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

Albern did not answer her for a moment. He stared at the fire between them, the flames dancing in his eyes, his arm across the top of his knee, and his fingers hanging idly before his face. For a moment he resembled nothing so much as a statue, a warding figure placed in the woods to guard them from death and darkness, and to provide comfort to any traveler who came his way—comfort, but no help.

Finally he stirred and looked at Sun across the fire. He stared at her for a moment, as though he were hearing her words again in his mind, and then he smiled. “I recognize the words of praise that were customary in your family’s court, and I thank you for them.”

“Now tell me about your arm.”

Albern laughed. “No. Not yet. That is the end of the story—or the only ending most people care about. But endings are useless if you do not know where things began. The journey, the whole of it, is what a story is all about. In this small tale I have just told you, imagine how much drier it would have been if I had just told you about Lan Shui and fighting the vampires, without telling you about Northwood first. Imagine how little you would have cared about Northwood if you had not known about Sten.”

It was a fair enough point. But the spell of the old man’s tale was wearing off now, and it left her feeling cold and alone in the woods, despite the fire and Albern’s presence. “Well then, I suppose we had better—”

“Quiet,” rasped Albern, so suddenly that Sun obeyed without question.

The old man rose, and from his belt he drew a sword—old, battered, but well sharpened and polished. Sun got to her feet as well, though she did not know why. Without thinking, she drew an arrow and fitted it to the string of Albern’s bow, peering out into the night beside him. She had not heard whatever had alerted him, but now she could feel it. The woods were too quiet, and there was a presence. Something was out there, watching them.

“What is it?” she whispered. “A wolf?”

“Not a wolf,” said Albern.

And then a creature of nightmares bounded into the firelight. Man-sized and man-shaped, but horribly twisted and bent. It landed on all fours, and there it crouched, hissing at them. Pallid, white skin. Hands that ended in claws as long as Sun’s fingers, and a mouth full of pointed teeth.

Sun might have had difficulty identifying it, if she had not heard it mentioned so often already that night.

Vampire, her mind screamed.

And then it roared as it attacked.

First it leaped for Sun, but Albern gave a great cry and jumped in between them. His wild, swinging sword drove the creature back a pace or two, and Albern sidestepped to draw it farther from the fire.

Sun’s whole body had gone rigid, but then she realized what Albern was doing. He was stepping aside so that she would have a clear shot. With that thought, her body seemed to move of its own accord. The bow came up, she drew, and she sighted down the arrow.

Albern gave a cry and swiped at the vampire. It lunged to the side, arms wide. And Sun loosed.

With everything Albern had told her that night, she fully expected the vampire to dodge her shot. But to her surprise, it pierced the vampire straight through the wrist. The creature screamed—a terrible, ear-shattering noise that threatened to deafen her, especially in the deep silence of the woods.

The vampire wrenched the arrow out of its limb. The edges of the wound began to turn black. It whirled on her, hissing, but Albern attacked, sword flashing in the firelight.

With a shriek, the vampire leaped off into the woods and the darkness.

The clearing settled again to silence. And as it did, Sun realized that now she was shaking, now she was quivering and breathing so hard that she did not think she would be able to stand for more than a few heartbeats. The bow clattered from her hand to the ground, and suddenly she was sitting, though she had made no move to lower herself. Her tailbone hurt, but it was a dull, distant sort of pain.

“What … sky above, what was that?” she gasped, though she was not truly speaking to anyone.

“Too bad, is what it was,” said Albern. “I had hoped we could kill the thing, but it got away. Ah, well. They tend to do that, as I have told you already tonight. And the wound will fester—if it does not die from the infection, it will at least be easier to finish off.”

“That was a vampire!”

“Of course it was.”

Sun looked at him, eyes wide. “You knew? You knew that creature was coming?”

“Why, yes,” said Albern. “That is why we came out here. And was I not right? You are a warrior true. I can tell. I can always tell. Even back then, I could tell, and I am better at it now.”

“But I—but you met me in a tavern by chance!” said Sun, rising shakily to her feet. “What would you have done if I had not come? You could not have faced that thing alone!”

Albern smiled at her, gently and with a little sadness in his eyes. “We met in the tavern, but not by chance. This is the thirteenth town you have visited on your family’s trip, Sun. The sixth one was the first time you slipped away from the caravan. You have done it again in every town since. You have been looking for something.”

“You … you were following me?”

“Sky, no,” said Albern. “But you have been seen, and many remarked on it as something strange. The rumor of you reached my ears, and I determined to find you tonight. The constable? He helped me. When Tunsha signaled to the tavern with his ring, he was also telling the