Hell Skin Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  The Books of Underrealm

  Dedication

  Map

  Get More

  Previously

  Hell Skin

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  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  Keep Reading

  Thank You to My Patrons

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  The Books of Underrealm

  About the Author

  EPILOGUE

  HELL SKIN

  Garrett Robinson

  Copyright © 2020 by Legacy Books. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read this work. If you wish to support Garrett directly, consider becoming his supporter on Patreon. You also get to read his next Underrealm novel as he writes it, months before anyone else.

  Please leave a review wherever you purchased it, or on Goodreads.com. Less than 1% of readers leave a review, but reviews are one of the most helpful ways you can support an author.

  THE BOOKS OF UNDERREALM

  To see all novels in the world of Underrealm, visit:

  Underrealm.net/books

  THE NIGHTBLADE EPIC

  NIGHTBLADE

  MYSTIC

  DARKFIRE

  SHADEBORN

  WEREMAGE

  YERRIN

  THE ACADEMY JOURNALS

  THE ALCHEMIST’S TOUCH

  THE MINDMAGE’S WRATH

  THE FIREMAGE’S VENGEANCE

  TALES OF THE WANDERER

  BLOOD LUST

  STONE HEART

  HELL SKIN

  THE TENTH KINGDOM

  A CLOAK OF RED

  THE CHRONICLES OF UNDERREALM: COLLECTION ONE

  CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  NIGHTBLADE

  MYSTIC

  DARKFIRE

  SHADEBORN

  BLOOD LUST

  THE ALCHEMIST’S TOUCH

  STONE HEART

  THE MINDMAGE’S WRATH

  WEREMAGE

  THE FIREMAGE’S VENGEANCE

  HELL SKIN

  YERRIN

  A CLOAK OF RED

  THE CHRONICLES OF UNDERREALM: COLLECTION ONE

  This book is for my family, the ones in my life who have helped me be the person I want to be, and who have kept me safe and sane enough to achieve that.

  It is for the wild, untempered community I have found in this world, who love unreservedly and constantly strive to better themselves and each other.

  And it is for everyone who has taken even a few steps in Underrealm. We have wandered farther than I thought we would, but I’ve enjoyed every league.

  This ending is not the end, but it is one that’s come at just the right time.

  For maps of the locations in this book, visit:

  Underrealm.net/maps

  GET MORE

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  PREVIOUSLY IN THE TALES OF THE WANDERER

  Sun of the family Valgun, a young woman from a noble house, snuck away from her family’s caravan in the kingdom of Dorsea. Her kin were on a diplomatic mission to raise their station, and Sun disapproved of both them and their goal, though she had little hope of influencing either.

  While exploring, she met Albern of the family Telfer, a renowned figure of some of her favorite legends—alongside a woman named Mag, known as the Uncut Lady or the Wanderer. At Sun’s request, Albern began to tell her the tale of the adventures he and Mag had had in their youth.

  * * *

  The story began as an army swept down out of the Greatrock Mountains to attack the city of Northwood, Mag’s home. The attackers were called Shades, and they were led by two people of note: Rogan, an immortal shadeborn and commander of the Shades’ forces, and Kaita, a weremage. Kaita, in particular, had a personal reason to join in the attack—a longstanding grudge against Albern and Mag.

  While Albern and Mag survived the destruction of Northwood, it came at a terrible cost. Kaita killed Mag’s husband, Sten, before escaping Mag’s wrath. While Mag and Albern swore an oath of vengeance to slay the weremage, Rogan commanded Kaita to lead them north to Calentin, Albern’s childhood homeland.

  Albern and Mag followed Kaita to the small town of Lan Shui west of the Greatrocks. There, Kaita and the Shades had been conducting a magical ritual to lure vampires to attack the town, testing the method for possible use in the coming war across Underrealm. The vampires had the town surrounded, and no one was able to leave to summon help from other nearby settlements.

  In Lan Shui, Mag and Albern met a blind old man named Dryleaf, who seemed surprisingly knowledgeable and well-informed for a denizen of such a small town. They also met the town’s chief constable, Yue of the family Baolan, who initially viewed Albern and Mag with grave mistrust. But by working together, the three of them managed to defeat the vampires and free the town, as well as wipe out the cabal of Shades who had caused the problem in the first place.

  Albern and Mag left to pursue Kaita, while Yue recovered from her injuries suffered in the battle. Dryleaf, however, accompanied Mag and Albern, for they desired his advice and counsel, and he wanted to return to the Birchwood Forest, where he said he wished to reunite with an old friend.

  * * *

  While Albern told Sun this tale, some of her parents’ caravan guards came looking for her. Albern helped her avoid them, and then asked her to help him with a small errand. He led her out into the woods, where he had previously built a little campsite, and resumed telling her the tale there. After the tale had finished, they were attacked by a vampire, just as in the stories—but this one was much younger, and much weaker, and they were able to defeat it, mortally wounding it and driving it back into the forest.

  With the nighttime adventure seemingly at an end, Albern asked Sun if she wished to return to her parents. If she did not, he offered to let her accompany him in his journeys, traveling the land and ridding it of evil. After some deliberation, Sun agreed to go with him. They set their s
teps for the town of Lan Shui, and the next morning, Albern resumed his story.

  * * *

  The tale resumed with Albern, Dryleaf, and Mag reaching the city of Opara on the southern border of the kingdom of Calentin. In Lan Shui they had found information that this was where Kaita was heading. But in fact, it was only one more step in the long journey she was leading them on. As they had in Lan Shui, they found and wiped out a small cadre of Shade spies, but Kaita was not among them. Instead, they found out that she was proceeding to Kahuanga, the city where Albern had grown up as the noble child of a local lord, titled the Rangatira.

  This came as devastating news to Albern. He was the Rangatira’s son, but he had not returned home nor been in contact with his family since he left in his nineteenth year. With Albern being an ander man, his mother did not even know him as her son. They had parted on terrible terms, and he had no wish to see her again.

  But with the news that Kaita had gone to Kahuanga, he knew he had to return home regardless. So he, Mag, and Dryleaf made their way to the region of Tokana where the city stood. They arrived to find that the local mountain trolls had become agitated, pushing aggressively farther and farther into human territories.

  Immediately Mag and Albern suspected the Shades had a hand in the conflict. Just as in Lan Shui, they were secretly maneuvering other forces against each other so that they did not have to do the fighting themselves. Although Albern had grown up in the city, he had no idea what to do to stop the trolls; humans had not come into conflict with the creatures for untold centuries. It seemed their best hope was finding and killing Kaita and the Shades. With luck, that would end the trolls’ motivation to attack the city.

  Before long, however, they were captured by the Rangatira’s forces, who mistook them for illegal hunters and brought them before her. To his shock, Albern discovered that the Rangatira was not in fact his mother, but his older sister, Ditra. Ditra had been the only member of his family who was kind to him as he grew up. His mother and his other sister, Romil, had died decades ago. Ditra was now as stern and hard-bitten as their mother had been, and Albern continued to hide his identity from her.

  Upon hearing of their hunt for the weremage and the Shades, Ditra allowed them to continue searching the wilderness around her city. But in secret, she also assigned her lead ranger, Maia, to hunt for the weremage. Though Maia did not know it, Ditra had a personal stake in the weremage’s fate.

  After many more days spent hunting, Albern and Mag were almost killed by a troll. But Maia happened to be in the area, and he saved them at the last moment. Albern and Mag discovered that Ditra had assigned him to hunt for the weremage, and in the discussion, Maia mentioned her name. It was the first time Albern and Mag learned that the weremage’s name was Kaita.

  A flood of memories assaulted Albern. He remembered that Kaita had been a ranger and a guard in his mother’s service, and that she had once been Ditra’s lover. Now he understood that Ditra had been hampering his search for the weremage. Ditra did not believe that Kaita had turned to evil, and she wished to bring the weremage into custody safely.

  Albern confronted Ditra with the truth, but she was livid at him for it. She imprisoned him, Mag, and Dryleaf, and then summoned Albern to her for a private conversation. In the course of their talk, she learned Albern’s hidden shame: that he had known of the death of their elder sister, Romil, for decades, but still had not returned home. With Albern gone, and their mother blaming him for Romil’s death, all her anger, bitterness, and resentment fell upon Ditra, ruining what was left of her childhood and turning her into the flinty woman she had become. Disgusted, Ditra sent Albern back to his cell with Mag and Dryleaf.

  The next day, the trolls attacked the city. Dryleaf opened the jail door with a key he had purloined from one of the guards, and Albern and Mag ran to aid in the city’s defense. When Ditra discovered what they had done, she did not throw them back in prison, but pressed them into her service while still keeping them at arm’s length.

  That changed when the Shades, led by Kaita, infiltrated Ditra’s court and attacked her and her top lieutenants. Maia was killed in the fighting, and Ditra was injured. Only Albern and Mag’s last-minute intervention kept Ditra from falling.

  With Ditra’s doubts at least mostly assuaged, she brought Albern, Mag, and Dryleaf into the fold. Together they coordinated the city’s defense, fighting a desperate battle as the trolls attacked.

  Amidst the fighting, Albern discovered that Kaita was indeed behind the trolls’ aggression. She had taken troll form and seduced the pack’s current leader, Dotag, guiding him to invade the humans’ territory and kill as many as he could. Once Albern and Mag exposed the ruse, Dotag looked weak before his pack. Another troll, Apok, challenged him for leadership and killed him, and then agreed to broker peace between trolls and humans once more.

  Kaita, however, managed to escape. This time, Mag and Albern had no knowledge of where she might be going or how to pursue her. And so after a short time spent in rest in Tokana, when Albern had the chance to fully reconcile with his sister and her daughter, the three of them set off south again, heading for Opara and wandering, somewhat aimlessly, in search of Kaita.

  * * *

  As Albern was relating this part of the tale, he and Sun had reached the town of Lan Shui. There they met with Dawan, a medica of the High King. She had performed Albern’s wending, helping him assume the body he desired, and she still checked on him often. She pronounced him to be in decent health, but also suggested he was getting too old to be going on any more adventures. Albern thanked her for the diagnosis and the advice, and then he took Sun outside of Lan Shui, where he had received word of a caravan being attacked.

  Following the trail of the bandits, Albern and Sun discovered they had captured a store of magestones and were using them to conduct the same ritual that the Shades in Lan Shui had conducted long ago, drawing vampires from across the land to attack the town. Sun thought this meant the Shades had returned, but Albern said these were not Shades, but only imitators.

  Together, Albern and Sun managed to defeat the bandits and destroy their ritual, as well as the magestones they needed to conduct it. Together they set out again, but this time Albern asked Sun where she wanted to go. She asked if it would be possible to see Bertram, and Albern said that would be a grand idea—he had business to conduct in the city.

  They set out upon the road northwest, with Bertram far beyond the horizon.

  SUN MIGHT HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN for wishing the conversation would end. After all, no one had invited her to take part in it, and few things are worse than waiting on the edges of others’ discussion, hearing what they have to say and yet having little to offer.

  Her meal had gone some time ago, whisked away by a barman who gave her a wink and received a curled lip in return. Albern, however, still made deliberate and slow progress through his food, and the discussion he had begun with the woman at the next table did not aid his speed. Sun could not quite say why Albern had started speaking to her, except that it seemed to be a knack of his. He had a friendly and approachable manner, for all his appearance of a rough old man. Strangers found him easy to talk to, and he always seemed eager to speak to them as well. That was how Sun had met him, after all.

  “And I say,” Albern responded to the woman, “that the day we are all pleased with our kings is the day the world breaks. I have never known a time in which the commoner had only love for the noble, and I have lived a good deal longer than you have, if you will forgive my saying so.”

  “Why should I need to forgive a plain truth?” said the woman, chuckling. “And I do not wish for a perfect king. I only wish for a better one. This business on the Feldemarian border …”

  Albern waved the stump of his right arm as if he had forgotten it was missing its hand. “Many lips have passed the news of those troubles to our ears. Who knows what is going on up there? But mayhap I will look into it before long, and then I will bring the truth back to you.”


  The woman reached out to clasp his left wrist. “A wanderer, are you? Then I accept your offer, and with gratitude. Only take care of yourself on the journey. The roads are not as safe as they were.”

  “When do you mean?” said Albern, grinning as he shook her hand. “The dream of eternally safe roads is another I have never seen come true. But we will be careful. Good day to you.”

  The woman gave a rueful laugh and, with a quick nod to Sun, rose to leave. The moment she had disappeared into the crowd of the common room, Sun leaned close.

  “About time, old man. I thought you two would talk until sundown.”

  Albern shrugged. “I would not have minded it. Charming conversation is often in short supply.”

  Sun’s brows rose. “I hope you do not mean to insult me.”

  “No, indeed. I have enjoyed our conversations more than any in a good long while. I imagine your impatience is what has had you bouncing in your seat for the last half hour? I wondered if you had to relieve yourself.”

  “In fact, I do. It is only that you kept seeming to be on the verge of finishing your talk.”

  Sun rose from her chair, though Albern was not quite done with his food. Sighing, he scooped the last few spoonfuls of stew into his mouth. “That is your trouble, Sun, or one of them. Always too eager for the end.”

  He led her through the common room and out the front door. With a kind word and a few copper slivers, Albern sent the stable girl to fetch their horse—their horses, Sun reminded herself. Albern had bought one for her. She could hardly believe that she owned a steed. All the horses she had called “hers” were, in fact, her parents’ property.