Mask of Poison (Fall of Under Book 1) by Kathryn Kingsley (great novels to read txt) 📕

stay near me and you won’t be.” The creature paused. “Be a sensible mortal, will you? I am having a trying night already.”

“O—okay,” Jakob stammered. He didn’t know what else to do or say. He pushed up to his feet and brushed the dirt out of his fur and leather coat. The thing wasn’t killing him. He really wanted to keep it that way.

“What is your name, mortal?”

“Jakob.”

“I am Dtu. Come.” And with that, the hulking creature began to walk on all fours. Once he managed to think about it long enough, it was clear the beast was male. Very visibly male.

Jakob kept his eyes from lingering as he walked beside the wolf. “What an odd name. I haven’t ever heard one like it, and I travel the world.”

Dtu’s back was heavily curved, as though he could straighten up far taller than he chose to be. He prowled through what remained of the sanctuary city, sniffing at different buildings and structures. “This is no longer your world.”

“Oh…” What else was he supposed to say to that? He brushed his hands over his clothing again, fidgeting with one of the straps of his coat. “It isn’t?”

“You see the sky, don’t you?”

“I do. But…all right, where am I, then?”

“It is named Under.” Dtu paused.

“Are there drengil here?”

Dtu glanced at him, a green glowing dot measuring him up for a moment. “You will need to give me more information than that, little Jakob.” He sounded amused.

“I—oh—um.” Now he felt like an idiot. That was pretty normal for him, though. “The corpses of our dead plagued our world. They rise from the ground and seek to eat the flesh of the living. This was our home—our shelter away from them. But we lose more of us every day to them.”

“You are accustomed to fighting to survive and being treated as food by everything that looks at you. Good. That will make your understanding of this world come faster.” The creature turned back to look at the ramshackle homes around him. “You will find our world is no friendlier than the one you have come from. You are still prey.”

Jakob didn’t reply for a long moment. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Not right now.”

“That’s nice.”

The creature laughed, raspy and rough. His lower jaw briefly opened with the sound. “You have nothing to fear from me in this moment. But we are a community of cursed souls, and those who reign with me may outvote any wish I might have to spare you.”

“Reign with you? Are you royalty?”

“No. But I am a king.”

That made no sense to him. None of this did. He shook his head, not sure how to take all of this. He supposed he could faint as another choice. But unable to will that upon himself, he just plodded alongside the giant undead wolf-monster. “Are you a Varúlfur?”

Dtu stopped and turned to him. “A what?”

“A wolf who can change into a man. Or a man that could change into a wolf. They were protectors.”

“I suppose. Yes. I am what you know as a Varúlfur. I fear things are much more complicated than that.” Dtu tilted his head up and sniffed the air again. “Things are always too complicated.”

“Why would it be simple? That would be too easy.” Jakob sighed, beleaguered.

Dtu chuckled again. “Nothing in this world is easy. It seems your world was once like one we know, named Earth, but somewhere along the way diverged.”

“I am sorry if we brought this death along with us.”

“There is little to be done for it, I fear.” Dtu turned and began walking again, and Jakob stayed obediently at his side. “There is a new moon in the sky. I feel the presence of a new king, and I…do not rejoice for it.”

There was so much packed into that statement, Jakob didn’t know what to do with it. So many questions rolled over each other in his mind, and none of them took purchase. He was tired, he was hungry, and now he wanted a beer. “Does your world have alcohol?”

Dtu laughed hard, his mouth opening again. “Yes, little Jakob, we do.”

“Thank the dead gods. I think I might need a lot of it.”

They had reached the town square. Creatures perched on buildings or stood in alleys, blocking the escape of the gathered group of frightened people in the center. A few were lying on the ground, clutching broken limbs, or not moving at all. It was not as bad as he would have expected. The guardian who had fired at Dtu was likely dead, judging by the hole in his stomach. He would not have gone quietly.

It was sad. But guardians and hunters died. That was their purpose. Someone had already put a knife into the guardian’s brain, ensuring he didn’t get back up. He hadn’t been bitten by a drengil, but it was still tradition.

“Go. Join the others, little Jakob.” Dtu jerked his skulled head in the direction of the frightened crowd.

“Thank you for not killing me.” He paused. “Yet.”

The wolf chuckled. Jakob obediently walked to stand with the others. He knew their faces, if not their names. This sanctuary town had been a small one. And not a very rich one. Because of that, there was a great deal of mistrust between the living. It had become clear a few years into the onset of the drengil plague that sometimes it was not the bodies outside the walls that were the problem—it was the ones inside.

People could be terrible.

But now all the jealousy and coveting of goods didn’t matter, did it?

An enormous tiger creature began to shift, their bones snapping and cracking as they shrank and changed. It sounded excruciatingly painful, and Jakob cringed in sympathy. When it was done, it was the woman he had seen before. Kamira, he thought he remembered her name was.

“Now what do we do with them, Dtu?”

“I’m afraid I am not quite sure.” The wolf walked forward. The crowd shrank away from his fearsome visage. “Yej is