The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Garrett Robinson (poetry books to read TXT) 📖

a moment, before realizing that Ditra now stood in the doorway, and I forgot all about her retainer.

It was the night I fled from home, drunk with wine and pelted by rain. I had left the city already. I had reached the bridge.

I crashed into Kaita, and we both fell to the ground.

The clouds parted for a moment, and I caught a flash of moonslight. I saw Kaita’s face, but it swam in the darkness and my own drunkenness. Yet I screamed at the sight of my family’s colors on her cloak, and I backed away on hands and knees.

Kaita watched me scramble over the shelf by the end of the bridge. Then she saw me fall off the other side. She barely stifled a cry as she leaped forwards, expecting to see my broken body far below her.

Instead, she saw me sliding away on a steep, rocky surface slick with rainwater.

She looked on in wonder until I turned a corner out of sight. For a moment she debated going after me.

Then she smiled.

I was gone. The youngest Telfer child, and the most useless.

Kahaunga would be well quit of me.

She turned and carried on her way back to the city.

It was the day Romil found me in the mercenary camp. She stood before me, but behind her, by the horses, was a retainer. Kaita.

Mag struck faster than I could see, flinging my sister to the ground unconscious. I stared at her fallen form in horror and grief. Kaita reached for her weapon, but Mag stopped her with a look.

“That would be unwise,” said Mag. “Take your master and ride away with her. Go back to your lord. Tell her whatever you wish, but get this wretch out of my sight before I give her more than a headache.”

Kaita did as Mag commanded. I did not even watch them go, for I was sitting on the ground, arms wrapped around my knees, lost in my grief.

I was in the jungle with Victon and Mag. The bear turned and fled, limping on three legs to favor the fourth that Mag had maimed. Mag turned to me, the battle-trance like a mask over her expression. It shook me then, as it always did.

“You are all right?”

“Victon,” I gasped. “It is heading for Victon.”

She seized my arm and pulled me up, and together we pelted after the beast.

The bear fled from us, bleeding from wounds it had never expected to receive. Suddenly it lurched to the right and lumbered off into the underbrush. It carried on, heedless of the trail it left behind. Even Mag would be able to track it.

But it would not be there when she arrived.

When the bear had lumbered a span away from the main path, it stopped. Without even bothering to look behind to see if it was being followed, it hunched over.

Its eyes began to glow.

In a moment the transformation was done, and Kaita’s form emerged from the bear’s. She stifled a cry as she felt the wounds in her body seal up, lances of pain shooting through her as flesh and skin joined together.

She took two deep, shaky breaths that wracked her body. But she could not remain still for long.

Again her eyes glowed. She shrank, her tight clothing sinking into her flesh. Black feathers sprouted across her skin. In a few heartbeats, she had taken the raven’s form. She flapped desperately, winging up and away. She glanced down only once—to see Mag burst into the clearing where she had just been. Panic seized her, and she flapped harder, flying away from the jungle as fast as she could.

It was the battle of Northwood, and I knelt by Sten’s side. Across from me were Mag and the medica, whose eyes were glowing as she gripped the torn flesh of his throat, desperately trying to seal the wound. Mag and I held his hands, pulling them away so the medica could work.

And Kaita lurked nearby, hidden just behind the edge of a building. My back was to her. My attention was all for Sten. I was exposed.

“Try to be silent,” said the medica sharply. “It will only be worse.”

“Almost, my love,” said Mag. “Hold on.”

Kaita’s eyes glowed. She took the form of the mountain lion. In the long years since the jungle of Feldemar, she had obsessed over her first fight with Mag. She had made a mistake, then. She had sought power, rather than speed. The bear had been mighty, but it was too slow. She should have chosen the lion, long her favorite form. It was fast. Faster than Mag, or so she believed.

The medica finished her work. “It is done,” she said. “He is not out of danger, but—”

Kaita bounded out from behind the building and leaped for me. I saw the flash of movement from the corner of my eye.

“Down!” I dived out of the way, seizing Mag and the medica and taking them with me.

Kaita landed on Sten’s chest, her claws sinking into his flesh with a biting shunk. His fingers grasped for Kaita’s throat. And then he died.

“No,” said Mag. “No.”

She rose to her feet, and her hands curled to fists at her sides. Kaita growled at her. Mag did not even have her sword. This would be a simple kill.

But it was not. Try as she might, she could not lay a claw on Mag. And as Mag screamed No! over and over, she took Kaita apart with her bare hands.

Kaita resumed her human form, recoiling and holding her wounds.

I saw her. And memories tugged at the back of my mind. But there was Mag, and there was Sten’s corpse, and the battle of Northwood still raged around us.

“Sow! You feckless sow!” screamed Kaita. Shades came running into view. “Kill her!” cried Kaita, thrusting a finger towards Mag.

She turned into a raven and flew away.

“You knew her!” cried Sun, her voice ringing with something between betrayal and triumph.

“I did not,” said