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

A floorboard creaked on the first floor.

Pantu froze. As he stopped pacing, the floorboards beneath his feet gave another, louder creak.

Had he imagined the sound?

But no. Now he heard something else. Someone coming up the stairs.

Someone? Or something? He heard claws scrabbling on the wooden steps.

Claws. No. Not possible. Not here.

He burst out the door of the bedroom onto the second story landing. At the top of the stairs crouched a figure. But it was not the vampire that Pantu so feared. It was a cat, dark of fur with a white tail, like one would find in the mountains. Pantu knew the sight of it well—every child of the foothills knew of mountain lions.

Even as disbelief struggled to work its way through his mind, even as he tried to reason out how the beast got this far into the town, the lion pounced. It gave two great swipes of its claws. Pantu felt them slice into his flesh like daggers. He gasped, his chest laid open, and felt the alien, terrifying sensation of cool air on his insides.

He fell on his back, the mountain lion perched on his chest. Its amber eyes, pupils like gibbous moons but wide as coins, stared into his own.

And then the lion said, “You were the one who was supposed to die.”

Pantu blinked through the pain, through the darkness creeping in at the edge of his vision. This had to be a dream. A nightmare. He would wake. But then he realized the truth: the lion’s eyes were glowing. It was already partway through a transformation—it had already formed a human mouth with which to speak. As he watched, the transformation finished, and Kaita knelt over him, one hand on his throat.

“Dellek should be alive,” she said. “All the others should be. Why are you the only one who survived? You are the weak one. The worthless one.”

Despite the terror, despite the knowledge of his own death, Pantu gasped out a laugh. Blood came with it. “Not so worthless. I have saved Lan Shui.”

Kaita hissed and narrowed her eyes. “You have saved nothing.”

“I completed the ritual,” said Pantu, wheezing. “Five magestones. It is finished now. The magic will drive the vampire away forever.”

He had expected Kaita to grow enraged, to storm at him, mayhap even to finish him off quickly. Instead, she only stared at him in amazement. And then she began to laugh. The laugh grew louder, ringing on and on, even as Pantu felt himself slipping into darkness.

Mag and I rode back to Lan Shui.

Though it was the middle of the night, we found many people awake and there to greet us. Yue stood among them, watching from the wall atop the north gate. Sinshi, one of the other constables, was there with her. The gate was closed, but as we rode up, Yue ordered it open before descending the stairs to meet us on the street.

“What happened?” she demanded, before we could even pull our horses to a stop.

“We fought the vampire,” said Mag simply. “We won.”

She cut the leather thong with which she had tied its head to her saddle and threw it into the street. The crowd recoiled and gasped. Yue’s hard features were pale. “I … how did you—”

Most of the faces in the crowd had turned worshipfully to us, and I quailed under their gazes. “I played but a small part. I merely distracted it so that Mag could strike the killing blow.”

“He almost killed it twice,” said Mag. “Indeed, he might have had more clear shots if I had not gotten in his way.”

I could see that Yue was growing frustrated with our modesty, and in the moment I agreed with her—at least when it came to Mag. I knew without a doubt that Mag could have defeated the creature alone, and that the same could not be said for me.

The small crowd now pushed in close around us, wanting to know more about the battle. Oku was nearly crushed against my legs by the press of people. He slipped through them and stepped away from the crowd, looking somewhat miffed.

As Mag, suddenly uncomfortable, tried to answer their questions, I looked over the heads of the crowd. There, near the back of the group, I saw the boy Pantu. He wore plain, grubby clothing, his face smeared with dirt. It looked as though he had been working all day. I hoped that meant he had at last found a more honest line of labor. Beside him stood Dryleaf, one hand holding his walking stick and the other hand on the boy’s shoulder. The old man beamed a pleasant smile, his eyeline a bit to my right. But Pantu’s expression seemed strange—eager, but not as joyous as most of the other townsfolk.

I pushed past the crowd, which seemed preoccupied with Mag, and went to speak with the two of them. As he heard my footsteps approach, Dryleaf turned towards me.

“Is that Albern?” he said. “I imagine it could not be Mag, for it seems she has quite a following.”

“It is,” I said. “Greetings, Dryleaf. And to you, Pantu.”

Pantu gave a start, as though he was surprised to have been noticed, and ducked his head. Dryleaf chuckled and patted the boy’s shoulder.

“Do not mind him. He is only a bit shy. We heard what you did. This town will never be able to properly express its gratitude.”

“As I tried to tell them, Mag did most of the work, and all the hardest part of it,” I told him.

“I suspect you are underestimating yourself again, though I am sure the Uncut Lady fought admirably,” said Dryleaf. “But no matter. I am here for quite another reason. Pantu came to me. He said he had something urgent to tell you, and so I brought him here so that we could both wait for you to return from your hunt.”

I looked at Pantu in surprise. He ducked his head again. “Is that right?