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

Now he will be simple to find, she thought.

But to her surprise, she still had trouble. I had, after all, been trained as a ranger, even if I had never officially become one. And in the long years since we both lived in Tokana, I had kept my skills sharper than Kaita had kept hers. Only here and there could she glimpse a few shallow footprints in the moonslight. Beside the tracks of my boots, there were the clear tracks of a dog. She had seen Oku often enough to recognize the sign of him. But the trail always vanished into rocks again. Kaita was forced to circle and wheel aimlessly until she stumbled upon a fresh set of tracks. Always she had to be aware of her height and avoid swooping too low where I could get a good shot.

He thinks to lure me into a simpleton’s trap, she thought savagely. He must think me an even greater fool than Mag was.

But Kaita was drawing closer to the Mystic camp now. That put a quiver of fear into her heart. Was I planning on retreating to them? She could not follow me there.

But she could. Who cared how many of them there were? In her hellskin form, no blade could—

No.

It took a monumental effort to marshal her thoughts, but she did it. She had promised Rogan. And she believed in the Lord. If he had not wanted Kaita to plunge into the midst of her foes, there was a reason. She had said she would never doubt him again, and she meant it.

And then she caught a flash of brown cloth. There I was, still several spans away from the Mystic camp. And I was not running east towards them, but south, towards a familiar cluster of boulders set against the base of a hill. It was the tunnel entrance. The Shades had come out this way when they attacked the Mystic camp. As Kaita flapped her wings hard, powering towards me, Oku and I descended into the shadows beneath the hill.

Kaita laughed in her mind as I clambered over the boulders and disappeared into the earth. If he thinks a cave will save him, he is a fool, she thought. Best of all, I was still alone, save for my hound. She could hunt me down without breaking her word.

She landed atop the hill and shifted into hellskin form as quickly as she could. With a few lumbering steps, she dropped into the darkness of the tunnel beneath the earth.

Immediately she was faced with a new problem. With the hellskin form’s limited senses, she could neither see me nor follow my scent.

But she was invulnerable. Who cared about seeing? It mattered little if she stumbled into the walls—they could do nothing to her iron-hard skin.

So she stumbled blindly down the tunnel, lumbering into the stone walls every few steps. It was irritating, but hardly debilitating. Things became slightly worse as the tunnel began to swing more sharply left and right so that she sometimes crashed face-first into the stone. It did not exactly hurt, but it was disorienting, and she had to take a moment to get her bearings. She growled each time, and each time the sound grew a little deeper, a little crueler.

Albern must have brought a torch, she thought, wishing she had had the presence of mind to do the same.

Suddenly her foot came down on empty air. She was at the top of the stone wall she had climbed during her escape from the tunnels. For a heartbeat, she teetered, trying to recover. But in the end, she plummeted five paces and slammed into the stone floor. This time it did hurt, her weight sending a crushing lance of pain through her shoulder.

A frustrated, growling roar burst out of her. And to her surprise, there were words in the sound.

“Dark take you, Albern!” she thundered. “Stand and face me!”

For a moment she lay there, blinking. So, the hellskin form could speak. It was the only beast in her canon that could, other than the troll.

Slowly she clambered to her feet. “Where are you, little ranger?” she growled. “But then, I suppose you never really became a ranger. Not like Romil and me. Not like Ditra.” She bared her fangs in the inky black and began to stalk forwards again. “Ah, Ditra. You know, do you not, that she is doomed? Now nothing can stop me from ending her. She will die screaming on my claws, and then I will have your niece as well.”

Still the tunnel ahead remained silent. Kaita growled, and the sound of it shook the stone beneath her clawed feet.

“Come, Albern!” she roared. “Have we both not waited enough? Let the long road come to an end. Mag did. She was happy to see it done, finally.”

No reply came floating out of the shadows.

Kaita considered her options. She could take the mountain lion form. It would let her see in the darkness far better than I could.

Of course, the lion was more vulnerable. But vulnerable to what? To me? Surely not. The hellskin form was for Mag. The lion would be more than enough to deal with me.

Again she felt a moment’s trepidation as her form shifted to human, and she braced herself for an arrow to come flying from the dark. But nothing came. And as the lion form took her, the tunnel became visible—still dim, but at least she would not go running into walls. And she could smell. My scent was there, and so was Oku’s. And there were lingering whiffs of others—all the Shades who had come this way during their escape, and then Kun’s small army that had followed them. Kaita could even faintly detect Tagata’s scent, and her stomach fluttered.

She forced herself to focus as she proceeded down the tunnel, moving at a quick trot now. This felt much more comfortable. As powerful