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

“One more ale for the dusty road,” said Mag, turning and making for the bar. Dryleaf chuckled as her footsteps retreated.

“She is a fighter, that one,” he said.

“Indeed. Sometimes I think she is too much of one.” I sighed.

“You sound troubled,” said Dryleaf, frowning.

“We were both fighters, once. We served in a few mercenary companies, spending many years with the Ruby Crowns in particular. But we left that life behind a long time ago. Now I have been unable to rid myself of the feeling that I dragged Mag back into a world that she was much happier to have left behind.”

“Yet you seem to be more reluctant, at least when it comes to this hunt,” said Dryleaf.

“True,” I said quietly. “I suppose I have less to avenge.”

“Vengeance is a shadowed road with a mournful end, whether you are victor or victim,” intoned Dryleaf.

“I have not heard that wisdom. I cannot say that I like it, but it has the ring of truth.”

Dryleaf gave a grim smile. Then he cocked his head. “You say you served with the Ruby Crowns. I used to travel, as I told you, and I heard many tales of that company. Would I have heard of your exploits?”

“Mine?” I said. “I doubt it. But Mag is another matter. Did anyone ever tell you of the Uncut Lady?”

The effect was immediate. Dryleaf straightened at once and gave a little gasp. “The Uncut Lady? You cannot mean that she is your friend, just across the room right this very minute.”

“I do,” I said, grinning.

“To think that I have been speaking with her, and never realized,” said Dryleaf. “Her voice is far more beautiful than I had imagined it would be.”

“Do not tell her that, I beg you. She thinks highly enough of herself as it is.”

Dryleaf giggled. “If half the tales of her are true, she deserves to think so. I must shake her hand.”

I shook my head and laughed. “Sky above. The last thing Mag’s ego needs is an admirer like you.”

Dryleaf smiled in reply. The deep lines around his eyes crinkled when he did it, and his bushy beard jumped. But the smile faded almost as quickly as it had come.

“The two of you will take care of yourselves out there, yes?”

“We will,” I told him. “As much as I can ‘take care’ of her.”

“Do not undervalue yourself too much,” said Dryleaf. “I am a fair judge of people, and that is just as easy to do when you cannot see them. I would say that the love and the companionship you give to Mag are worth more than a thousand swords at her side. From what I know of her, in any case, she has never needed help when it comes to fighting.”

I studied him a long moment. “I will try to remember it. Thank you.”

Mag returned with a mug of ale. It was half-empty already. “We should be off. I have told the barman to ready the horses for us. Dryleaf, you have our eternal thanks for your counsel. It is a pleasure to encounter such a wise and helpful mind this far from home.”

Dryleaf’s mouth opened, and a thin squeak came out. Mag frowned. I seized her arm and hurried her away from the table.

“Sky above, let us get on the road before he musters the strength to speak.”

The horses were being led out of the stable when we walked outside, and we rode out at once. The main road led north out of the town and continued that way for some leagues before turning west in the direction of Bertram. But we abandoned that direction quickly, turning upon a smaller side road that led to the farms and homesteads across the land that led up to the western spur.

Just as Dryleaf had said, the barman had been able to tell us where to find what we were looking for. There were many homesteads and farms this way, but they became fewer and farther between as one drew away from Lan Shui. At first we rode through farmlands just like the ones we had seen when we first came to the town, and just as then, many of the farms looked abandoned. But soon the land was all wild, open countryside, with no one around. Trees began to grow thicker about us, until soon we were riding through a small wood, through which we could occasionally still glimpse the rising spur of land ahead.

Finally the ground began to climb, and the trees thinned again. We crested a slope and, as if it had sprung out of the ground to meet us, we came upon the homestead we had been searching for.

At the center of it was a house, and a little farther off, a barn stood at the bottom of a steep slope. Some crops had been grown on the lands surrounding the house, but weeds had begun to spring up among them unchecked.

Mayhap thirty paces from the house were the blackened remains of a funeral pyre.

We burned them, of course, the barman had told us. It was the only … well, the only proper thing to do. But their child was—well, they had two, and we found the elder with his parents. The younger son … well, we never found his body.

We paused at the sight, surveying the cleared land for a moment. Mag studied the pyre with a dour look on her face, and I wondered if she was thinking of Sten. After a time, she nudged her horse again.

“Come,” she said. “The day is young, and there is hunting yet to do.”

She led me to the house, and we took a brief look inside. If the cold pyre had cast a shadow over our mood, the house plunged our souls into darkness. Though the people of Lan Shui had removed and burned the bodies, they had done nothing further to clean the place. Pieces of smashed furniture lay