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

the mountains. I had not known him nearly as long as Sten, and I had loved him less well—but not by much.

“Too many,” I said quietly.

“Too many,” agreed Mag.

She struck flint and steel upon the heaps of dry branches, and they caught with little effort. We stood back, watching as the flames licked higher. The wood burned bright, and soon it caught upon the cloth we had wrapped Sten in.

I sang, then. I have been told I have a fair enough voice, though I did not think it sounded well in that moment, for my words were thick with tears. But I had learned a number of songs in my travels, and many of them were songs of mourning, for this was not the first time I had lost a friend.

To all of you, come all of you

No tarrying, I call to you

The darkness calls, the fall of you

It bids you come to rest

It welcomes you, and all of us

The years will pass, the fall of us

And you below, will call to us

And bid us go to rest

The wind is cold, and hollow too

All joy has passed, and sorrow too

The children weep, and follow too

They bid you come to rest

Now mourn no more, and we as well

Sit by the fire, and heed as well

One day they call for me as well

And bid me go to rest

“Will he truly rest, do you think?” said Mag.

“No one knows the darkness,” I told her.

“I asked what you think.”

“I hope so. He deserved it. More than either of us, at least.”

“Truly said.”

Her frame was steady, but I could see her hands shaking. I put my hand on her shoulder for a moment and then took it away. We stood a long, silent vigil, watching as the fires burned away the last evidence of my friend and her husband.

When the flames were only coals and the last of the drifting smoke was nearly out of sight over the trees, Mag turned to me.

“Will you come with me?”

I looked at her in surprise. “Where?”

“Atop the Reeve.”

A thrill coursed through my heart. “Mag …”

“Something has weighed on me ever since the battle,” she said. “I did not know exactly what it was. It was like a sense that I should be doing something, but I do not know what. Do you feel the same?”

“I do,” I said. “What would you do, if you could?”

“Only one thing,” she said. “Kill the weremage.”

The words hit me like lightning. I straightened, balling my hands to fists at my sides.

“Yes.”

Mag’s eyes blazed with fire. “I want to find her. Wherever she may have run to. Wherever she may be hiding. And I want to end her.”

“As do I.”

Mag balled her right hand into a fist and slammed it into her hand. “Then let us do it. Come with me. Let us have vengeance for Sten.”

“She will be nearly impossible to track down,” I pointed out. “We do not know where she has gone.”

“I have nothing better to do with my time,” said Mag.

“Even when we find her, she could very well have an army at her back.”

“Let them try to stand before us,” said Mag. “Will you come?”

I grinned and thrust out my hand. “Even if we must ride into the darkness below.”

Mag seized my wrist and pulled me into an embrace. My head, still tender, swam for a moment, but I held her. Finally, I gently pushed her back to hold her at arm’s length.

“We will need horses.”

“There are some in my stables,” she said. “Come with me to the top of the Reeve, and then we will fetch them.”

“And then into the Birchwood.”

It was as if a cold snap rushed through the air, piercing us both in an instant. I felt the thrill inside me vanish even as I saw it disappear from Mag’s eyes.

“The Birchwood?” said Mag. “Why the Birchwood?”

“To go after Loren, of course,” I said. “Wherever this weremage has gone, she will come into conflict with Loren in the end. And she and the others will need our help, in any case.”

“The weremage went west,” said Mag.

“And who knows where she turned, after she entered the mountains?” I said.

“I do not know, but the mountains are the best place to start.”

“But Loren—”

“The way she and the children rode from here, I doubt we could catch them even if we wanted to.”

“We could try.”

Mag frowned for a moment—but then her expression softened. “Latrine duty,” she said. She pulled a copper sliver from a pocket. “I say heads.”

“We are not new recruits,” I told her. “This is not—”

“I say heads, Albern.”

I sighed. Half a chance was better than none—better, indeed, than an argument I knew might not end. Any soldier knows the virtue of a firm, clean decision—even if it is a poor one. “Very well.”

Mag flipped the coin. I think I knew, even as it flashed in the air, what the result would be. She flipped it onto the back of her other hand, looked at it, and smiled.

“West.”

Mag led me unswervingly up the Reeve. I had to take its sloping path carefully, for I was still tender. But it was not long before we stood on the flat top. The boulders around us now loomed like old, wizened councilors, bearing witness to some grim business of their king.

Mag went to one of them and crawled underneath it. She emerged with an old spade and pickaxe. They looked as though they had been there for many years, untouched. A bit of the wood had rotted, but for the most part they were still solid. She took the spade and dug into the ground—the flat patch of earth that I had watched so closely last time, that Sten had tried to avoid completely. The soil was hard, but Mag attacked it with fury, and it broke before her onslaught. I wanted to take the pickaxe and help her, but I withheld myself.

A pace