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

Fire flashed in my eyes as a torch came sailing through the night. It struck the fabric of the market stall, which caught almost at once. The flames licked and spread, and soon the whole stall was ablaze. Inkstain shrieked and shriveled. What skin I could see blackened and twisted, and soon the cloth stopped moving altogether.

I looked up in shock. Yue stood there, huffing in her armor and with a nasty bruise on one cheek. She extended a hand without speaking, and I took her help to stand.

“Mag needs us,” she said.

“Take me,” I said, and followed her at a dead run towards the front of the building.

With the crystal clarity of her battle-trance, Mag saw it when Inkstain bounded over the street to go after me, but Biter and Shoulders kept her too occupied to spare much attention. She trusted me to handle myself, and she kept fighting, kept trying to impale one of the vampires with the wooden haft of her spear. There were only two. She was unlikely to get a better chance.

Then a fresh roar announced the arrival of a third. It sailed through the air, limbs outstretched and rotten teeth bared. On instinct, the other vampires skittered away from it, hissing in anger as it landed between them. The distraction gave Mag a moment to recover, bringing up her shield and facing off against the trio, eyes darting back and forth between them. Oku edged to her side, growling and panting at the same time. The wolfhound was growing weary from trying to keep out of the vampires’ grasp.

This new vampire was larger than the others, its limbs even thicker than Shoulders’ were, but all in proportion. As it stalked towards her, Biter and Shoulders drew back from it, glancing at it in subservience. They had encountered it before, clearly, and they had not enjoyed the experience.

King. Mag named it in her mind without even thinking. And then, behind her battle-trance, the part of her mind that could still feel had the thought, I am going to punch Albern.

Thoughts danced in her mind, far-off music in the calm of her trance. Three vampires before her, and one on the roof. That left one still unaccounted for. And where on earth were the rest of the townspeople? Some of them should have arrived by now, at least.

And then the vampires attacked again, and even her background thoughts vanished.

Her one saving grace against the beasts was that the vampires were clearly unused to fighting together. They were loners, never hunting in packs, and so they had no idea how to approach in a coordinated fashion. For one moment Mag’s mind flashed with an image of Victon, her old sergeant, drilling the vampires and teaching them to operate as a unit. If not for the trance, she would have laughed out loud.

Yet the same thing that made them unable to work together also kept her from surprising any of them. When she fought one of them, the other two did not wait idly, thinking their fellow would surely bring her down. They waited for their own chance to fight, and as soon as Mag turned on them, they reacted quickly enough that they almost seemed to be expecting it. She knew she could push herself harder, further, than any person she had met, but if she never managed to bring them down, even her trance would wear out eventually.

Then there came a great commotion from down the street. Mag withdrew by one pace and glanced over the heads of her opponents at the source of the disturbance. King and the other vampires, too, glanced behind to see what was happening.

The final vampire came skidding into the street, crouched on all fours, hissing and spitting. Behind it, from side streets and alleys, came pouring a flood of townsfolk—nearly two dozen of them, and all armed with weapons and torches. Immediately they formed up facing the vampire, thrusting their steel and their flames towards it. The vampire shrieked and swiped at them, but the townsfolk stood strong together, giving it no chance to reach them.

All this Mag saw in a flash, and then she tried something new. Throwing her arms wide, spear pointing one way and shield another, she gave a battle-roar that shook the walls of the buildings around her.

The attention of Biter, Shoulders, and King snapped back to her at once. Biter jumped forth, matching Mag’s pose and scream of defiance. For one heartbeat they faced each other, roaring in hatred, neither willing to back down.

Mag caught just a glimpse of brown fur as Oku saw his chance and lunged. His teeth sank into Biter’s throat. It gave a warbling cry and tried to swipe at Oku, but the hound kicked off its chest and swung, avoiding the blow.

Mag’s spear pierced Biter’s eye and drove all the way through the back of its head.

The vampire’s body went slack in an instant. Blackness spread from around the haft of her spear, rippling through the vampire’s body until it looked burned.

But with her strike, she had opened herself to an attack. King seized the opportunity, and Mag barely got her shield up in time. The blow was heavy enough to break her arm if she had taken the brunt of it, but Mag managed to turn it. Still, it flung her through the air, and she slammed hard into the side of the Shades’ hideout.

Oku darted to her side, snarling and bristling as he turned to face the vampires again. But the vampires could not have cared less about him. Ignoring both Mag and the hound, they rushed the building’s front door and vanished inside. The last vampire, brought to bay by the townsfolk, gave up the fight and joined its fellows, running into the hideout and disappearing from view.

Mag seized Oku’s fur and used him to help pull herself up. Oku whined and licked her hand, but Mag