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

It hopped up, still facing back down towards Mag. Suddenly my perch was far more dangerous than the ground had been. I edged towards the lip of the stone, readying myself to jump down. But the vampire spotted the movement out of the corner of its eye. It must have thought I was attacking, for it swiped at me again, forcing me a step back.

Three more steps up we fought that way, and now I was too high up the slope to jump down to the ground without risking a broken leg. Oku stood in front of Mag, trying to help but only, in fact, blocking her spear. And the vampire turned back and forth as it tried to pin one of us down, unable for the moment to do so.

My bow was useless with the vampire so close, and I drew my sword. But that proved to be even more futile. I swung, and for an instant I thought my strike would be true, for the vampire did not try to duck it. But that was only because it caught the sword in its hand instead. I felt the steel bite into flesh, but I did not lop the hand in half the way I would have a human’s. It only hissed at me through its pointed teeth, dragged the sword from my grasp, and tossed it over the ledge.

“Blast!” I cried, my hand outstretched futilely towards the sword as it fell to the ground some ten paces below.

And then I saw something.

The vampire swiped at Oku, who leaped back only to become tangled in Mag’s legs. She cursed as she spun, flipping over the dog, her green cloak flying about her.

But the moment’s distraction had given the vampire an opening. It stalked towards me, black eyes glinting in the moonslight.

“A fair hunt,” I said. “But I do not wish to grant you an easy meal.”

I leaped over the ledge.

“Albern!” screamed Mag, her battle-trance breaking for a moment.

The vampire roared and leaped after me. A fall from this height would likely kill me—but the vampire would survive, and it would have a meal waiting for it at the bottom.

But then I grabbed the thick, outthrust branch of the pine tree that I had spied from the ledge.

The vampire’s roar grew much louder, and then faded as it fell scrabbling past me.

I swung up and landed kneeling on the branch, slinging my bow off my shoulder and drawing an arrow in the same motion. I lined up the shot at the vampire, which was still falling through the air, and loosed.

The vampire landed. I heard nothing break, but the impact obviously winded it. Still, it looked up at the sound of the flying arrow, catching it in midair. It hissed up at me as it snapped the arrow between its dirty claws.

Then Mag’s spear struck it in the neck, flying straight through it and into the ground. The vampire’s eyes went wide with shock, even as a black corruption spread from the spear’s wooden shaft through its skin. It looked like rotting meat, but it spread as quickly as flame.

Around us, the woods settled to silence except for Oku’s throaty growling. I looked across the gap between the tree and the slope, and Mag looked back at me, panting.

“Sky above,” she said. “That was a fight.”

“It was,” I said. “What do you think of your helpless pet now?”

“Much the same,” she said. “After all, I still had to kill the thing.”

My lips formed a thin line. “Only because I distracted it.”

Mag chuckled. “That does seem to be what you are best at. Oh, do not look so offended, Albern. After all, we have a true pet now.” She pointed at Oku.

I sighed. “Just get back to the ground. It will take me a little longer to climb down.”

It did take me longer to reach the clearing than it took Mag, but not by much. When I joined her, she had already extracted her spear from the vampire’s corpse and was cleaning it.

“We should take the head,” I said. “Just to put Yue’s mind at ease about the truth of our words.”

“A good idea,” said Mag. “And mayhap now she will not look upon us with such disdain.”

“Mayhap,” I said. “Where did my sword land?”

Mag pointed. Then, as I went to fetch the blade, she took the vampire’s head off with one sweep of her spear.

We found the horses, who shifted nervously at the stench of the vampire’s corpse, and rode back through the woods towards the road that would take us to Lan Shui. As we emerged from the woods into the clearing with the farmhouse, I took one last look at the darkness beneath the trees.

Something within me was still uneasy. The forest held no answers, only menace—and now a vampire’s corpse. So why did I think I would not rest this night?

“It is irritating when you do that,” said Sun. “When you ask a question like that, and then the story turns in another direction. You already know the answer. Why are you asking me? You could tell me if you wanted to. You choose not to.”

“Hush,” said Albern. “Let me have my fun.”

Pantu paced in one of the upper bedrooms of the Shade hideout. He strained to hear any sound of fighting, of struggle, in the town outside.

That was a ridiculous urge, and he knew it. Even if the vampire did strike tonight, it would do so in the fields, the farms, a long ways away from Lan Shui itself. He would never hear it.

If it did strike tonight. But mayhap it would not.

Tonight was the night. Tonight was the test. Come morning, he would know whether or not his mad scheme had worked—whether he had finally driven the vampire away from Lan Shui for good. He had been trying to sleep, hoping to wake to a bright and happy morning, but he could barely