The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) by Garrett Robinson (elon musk reading list TXT) 📕

Dotag’s attention was diverted from Apok for the moment. “No,” he said at once. “The humans who serve the Lord are still our allies. They have not betrayed us. And they have promised us rewards beyond our reckoning if we drive the others out of the mountains. We will not harm them. They serve the Lord, and so do we.”

Apok did not speak again. She did not call him a weakling for allying with the humans. But her eyes said much.

Dotag ground his teeth with a sound like shattering rocks. But she had not challenged him, not openly. He could not kill her, not now in front of the others. They would never accept him as their leader if he did.

Apok would live. For now. Until he could find another way to get rid of her.

“We move south,” he declared, turning his back upon Apok. “We must be ready. Our allies will tell us when it is time to strike, and where to attack. Until then, we wait. We wait for battle.”

And for Gatak, he said, but only in his own mind.

In the middle of the month of Febris, Mag and Dryleaf and I reached Tokana at last.

I will admit that when we crested that last rise to look upon the city where my family had long dwelled, I feared the worst. We had been almost a month on the road. I was certain the weremage had arrived well ahead of us. Whatever evil the Shades were plotting in my homeland, I knew it would be directed against my family. I half-expected to find our keep razed, and the city burned to the ground, with mayhap an army of Shades still camping on the remains.

Instead, I found that things looked almost exactly the way they had when I left home two decades before. So much so, in fact, that I was struck by a wave of memory so powerful I pulled Foolhoof to a stop. Mag and Dryleaf, too, halted their horses. For a long while I sat there, at that familiar point where the road reached the crest of the plateau, and surveyed the city before me.

The land ran relatively even to the north and south, until after dozens of spans, it finally climbed into new peaks, too sharp and steep for any dwellings. But to the north was a great lake in the mountains, and it spilled into a river that came running south into the dale before us. The wide ridge upon which we stood fell off to form the dale’s western slopes, and it was here that Kahaunga had been built. After centuries, the town around it had been spilled into the dale and become a true city. The colors were bleak with winter, except for the kauri trees. I sat there, feeling tiny and inconsequential against the size of the city before me, and the swelling heights of the mountains all around, and I did not notice as tears streaked silently down my cheeks, born of a feeling I could not understand and would not have dared to name.

At last, Mag nudged Mist closer to me and took my arm. “Come, you great fool,” she said gently. “I would rather not camp here on the mountainside when there are inns so close by.”

I scrubbed hastily at my face with my sleeve. “Of course,” I said quickly. “Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive, lad,” said Dryleaf kindly. “Homecoming is never easy when one has been long away.”

I nodded. But his words reminded me, too, that this was my home, and one place above all others where I did not wish to be recognized. If word reached my family that I was in Tokana …

Somewhere on our journey I had acquired a scarf, and now I pulled it up and around my face to hide my features, while at the same time I pulled my cowl down low over my eyes. It left me with only a single small slit to observe the land as we approached, but I felt more comfortable at once. There was almost no chance that the guards at the wall would recognize me, but I was unwilling to take even such an infinitesimal risk.

“The Rangatira here is named Thada,” I told Dryleaf and Mag. They knew she was my mother already, and I did not wish to say so aloud, even though no one was nearby to hear. “She is the ruling authority, and I imagine her daughter, Ditra, helps her in her duties. Have our writ from Lord Matara ready—it will get us through the gates.”

Sure enough, when we reached the wall, the guards asked about our business, paying special attention to Mag’s spear, and to my bow and sword. They found Lord Matara’s writ to be in order, but they did not let us through immediately, first asking us a few more questions about our business in Tokana. We had prepared a story: we were seeking to deliver a message to a member of Lord Matara’s family, who was here on diplomatic business.

The guards looked at each other in surprise at that. I frowned, forgetting my desire for discretion for a moment, and spoke. “My good servants, why so many questions? A writ is normally enough to secure passage across the kingdom.”

“Normally, yes,” said one of the guards, an elderly man with a thick beard who did not take too kindly to such a challenge from an uppity youngster. “But you have been on the road, and have not heard the news. The High King’s Seat was attacked near the end of Yanis, and the High King herself narrowly escaped death in the battle.”

The words struck us like a hammer blow. Mag and I shared a glance, and Dryleaf went very still in his saddle.

“Attacked?” said Mag. “By whom?”

“The kingdom of Dulmun,” said