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

“I should go east,” said Kaita.

Tagata’s eyes went wide. “No, Kaita,” she began. “You cannot—”

Kaita stopped her with a raised hand. “Be at peace. I do not mean to fight them. But I am your only weremage. Let me scout their position and estimate their number. When I am done, I will come straight back.”

Tagata did not seem entirely convinced. The giant frowned down at her. “Will you promise me?”

Kaita gave her a small smile. Not all the Shades had earned her love, but Tagata had done so long ago. “I will do better than that,” she said quietly.

She reached into her cloak and pulled out the small packet wrapped in brown cloth. As Tagata stared in shock, Kaita placed it in her hand and folded her thick fingers around it.

“Keep them until I return,” said Kaita. “They would slow me down in my flight. And without them, you know I have no chance of striking at Mag and Albern in the heart of their allies.”

“Kaita …” murmured Tagata.

Wordlessly, Kaita stood on tiptoe and pulled Tagata’s face down to kiss her on the cheek. Then she turned, and her eyes filled with magelight. An instant later, a raven took wing into the grey, cloudy sky.

Kaita had to flap hard, for there were no updrafts to cast her sailing through the air. But she relished the burning in her wings, the feeling of blood coursing its feverish way through the tiny veins of her bird form. Her months of fleeing from Mag and me had left her exhausted, but she had had a week of easy travel with the Shades to recover. Now flying felt like a return to honest work after being too long idle.

At last, she spotted Kun’s force. She studied it from high up in the air. Her best guess was that around three and a half hundreds of troops lay below her, not counting the camp followers behind. That was almost double the size of the Shade force. Worse yet, she spotted some dozen or so red cloaks wandering among the press—Mystic officers directing the militia.

So. The Mystics were aware of the Shades’ march and were hunting them across Dorsea. And they were only half a day’s march behind the Shades. At least they had no horses, other than some few officers’ mounts and pack animals. Tagata and her troops should still be able to reach the Greatrocks before they were caught, though it would be a near thing.

Kaita was about to swoop lower. She wanted to see if she could identify the leader of this little army. She especially wanted to catch sight of Mag and me, to confirm what she already suspected. But just before she bent her wings to dive, an arrow flew up from the host. It pierced a raven, a real raven, through the breast. The bird plummeted to the ground.

Dark take them, thought Kaita. They were shooting birds in case they were weremages. Even as she watched, a falcon drew too close and was shot down.

Well. In truth, that was all she needed to know. If this host was taking precaution against weremages, that must mean that Mag and I were there. We would have told them about her. She could not get closer to confirm it, but she had all the proof she required.

She turned and powered her wings back towards Tagata and the rest of the Shades.

Of course, Tou’s company had left the rest of the host days ago, and Mag and I had gone with him. Under our guidance, the company had marched south for half a day before swinging west. Then, we had raced along a small valley that ran south of the Greenfrost. Kun had directed the rest of his forces, under Zhen’s command, to pursue the Shades with all possible speed and distract them.

That was why Kaita only counted three and a half hundreds of soldiers, and she reported that number to Tagata.

That was why she only saw a dozen or so redcloaks—the rest were with Kun, who marched with Mag and me.

That was why the next day, Kaita only kept an eye on the force behind, and never flew ahead to scout the Greenfrost for danger.

And that was why the Shades were utterly unprepared when we found them in the forest the next day.

We marched at a breakneck pace, sleeping six hours each night and pressing ourselves hard during the daylight. Each time we stopped, Mag and I consulted Kun’s map again. We evaluated each day’s progress and made plans for the next. I put every ounce of my woodcraft to its utmost use, and Mag wracked her mind for every detail she could remember of the countryside.

If Kun’s soldiers had not been so green, I doubt we could have carried off the march in time. When soldiers have never seen combat, their first outing seems like a thrilling adventure. They will march and train harder, and they find it easy to call upon inner reserves of strength and energy.

These things fade once they learn the reality of war. But since ours had not yet absorbed that lesson, we were able to push them hard enough to catch up to our foes.

Our force reached the woods a day before the Shades. The Greenfrost is so named because it is filled with trees called pycnandra, which secrete a greenish sap. When winter comes, the trees freeze over, and the sap turns the ice green. Then it is like wandering through a forest of emerald and jade statues. They were still frozen when we passed through the wood. It was a breathtaking sight, though we had little time to appreciate its beauty.

The path where the Shades entered the Greenfrost to the east was winding and sinuous. But halfway through the wood, the road straightened, and then it ran straight as an arrow’s path until it