fletching nearly grazed her rump as she scrambled out of sight.

  “Up there!” I cried.

  Mag did not question me. Slinging her shield onto her arm, she sprang off of Mist and up the slope towards the woman who had been hunting us.

  I spared no thought for the horses. I ran after Mag.

  “Oku, tiss!” I cried, and Oku came bounding after me.

  Mag had outdistanced me, but she was looking for a way to climb up towards her prey. The woman dodged nimbly through the rocky terrain, clearly familiar with it. I only caught sight of her for a blink at a time, never long enough for a clear shot. She was much higher on the slope than we were. Mag ran for a sharp incline that would take her up. But when she tried to climb, the land broke under her feet.

  “Too soft!” I cried as I ran past her. “We have to find another way!”

  Mag growled and tried again. She planted the butt of her spear in the ground to help her, and it held. She climbed up, but ever so slowly. I lost sight of her a heartbeat later.

  We were nearing the southern end of the dale. Not far away was the road we had taken to get here. If I could reach the road before the woman, we would have her trapped. I kept glancing up as I sprinted, catching flashes of her blue cloak between the rocks. It would be a near thing. I pushed myself harder, my legs flying.

  I rounded a boulder and saw the road a span away. The woman was still moving between the rocks, but there was a half-span of open ground before the road. I nocked an arrow and drew, waiting for her to emerge into the open. Oku gave a thunderous bark and leaped ahead of me, trying to intercept her.

  “Kaw!”

  A streak of black feathers swept down upon me. Pain lanced across my face as I felt talons bite into my flesh. I cried out and lost my balance, crashing down upon a rock that struck me in the ribs. Wheezing with the pain, I fought my way back to my knees.

  In the air above me, the raven wheeled and screeched again. Oku, hearing my cry, had stopped, and was now looking back. The woman we had been pursuing was mayhap a dozen paces from the road. But I knew the raven that had attacked me was no ordinary beast.

  “Oku, attack!” I called out. The hound hesitated. “Haka!” I cried.

  He turned and went after the fleeing Shade.

  I turned my attention back to the weremage. An arrow was in my hand faster than blinking. I loosed it at the raven even as it wheeled and dived for me again.

  The arrow impaled its wing. The raven screamed and crashed into the ground behind a rock a half-span away. I moved forwards slowly, readying another arrow.

  Magelight flashed. The weremage’s form swelled as she took her human shape, and I caught sight of her behind the rock.

  Emotions torrented through me: anger for what she had done to Sten; triumph at the fact that we had found her at last; and fear, for Mag was not there to assist me, and I had no idea where she had gone.

  “Mag!” I screamed, my voice echoing off the hard land. “I have her!”

  The weremage cried out in pain as she dragged the arrow through the back of her arm. Her eyes flashed again as she sealed the wound. I drew and fired, but she cowered behind the rock, and I missed.

  I stopped in my tracks, drawing another arrow. She could not hide forever. Slowly I backed up, step by step, risking only the briefest glances to see my footing.

  Another flash of magelight.

  The mountain lion with the white tail sprang into view. It was the form she had used to kill Sten. A fresh surge of anger struck me, throwing off my next shot. The mountain lion snarled and leaped to the side, the arrow missing by almost a pace.

  I threw the bow aside and drew my sword from my belt. The weremage stalked closer, hackles up, a low growl rumbling from her throat. Fear now joined anger in my gut, churning it, threatening to make me vomit.

  “Do it!” I screamed, forcing the terror away. “Do it, you sow!”

  The lion roared. It sank back onto its haunches, ready to pounce.

  And then a furious stream of barking made us both pause. Oku had abandoned his pursuit of the Shade to help me. He streaked in from the left, a blur of brown and black fur. Teeth flashed in the dull grey sunlight as he drove the mountain lion back a pace. She swiped at him, and Oku dodged it, barking louder.

  Then Mag came dashing into view. She was higher up on the slope down which the other Shade had come. I watched as she took in the scene in a heartbeat.

  Her battle-trance came over her, the dead-eyed expression crashing down her face like a portcullis.

  She charged from behind, but the weremage heard her coming. She looked back over her shoulder, and I could practically see the fear shoot through her as she saw Mag. With a desperate swipe, she drove Oku back and darted towards the road to Kahaunga.

  “After her,” called Mag, her voice toneless. I recovered my bow, and we gave chase together.

  I managed to get off one more shot before the weremage vanished around the first curve in the road. It streaked just past her white tail. We sprinted after her, the slapping of our boots echoing off the mountains.

  “Mountain lions cannot run forever,” I gasped as we ran. “Bursts of speed, but little endurance.”

  “Save your breath for running,” said Mag tonelessly.

  We had only one advantage. The
weremage could not turn into a raven and fly away again. If she tried it, I could shoot her down, and she knew it. And in just a few moments, we would reach the bridge. That was a wide open space, and I would have a clear shot.

  The hunt was about to end. The other Shade might have escaped, but that would be something to deal with later.

  Then we rounded the path leading to the bridge, and I heard the sound of thundering hooves. Confusion made my steps falter, even as I saw the weremage dashing across the bridge in front of us. Beyond her was a party of rangers in Telfer colors, riding towards us on horseback. They were less than a span from the other end of the bridge.

  “Now, Albern!” snapped Mag. “Shoot her!”

  I shook off my surprise and fired. The arrow flew true, sinking into the weremage’s flank. She roared in pain.

  An arrow in her side, and a party of riders ahead. The rangers had drawn up short, some reaching for their bows, others snatching spears from holsters on their saddles. The weremage was finished. She had to be.

  And then she turned.

  At the other end of the chasm, at the edge of a cliff which the bridge had been built to span, there was a small shelf.

  A small shelf I had avoided looking at. The source of a bad memory I wished to forget.

  The mountain lion leaped down to the shelf. And then she vanished over the other side of it.

  From where we stood—and from where the rangers sat on their horses—it looked like she must have plunged to her death. But I knew she had not. I knew that over that shelf was a slope, steep and rocky, and worn smooth by ages of rainfall and exposure to the open wind.

  I knew that. And so had the weremage. She had scouted this area better than I thought she could have. She had only run this way because she knew she had a means of escape.

  “Albern,” said Mag, her voice still monotonous with her trance.