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

by Garrett Robinson

  My attention was dragged reluctantly back to the present situation. Now that the mountain lion had vanished, the party of rangers had turned their focus on us. They were advancing slowly across the bridge, weapons raised. Two had dismounted, and they held their spears ready as they approached.

  “Drop your spear!” called one still on horseback—a thicker woman with a shaved head, tattoos all over her lower face. “And you, your bow.”

  “That mountain lion—” I began.

  “Your weapons!” she shouted.

  I ground my teeth in frustration—but I dropped my bow. “Do it,” I muttered to Mag.

  Her battle-trance dropped away, and anger showed plain in her features. “Albern, the weremage—”

  “We have no choice,” I said. “Unless you wish to slay a whole troop of my family’s rangers. I believe you could do it, but I hope you will not.”

  She growled and dropped her spear into the dirt.

  The rangers relaxed a bit and came forwards more quickly. We backed a few paces away from our weapons. Oku looked alert, but he did not growl at them, even as the two on foot scooped up the bow and spear.

  “Who are you?” said the woman. Now that she was closer, I could see a badge on her chest—my family’s symbol, the bow and three arrows, crafted of silver instead of iron. A captain, directly under command of the lead ranger.

  “I am Kanohari,” I said. “This is Chao. You must listen to us. That mountain lion you just saw—it was a weremage. She is on the run from the King’s law.”

  That gave all of them pause. The whole party gave confused glances to their captain, who frowned down at us from atop her horse. “A weremage?” she said.

  “Yes, and she is—” I bit my own words off, glowering at the ground. “She is getting away.”

  It was too late. By now, the weremage would have reached the end of the slope. She had already had plenty of time to resume her human form, heal herself with her magic, and then take a raven’s form to fly away.

  She was gone. She had escaped. Again.

  Suddenly one of the rangers leaned forwards, peering at our faces. “Wait. I remember you.”

  I looked up at him in surprise. And then I recognized him. He had been one of the guards at the gate when we arrived to Kahaunga the day before. My heart sank.

  “Who are they?” said the captain.

  “New arrivals to Kahaunga,” said the guard. “They came through the west gate yesterday, along with an old man.”

  “On what business?” said the captain.

  “They said they were delivering a message to a cousin of the Lord Matara.” The ranger’s frown deepened. “Which does not explain why they are out here in the wilderness.”

  “We have Lord Matara’s writ,” said Mag.

  The captain’s brows drew close. “If you serve a Rangatira, you know that visitors are not allowed to hunt in another lord’s domain, with or without a writ.”

  “We were not hunting,” growled Mag. “We pursued a weremage. She attacked us. Why else would we chase a lion through the wilderness?”

  The captain paused again. She gave an uncertain glance to the guard beside her, who had begun to look doubtful.

  Mag could contain herself no longer. “She is a Shade, you fools!”

  “Mag!” I said, but too late.

  A shock passed through their party. The captain’s face darkened, and all doubt vanished from her expression.

  “If you know what that means,” she hissed, “then you know better than to be shouting it out loud.”

  “We have hunted her across two kingdoms,” I said, spreading my hands and adopting my most disarming tone. “My friend spoke in haste, but she is not—”

  “Enough,” snapped the captain. I fell silent. “If you speak the truth, and she is a weremage, then she is well beyond our reach by now. And if you are lying, then you have broken Calentin law. In either case, this matter is out of my hands.” She turned to her party. “Bind them. We are taking them to the Rangatira.”

  A pit formed in my stomach, a bottomless hole that threatened to engulf me. I searched desperately for some excuse, something I could say that would save us.

  Nothing came. And so I remained silent, as the two guards on foot approached and took Mag and me by the arms.

  Albern led Sun around the edge of the hill, and suddenly, there was Lan Shui. He paused the tale, and they both stood looking upon the town.

  Sun found herself speechless. She had never seen Lan Shui, and yet Albern had described it in such detail that she felt as if she had been here before. It was nestled by a river that thundered down out of the Greatrocks, the peaks stretching tall and mighty above it. The western spur, which had seemed so large before, was now dwarfed by mountains that were no longer hidden by nearer hills.

  “Lan Shui,” said Albern. “It has been a long time since last I beheld it. Come. I am hungry, and I long for something to drink.”

  He nudged his horse forwards, and Sun followed. Though she kept studying the town as they approached, her mind drifted back to the tale Albern had been telling her.

  “She got away,” said Sun. “Kaita, I mean. You were both such capable fighters, and yet she escaped you.”

  “As she did in Northwood,” said Albern.

  “She had help in Northwood,” said Sun.

  Albern looked down at her, brows raised. “I am afraid I do not see your point, unless you mean to imply that we let her get away.”

  “Of course not,” said Sun quickly. “It is only that … it must be the unluckiest thing I have ever heard of.”

  Albern chuckled. “Luck. I have told you already—”

  “That you do not believe in luck,” said Sun. “That you trust fate instead. Yes, I have heard you. Many times. But if that is true—if you were not meant to kill Kaita then, and you were meant to find me in that tavern, and all the rest of it—then why do anything at all? Why make choices? Why … why try? If you are meant to do one thing or another, if it is all a path laid before you in advance, then what does it matter what choices you make?”

  Albern’s smile grew a little sad. “It is tragic to see such cynicism in one so young.”

  “I speak of your beliefs, not my own,” grumbled Sun.

  “And you apply a fatal viewpoint to them,” said Albern. “Think of this. One thing is certain for all of us: death lies at the end of our road. That is a certainty. That is a fate no one can escape. So if we know we are fated to die, would you say we should not live? Of course not. Our choices are everything. They make us who we are. And I believe they do shape events. Sometimes, a greater force—fate, I call it, though others have other words—it stops us from making the choice we want to make. But that does not mean our choice is invalid, or that we were wrong for making it. Think of it as a war of forces, a conflict between the things we can choose and the things we cannot. We may not be able to control everything, but we must never stop trying to help when we can, however we can.”

  It was another one of Albern’s sayings that had the sound of deep wisdom, but which made Sun most uncomfortable for reasons she did not entirely understand. It kept her silent until they entered Lan Shui, waved on by a guard at the gatehouse who gave them only a cursory inspection. Within the walls, she let herself get distracted by the sights around her. A strange cast seem to cover the buildings, as well as the mountains and green fields beyond. She was reminded of Albern’s tale of the place, of the desperate battle he and Mag had fought against the vampires within these walls. Could she, in fact, see scratches on the buildings from the vampires’ claws? Or did they come from a more mundane source, or did she imagine them entirely?

  But, too, she thought of the story he had just been telling her, about his little party riding into Telfer lands. The experiences were very similar, and the sensation she had now was familiar as well, the malaise of riding into a foreign town as a stranger, an interloper in another’s domain.

  “It is different, being a traveler, is it not
?” said Sun. “I have not often had the experience of riding into a town or city, unless I was a distinguished guest of some lord there. It is odd to be just a … a person. A person who knows no one, to whom nothing is familiar.”

  “Yes, it can be strange,” said Albern. “But I think your discomfort will fade with time, and with practice. Strangers are usually kind. More often than not, you will find yourself welcomed in the places you visit, as long as you bring no evil with you. The experience Mag and I had when we first arrived here, or when we encountered those Telfer rangers in the mountains, is a rare one. Here in Lan Shui, Yue only distrusted us because the town was in danger. In the mountains, the Telfer guards only suspected us because they were on high alert, for the trolls were threatening their home. The kindness with which we were received at the gates of Opara, and at Kahaunga, is the norm, not the exception. In times of peace, people are given to hospitality, and even charity.”

  Sun looked nervously around at the town again. “Then what sort of welcome do you expect in these times?”

  Albern gave a little frown and did not answer.

  He pulled his horse to a stop in front of an inn. Sun read the sign over its door: The Sunspear. But she could not reconcile Albern’s stories of the place with the sight before her. This building looked almost brand new. And when Albern saw to his horse’s lodgings and led her inside, there was a young woman behind the bar, not the older man from his tale.

  “This looks … rather different from what you told me,” said Sun quietly.

  Albern paused in his advance across the room. “Oh, yes, it would. Many buildings in Lan Shui were destroyed in the Necromancer’s War. The innkeeper who used to own it—the one we met, and who I told you about—was killed. But the inn was rebuilt, and his daughter owns it now. That is her behind the bar. If you find us a table, I will fetch us a meal and some drinks.”

  Sun did as he asked, finding a spot in the corner. Albern soon arrived with a savory stew that made her mouth water, as well as a mug of beer for each of them. For a time they said nothing, only tucking into their fare and drinking deep. After a quarter-hour they both leaned back in their chairs at the same time, sighing.

  “I asked after Dawan,” said Albern. “She is here. I have sent word that we arrived, and she should come to see us shortly.”

  “That is good,” said Sun. Then she frowned. “I think.”

  Albern chuckled. “It is. I only hope it does not take too long. I wish to see to our other business outside of town before the end of the day.”

  Sun’s stomach did a little turn. “I suppose I wish to do so as well.”

  “It is all right if you are a little nervous,” said Albern. “But come. I will return to the tale to take your mind off it, if that is all right?”

  “Of course,” said Sun.

  “You mentioned earlier how strange it was that Kaita escaped,” said Albern. “But you have little inkling, I think, of just how right you are. To understand, you need to know how I left my home in my youth, when at last I had decided to do so. I should not have escaped. You might call it sheer luck that I managed it. But I think I was meant to get away that night, and it is a tale worth telling.”

  I had just reached the age of nineteen. There were two storms that night—one outside our stronghold of Kahaunga, and one within. It was my mother, you see—Lord Thada of the family Telfer, Rangatira of Tokana. She was furious about something or other.

  No. That is not fair to her. Because of how she treated me, I sometimes speak lightly of the very real problems she faced as a Rangatira. In this case, a group of Feldemarian bandits had ventured into our pass. My mother had sent a party of rangers to drive them out, and three of our soldiers had fallen. One had been a captain who she had particularly favored. I think she had been meaning to take him as a husband—you will remember that my father was long dead by this point.

  In any case, I was in my room, and I was grieving, though for quite a different reason. I had had a hunting hound for much of my youth, a fine beast I had called Kowi. He had died that day. A few days before, while we were out on a trail, he had slipped and fallen when a shelf of land collapsed underneath him. The fall, and the rocks that landed on him after, broke most of his body. I carried him home, and there he lingered for a few days. Our master of hounds had urged me to put him out of his misery, for he had no chance of surviving. I refused, because I loved him, and because I was still very young, and unwise about some things. So when Kowi had finally died, I was abruptly saddled not only with the grief of his loss, but with the guilt that I had made him suffer longer than he had needed to.

  It was in this state that my mother found me, alone in my room, my pillow soaked through with tears. I was drunk as well, for I had stolen two bottles of wine from the kitchen and gone through both of them. My sister Ditra was away on a diplomatic trip to the south, and so she had not been there to comfort me. I longed for her company—and so you can imagine my disappointment and dismay when I looked up at the sound of my door opening, and found my mother looking down on me instead.

  “Vera,” she said, for this was before any of us knew I was ander, “I have need of you.”

  For a moment I could only blink up at her. “What?” I said at last.

  Her mouth pressed into a thin line. She crossed the room and pulled me up off the bed, giving me a shake. “I said I have need of you. You will need to ride out. Get some more useful clothes.”

  “I … what are you talking about?” My voice still shook with sobs, and there was a slur in it as well.

  “You are drunk,” she said with deep disapproval. “Soldiers from Feldemar have killed three of our people. We are going to retaliate. I am sending you out with the raiding party. It is about time you learned something of real combat.”

  I snatched my arm away from her, drawing back. “You are riding to Feldemar?”

  “No,” she said, her gaze steely. “You are.”

  “You are not even coming with me?” I said. “I have never fought before. I have never killed before!”

  Her mouth shriveled into a scowl. “I am well aware of that. But you have had training, just like any of us. It is about time you got your arrows wet. The journey through the pass will sober you.”

  “No,” I said, my voice coming out as little more than a whisper. I shook my head and spoke louder. “I will not.”

  I could almost feel the tension rise in her body. “You will.”

  I tried to push past her. “Leave me alone.”

  She snatched my arm and shoved me down on the bed. Ignoring my protests, she dragged up my arm and pulled back my sleeve, exposing the family mark. “Do you see this? Do you know what it means? It means you are pledged to the service of this family.”

  Her grip was too strong, and I could not break free. “I never wanted that mark!”

  “It is your duty,” she said. At last she let me go, flinging my arm away as though it were something dirty. “You are a child of the family Telfer. It is an honor, and it comes with a responsibility. Yet here you sit, weeping into your sheets about a mangy hound, drinking yourself into a stupor as though you lost someone important.”

  Before I knew it, I was on my feet, my nose only a few fingers away from hers. “I had him since my eighth year,” I said, my voice dropping to a growl. “He was my friend.”

  “He was a dog, you witless girl,” said my mother. “And he was mine. Not yours. I am Rangatira. You are not even fit to be one of my rangers—but I will forge you, like a blade, until you are. Get dressed. Do you think I acted this way when your father died?”

  “I am sure you did not,” I said. “But then, you never really cared about him, did you?”

  She slapped me. I suppose it was not as hard as it could have been. Certainly I had taken harder blows in weapons training. But still I went crashing back atop my bed, cradling my cheek with one hand.

  “If you were not my daughter, I would put you to death for disobeying me, and I would be within my righ
ts to do so,” said my mother calmly. “But being my child will not protect you if you continue in disobedience. Your Rangatira has given you an order. You will obey it, or you will face the King’s law.”

  She turned on her heel and marched from the room, slamming the door shut as she went. Slowly I realized that she was not angry for my words about my father; she was only upset that I continued to disobey her. That was all that mattered. How useful I could be to her.

  I lay on the bed, fresh tears staining my face and the sheets. I tried to force my sobs to subside, but it happened slowly.

  The King’s law. Would she truly brand me as a traitor? I thought she might. What would be the penalty for defying one’s lord? I knew a soldier could be exiled for that, or executed. But I did not think, even then, that she would order the death of her own child.

  That left exile.

  And with that thought, my mind was made up. If I was going to be cast out of my home, then I would not wait for her to pronounce that judgement. All the unease that had been building in me for years, all my discontent and dissatisfaction came welling up in me at once.

  Ditra was the only person in Kahaunga whom I loved, and she was growing ever more distant as my mother dragged her further into her duty to the family. There was nothing to hold me here. And if I stayed, I would either be miserable for the rest of my life, or accept my fate, as Ditra had, and become one of my mother’s warriors, a sword for her to wield, an arrow for her to loose at her enemies.

  I would not let that happen.

  Quickly I dressed myself—in “useful” clothing, as my mother would have put it, though the plans I was forming would be little use to her. I fetched a pack from my closet and filled it with more clothes, as well as my box of flint and steel. I paused, thinking that mayhap I should run to the kitchens and get some food for my journey. But I had no time. My mother would soon send guards to find me. I would have to hunt on the road. That was fine; I journeyed often through Tokana, and I was able to keep myself well fed as I did so. I slung the pack over my back, took up my bow from where it rested near the door to my room, and left.