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

“We saved your elders,” I said loudly, trying to draw attention to myself and away from Mag. “Two of your most venerable and wisest leaders would have died if we had not intervened. That ought to earn us at least a moment’s clemency.”

Elder Hagan, who had interjected before, brayed a response. The translator spoke quickly. “Yet now all our lives are in danger. What are two lives compared to the whole clan?”

“Do you think the Lord would have stopped there?” I pointed to the elders’ stone chairs. “Two of your seats are already empty. What would have stopped the Lord from killing the rest of you, if it pleased him?”

There was a long moment of dead silence. The satyr warriors were looking between each other and the elders now. Hagan looked furious, but Seko studied us, frowning but not quite hostile. At last she spoke in a slow voice, and the translator hastened to relay her words.

“Elder Seko says: who are you?”

“I am Albern of the family Telfer,” I said. “This is Mag, the Uncut Lady, the greatest warrior in the nine kingdoms.”

Mag gave me a wry look. But as the translator spoke my words in the satyr tongue, a low, angry rumble ripped through the satyr warriors. Quickly I realized my mistake.

“The greatest human warrior,” I corrected. “We would never presume to question the might of your own brave fighters.”

“Elder Seko says: your name is known to us, Albern,” said the translator. “You turned the mind of Tiglak, our warrior. We punished him for his leniency towards you.”

Anger blossomed in my heart at those words. I had met Tiglak more than once in my travels through the mountains, and more than once he had taken up arms against me. But he had not been bloodthirsty, and he had been an honorable warrior, in his way.

“I knew Tiglak,” I said. “And I never tried to turn him, nor would he have let me. He was a faithful servant of Skal, the holy mother between the moons, and I know she honors him in the sky.”

Elder Hagan erupted in a series of furious screams, but Seko silenced him with a raised and gnarled hand. She looked at me with an expression I could not read. Understanding? Curiosity? From what I knew of the satyrs, I was certain she had never been in the presence of a human who spoke of Skal with true knowledge. That is a deep secret of the satyrs, and one no outsider could learn of easily.

After a moment’s pause, she spoke again. “Elder Seko says: I am Elder Seko,” said the translator. “What do you seek here, Albern?”

“We are looking for a wizard,” said Mag. “A skin-shifter. In her human form, she is short and slim, with horn-colored skin and black, braided hair. Have you seen her here?”

Seko looked displeased as she shifted her focus to Mag. “Elder Seko says: we have seen many humans who serve the Lord,” said the translator.

Before Mag could answer, I stepped in. She would care little for the Lord, but his agents had already tried to kill me, and I had had questions ever since. Besides, I thought, I still might find Loren one day, and she would want to know. “Who is this Lord? What is he? Some have said he is not human, and I believe it, for I know the wise elders would never serve a human.”

The elders raised their chins with pride at that, and one or two of them bleated quietly. Seko spoke through the translator. “Elder Seko says: he has appeared only to us who sit in the stone seats. His form is unknown.”

“But when he appeared, how did he look?” I pressed.

“Elder Seko says: he was a form all in white, cloaked in mist and light—as terrible as an Elf, but speaking words we could hear.”

I shuddered at that. Even a fleeting thought that the Lord might be an Elf was enough to make me want to run and hide in the deepest hole I could find, never to emerge.

“Enough of the Lord,” said Mag. “The weremage. Have you seen her?”

Seko stamped a hoof and bleated. Soon the translator said, “Elder Seko says: how are we to know? You are humans. Humans look like humans.”

Mag had enough sense not to point her spear at Seko, but it seemed a near thing. She slammed the butt of it on the rocky ground, and the satyr warriors shifted uneasily around us. “I have told you what she looks like. Surely some of you have seen her.”

The elders seemed displeased. Mag’s insistence was not far away from calling them liars. I stepped close to her and spoke in a voice I hoped was too low to be overheard.

“If she never performed magic in front of them, they may not know who she is.”

Mag gave a frustrated growl. “I had not thought of that. Then what should we do?”

Before I could answer, Seko suddenly spoke more loudly and rapidly than before. My pulse skipped, and I looked to the translator. But she said nothing. Then, behind us, the warriors began muttering to each other. It took me a moment to realize the truth: Seko had not been speaking to us at all, but had been addressing her clan directly.

After some hurried conversation, one of the satyr warriors stepped forwards. He was large for a satyr, almost as big as Tiglak had been, and he rolled his shoulders as he answered whatever question Seko had put to him. Now Seko turned to the translator and spoke. The translator nodded and relayed the words.

“Our scouts have seen the woman you seek,” she said. “She left the mountains heading west, and went to a village there. It stands near the place where the southern river of the Great Spearhead leaves the mountains.”

“Thank you,” said Mag, nodding to Seko. The elder inclined her head.

“Elder Seko,” I said. “I