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

“He was following us,” said Mag easily. “We wanted to know why.”

“He is from this town,” said Yue. “You are not. And before—wait.”

She stopped abruptly and pulled her club from its hook on her belt. Her companions did the same, though more slowly. Yue pointed at Mag and me, glaring.

“That is blood.”

I winced as I looked down at myself. “It … is. We were attacked.”

“Where?” snapped Yue.

I pointed into the house behind us. Yue glanced at it and then looked back to me.

“You go in first,” she said.

There was nothing for it. I did as she asked, with Mag just behind me and the constables bringing up the rear. We filed into the front room, and Mag and I stepped to the side. The bodies of the first two Shades, along with the grey-haired woman, lay on the floor in clear view. Blood had already begun to pool around them.

Yue hissed and raised her club as if expecting us to attack. But I had already raised my hands in surrender, and Mag had made no threatening move, though she still held her spear.

“Drop your weapon,” Yue ordered.

Mag sighed and did so, slowly raising her hands just as I had. “Constable, as my friend has already told you, we were attacked. We only defended ourselves.”

“After breaking down the front door, if I am not mistaken,” said Yue. My spirits, already low, plummeted further. The front door had plainly been smashed open, a detail I had not recalled until Yue mentioned it.

“We did, it is true,” I said. “But only in haste.”

“Because of the boy, you claim,” said Yue.

“Yes,” I said. “He fled once his companions attacked us. He is young, between a child and an adult. He has short hair and wide, prominent eyes.”

Yue’s face went white. “Pantu? Did you—”

“We did not harm him,” I said. “And he made no move to harm us—only these ones did so. He fled soon after the fighting started.”

“If that is true, we shall soon find out,” said Yue. “Sinshi, go and fetch him.”

The constable hesitated a moment, looking uneasily between us and his master. But when Yue fixed him with a furious look, he hastened to obey, awkwardly trying (and failing) to close the front door behind him.

My stomach did another turn. We could hardly expect the boy to speak in our defense—though he had not seemed as bloodthirsty as his Shade companions, we had chased him and then murdered his fellows. We had to figure out a way to turn Yue to our side before the boy got here, or else we had to hope he had already hidden himself so well that the constable could not find him.

“May I explain our case further?” I asked Yue.

“I think I have heard your side,” spat Yue. “Now I would hear from the boy you chased, for no good reason that I have heard yet.”

“Is it so strange?” I said. “You know we are travelers, and you can likely tell that we are no strangers to battle and fighting. We are in a strange place, and then someone starts following us. Would you not be curious, if you were us?”

“Of course I would be,” said Yue. “But I imagine that, were I in your shoes, my path would not have ended in murder.”

“Not murder,” said Mag. “We told you—”

“Yes, that you defended yourselves,” said Yue. She looked at me. “You are right, Albern of the family Telfer, in that I can tell that you are no strangers to fighting. And given the chance, I would do much to avoid any sort of fight against your friend Mag, here. Tell me: if she is so great a warrior, could she not have defended you both without taking three lives?”

Beside me, Mag tensed and gave me a quick look. As I met her gaze, my mouth twisted as though I had bitten into a lemon.

“Albern—” began Mag.

“What?” snapped Yue. “What is it?”

Ignoring Mag’s urgent look, I spoke softly to Yue. “These are not the only three,” I told her. “There are three more in the back room.”

Yue’s face went as pale as the corpse of the Heddish man on the floor. But to her credit, her voice seemed entirely calm when she spoke again. “I see. And they were killed in self-defense as well, I take it?”

“Albern, you fool,” muttered Mag.

“Do you think she would not have found them?” I said. I met Yue’s gaze without flinching. “We should not be afraid of telling the truth, for we have nothing to hide.”

“That is a noble sentiment, though one I find hard to believe,” said Yue. She turned to the constable beside her. “Ashta, collect their weapons.” Ashta hastened to obey while Yue fixed us both with another hard look. “Indeed, the only reason I have not clapped you in irons already is that I can hardly believe two murderers as ruthless as you appear to be would behave so foolishly that they would let themselves be caught by constables and then freely admit to their own killings.”

“That is one point in our favor, then,” I said, taking off my sword belt and handing it to Ashta. Mag grimaced as the constable picked up her spear.

“Do not be flip with me,” said Yue.

“Why do the deaths of these people bother you so?” said Mag suddenly.

The rest of us froze—even Ashta, who had been halfway back to Yue with our weapons. Slowly, all three of us turned to stare at Mag.

“Are you … are you joking?” said Yue. “You have murdered six people in my—”

“Six people, yes, but not six people from this town,” said Mag. “None of these people are from Lan Shui, are they? I think the boy is local—Pantu, you called him?—but none of the others look Dorsean, or even half-Dorsean, like you. And they all seemed to be living here, in a house that looks to have suffered many long years of disrepair. I would guess that no one from Lan Shui has lived