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

Mag took a small swig of water and handed it to me. As I drank, she murmured, “They will have seen where the Shades went. We should ask them.”

I pursed my lips and put the stopper back in the waterskin. “Agreed. But try not to kill them, will you?”

She arched an eyebrow. “I thought they gave you a great deal of trouble when last you came this way.”

“They did, at the orders of their elders,” I said. “And their elders are under the sway of another.”

“The Shades?”

“Whoever leads the Shades,” I said. “The satyrs spoke of a Lord.”

“Satyrs have no lords.”

“No, they do not. To hear them speak of one worried me more than anything else we found in these mountains.”

“That is little concern of ours now. But let us get our hands on one of them, and we will have some answers about the weremage.”

I finished pretending to dig through her saddlebags and returned to my horse. “And I will have them answer for other things as well.”

We mounted again and rode through the western gate, down the long stone ramp into the valley. I found no good excuse to look back at the satyrs shadowing us, but every so often I would hear the soft clatter of hooves on the rocks high above. They were still there.

I knew we had to lure them into open lands, as far from any slopes as possible. Satyrs can nearly fly up a mountainside, and they could rain arrows down on us. But on open ground, they were no more nimble than a human. Only there would we have any chance of taking one of them alive.

To tell the truth, and despite my words to Mag, I found myself filled with anger that almost defied reason. Yes, the satyrs had only acted upon the directions of their leaders. But they had still nearly gotten me killed, along with all of my friends. That was not easy to forgive, though I was trying. After all, satyrs are not quite beasts, but neither are they quite human.

Not far from the bottom of the stone ramp was a small cluster of trees, a little wood that bent and huddled over the thin stream that ran through the middle of the valley. I led Mag towards it. The satyrs would think we were merely watering ourselves and the horses. But if they tried to approach us among the trees, we would be able to take them by surprise.

Though it was not very late in the day, the sun had already hidden itself behind the tips of the western mountains above. Dismounting, we ducked in among the shadows of the trunks, quickly losing ourselves among the trees. Once we were a good distance in, I stopped Mag and drew her against the side of an old beech tree. Together we looked back in the direction we had come.

There were the satyrs. They were making an attempt at stealth, but they were not used to it on such open terrain. They approached the trees warily, darting between brush and rocks with their awkward, loping gait. I counted six of them. Not an inconsiderable group, but against Mag and me they stood little chance.

“Let us tether the horses,” I said. “We do not want them to run off during the fight.” The beasts were already nickering nervously, for the satyrs had approached from upwind. My gelding eyed me as though trying to plan the right time to bolt.

We lashed the horses to a tree deeper in the wood and then returned to the beech tree. The satyrs were creeping between the trunks now, heads darting nervously back and forth in search of us. I had my bow in hand, and Mag had her spear and shield. We waited in total silence, listening as the creatures came closer.

Mag nudged me with her spear, and we sprang.

I fired two arrows in quick succession. One satyr went down with a shaft in its leg, another with fletching sticking out of its arm. Mag swung her spear in an arc, slamming the flat side of the spearhead into the temple of a third. It fell with a pathetic bleat. The other creatures screamed in fear, but they did not flee. They leaped towards us, flailing with clubs and short stone axes.

I got off one more shot, and another satyr fell with an arrow in its shoulder. Then they were too close, and I had to draw my sword. But there were only two left, and Mag and I made quick work of them. Mag blocked one blow with her shield before piercing her foe’s thigh with her spear. I backed up step by step, warding off my foe’s club with wide sweeps of my sword, until Mag came around behind her and slammed her shield into the back of the creature’s head. It fell to the ground, senseless.

Looking up, I saw the other satyrs fleeing for their lives. The ones with leg wounds limped away, while the ones with maimed arms fled in great, bounding leaps. The first satyr Mag had downed had regained its senses, and it stumbled out of the woods, swaying as if drunk. That left only the creature on the ground before us now.

“Rope,” said Mag. I nodded and went to my gelding, fetching a coil from one of the saddlebags.

Long before the satyr awoke, we had her bound to a tree a few paces from the river. We had set up a campsite for the night. When the sun fell, we started a small fire. I knew its light might be visible through the trees, but that worried me little. The satyrs were few in this part of the mountains, and they seemed to be even fewer since the Shades had passed through.

After a while our captive stirred, her head lolling back and forth before snapping up. One of her horns had a large chip near