The Broken Knife

Once they were past the janjio cavern, it was only a short distance to the next passage down. As Kaz had told the humans, it passed through four levels. It was rare for anyone to use it to reach this level, thanks to the monsters and the lack of any nearby resources, but it would allow them to skip the next three, which were all occupied by a single tribe.

The Graybellys were the most powerful tribe in the upper levels of the mountain. They could undoubtedly have defeated one of the mid-level tribes and begun the slow descent to the depths, but there, they would likely be the weakest among the strong. Here, they ruled with an iron fist. There was no way to avoid them, and if the humans attempted to attack, Kaz thought they would be forced to flee, if they weren’t killed outright, simply because the Graybellys outnumbered them so badly. Hopefully, if things started to go wrong, Kaz could prevent it from escalating to that point.

When the first totem came into view, Kaz lifted a hand. It was small, and easily missed if you weren’t watching for it, so he pointed it out for the humans. Two fuergar skulls were impaled on a stone spike that was probably the tip of a stalactite. A streak of gray dye made by crushing a particular lichen dripped from each of the empty eye sockets.

Gaoda seemed unimpressed. “Is that meant to be frightening?”

Kaz shook his head. “A warning. The Graybellys don’t live on this level, but they control the passage, and the area around it. I doubt they’ll bother posting guards here, since no one comes this way except fools and the desperate, but this tells even those to be cautious from here on.”

Raff shrugged. “Haven’t met a kobold yet that I couldn’t swat like a bug.” His eyes cut to Kaz, and he coughed slightly. “Ah, sorry, but it’s the truth.”

The fur on Kaz’s neck and shoulders wanted to rise at this nonchalant admission of how little respect the humans had for his people, but he kept his voice calm.

“You are strong,” he admitted, “but there are those in the Deep who will challenge even you. Here, you’re probably right, but the Graybelly tribe has well over a thousand members, covers at least parts of six levels, and their females are well-trained and powerful. They work together, instead of constantly fighting for dominance, as so many do, and though you would undoubtedly win against a small group of them, if they truly decided to, I’m certain they could prevent you from passing through their territory. That would be the end of your journey, since they have closed or control every path down on at least three of those levels.”

Gaoda’s eyes narrowed. “Or we could wipe out every single one of them. At least until the ones remaining grew wise enough to fear us properly.”

A chill ran down Kaz’s spine, and he bowed his head. “Their leader is wise, and I’m certain she’ll allow you passage, though there will be a price.” He saw the look in Gaoda’s eyes, and hastened to add, “A reasonable one!”

Lianhua huffed a little sigh. “Well, that’s good. I’m sure it’ll be fine, and right now,” she pressed a hand to her stomach, “I’m starving! You may be able to channel ki to your body all day without needing to eat, but I can’t. Let’s sit down and have lunch.”

Gaoda pulled a round object from a pouch at his waist and eyed it. “It’s a little early, but this seems like a reasonable place to rest.” He replaced the object and smiled at Lianhua. “Whatever you wish, of course, cousin.”

Lianhua nodded in return, though her smile seemed stiff. She looked around and sighed again. “I miss Yingtao. She would make tea for me.”

“Chi Yincang will make you tea, cousin,” Gaoda said.

She made a small movement of her shoulders that wasn’t quite a shrug. “I know. Yingtao has been making my tea since I was a girl, though, and she knows exactly how I like it. I think the comfort of that would be pleasant today.”

Gaoda made a gesture, and Chi Yincang was suddenly beside him. “Make tea,” Gaoda told him. Glancing at Raff, he added, “Prepare those beasts you picked up.” The other two males nodded.

Walking off to one side, Raff set a flat stone down on the ground. This was a good chance for Kaz to sneak off and let the dragonling out, but he was curious, so he wandered over to see what the human was up to. Raff’s stone had a series of marks carved into it, and Kaz frowned, wondering why the markings seemed familiar. Then Raff shifted, Kaz moved to get out of the way, and his new perspective gave him the answer. It was the symbol for ‘fire’. Or close enough that he could read it, anyway. It was simpler than the one Katri had taught him, but the angle and curves of the lines seemed right.

Pointing, Kaz asked, “What is that?”

Raff looked up from where he was dressing the janjio. “A fire stone. Has the rune for fire carved on it. When I feed mana into it, it’ll produce a small fire. Enough to cook lunch, anyway.” He looked around. “What do you lot use for fuel down here, anyway? Or do you just eat your food raw?”

Kaz grimaced. “Some do. It’s more common in the top levels. Tribes stay there because they have few females, or their females aren’t very strong. Cooking the meat is one of the first things a female pup learns. Some pups can create fire with power alone, while others can only set a spark to a pile of moss or lichen, and then keep that flame burning while the food cooks. That’s smoky and smells bad, though, so if no pups can make a pure fire, an adult will usually do it.”

“So, they don’t use runes?” Lianhua asked, and Kaz started. He hadn’t realized the female had joined them.

He shook his head. “Very few kobolds can read or write. Aunt Rega said most females can read in the Deep tribes, but up here it’s rare. If anyone in a tribe can read, it’s usually only the chief and her heir. But no one has anything to read, so it doesn’t matter.”

She tilted her head. “But you were carrying a book when you came back from fetching your tribe. I asked Katri if I could read it, and she said it was fragile, and only for the chief.”

“I offered to get it for you,” Gaoda said, coming up beside her. He was holding two steaming cups made of some material so fine it was nearly transparent.

Lianhua accepted one and lifted it to her nose, inhaling deeply. She looked pleased. “Longjing. My favorite.” She sipped, then exhaled in a long sigh, shoulders relaxing. “Lovely. Thank you, Chi Yincang.” She gave the silent human a smile, and Gaoda looked sour.

“I brought it to you,” he said.

“But you did none of the work,” Lianhua chided gently. “I do appreciate it, however.”

Looking slightly mollified, Gaoda nodded, but turned the conversation back to the topic Lianhua had neatly avoided. “Do you want me to take the book when we return?”

Lianhua’s lips tightened, and she set the bottom of her cup in the palm of her other hand. “No, Gaoda Xiang, I do not. We are visitors in these people’s land, and we should behave as such.” Seeing the look on his face, she added, “Besides, my interest was purely academic. What do you suppose kobolds write about?”

Raff and Gaoda both snorted, and Gaoda glared at the warrior, who shrugged and turned away. “Nothing,” Gaoda said. “Where monsters dwell, where to find food, and, perhaps, some kind of ancestry, if they even care about such things. Nothing seems to matter to them except power and territory, from what I’ve seen.”

Lianhua’s amethyst eyes slid away from his. “And that’s so different from us?” she murmured, hiding the words behind the rim of her cup. She sipped slowly, then looked back at Kaz. “So male kobolds don’t learn to read at all?”

He shook his head. It was true; male kobolds didn’t, just one male kobold in particular. Him. And not much, apparently.

The female’s eyes suddenly brightened, and she asked, “Would you like to?” When he just stared at her, she clarified, “Learn to read? I can teach you.”

“Cousin!” Gaoda said, clearly shocked. “He’s little more than a savage! A monster, however well he speaks. I know you can be a bit eccentric, but-”

“I can,” Lianhua said, still watching Kaz. “And if I am allowed to become a scholar, I will be sent to learn and teach in far-off lands. Should I not practice now?”

“You won’t-” Gaoda began, but stopped, clearing his throat. “Do as you will, cousin. I deny you nothing.”

Lianhua’s lips curved in a humorless smile. “Thank you for your kind permission, Gaoda Xiang.”

He winced.

Lianhua held out her cup, which was still half full, and Chi Yincang accepted it. At their feet, a woosh announced that Raff had started the fire, and Kaz looked down, jerked from the haze that had fallen over him at Lianhua’s words.

Would you like to learn to read? As if it were so simple.

He had nothing to read. There were no books, no scrolls, not even a sheet of vellum anywhere except in the chief’s book. When kobolds needed to communicate, they used rough sketches, drawn on the walls with chalk. There was no pattern to them, no sameness, just a sketch of the beast or plant, the quality and complexity of which changed with the creator. Plus, a male learning to read was like a fuergar with two tails: unnecessary and unnatural.

Yet somehow, since the day he saw Katri curled up beside their mother, her shoulder pressed against Oda’s side as she traced out the complex symbols in the open book before them, Kaz had wished he, too, could learn. Without a doubt, it had begun as a simple desire to share in the closeness between the pair, but Kaz had always had an urge to know, to explore, to learn as much as he could about absolutely everything, whether he was supposed to or not.

“Yes,” he said. Looking up, he said it again. “Yes. I would like to learn to read.”

The female’s smile was the brightest he had seen her make since the very first time he saw her, peering around Raff’s back, excited and eager to see what lay inside the mountain. “Good.” She looked at Raff, who had spitted one of the cleaned janjio on his sword and was slowly spinning it over the small fire. “Half an hour?”

He eyed the meat critically. “About that.”

Nodding, Lianhua turned to Kaz. “Let’s go find a quiet spot.”

Gaoda held up a hand. “I’ll go with you. You shouldn’t be alone with a kobold. What if he turns on you?”

She laughed. Holding a hand at shoulder height, she said, “He’s this big, and I’m a cultivator. What do you think he’s going to do to me?”

“You’re not a body cultivator, cousin, and-”

“No,” she said, firmly. “He doesn’t need you staring at him, judging him. He won’t hurt me.” She looked at Kaz. “Will you?”

He shook his head vigorously. She was right. He probably couldn’t injure her if he tried. Plus, she was going to teach him to read. Read! And who knew what else she might be willing to teach, if he asked?

“Good. Raff, call us when the food is done.”

The warrior grunted an affirmative, and Lianhua took a step, then paused. Glancing back at Gaoda, she said, “And don’t send Chi Yincang after us. I’ll know.”

Gaoda’s lip raised in a small snarl, but he nodded.

Lianhua turned back to Kaz. “Let’s go back down the tunnel a bit, all right? We know it’s safe, since we just came from there. Would that work?”

He nodded.

Without further discussion, Lianhua strode off back down the tunnel, which curved sharply to the left. After a few yards, she paused, glared at a particularly dense patch of shadow, then nodded. As they walked a little further, she murmured, “I knew Gaoda wouldn’t listen.”

They came to a small formation of short stalagmites. The corresponding stalactites had been broken off at some point, probably so a lopo couldn’t use them as camouflage, so when Lianhua sat on the ground behind them, her face was mostly visible above and in between their pointed tips, but her lower half was completely hidden. Kaz circled around the stalagmites and joined her, though his tail ached a bit from hitting the ground when he’d fallen from Raff’s back earlier.

The female sent a look down the tunnel, toward the place the males waited. Kaz was just able to see that Gaoda was glaring fiercely in their direction, a scowl twisting his face. Lianhua snorted, just a little, then turned back to Kaz and leaned forward.

Reaching into the pouch at her waist, she pulled out the cleanest, whitest stick of chalk Kaz had ever seen. It was a smooth stick; cut, rather than made of rough stone, but when she drew the first stroke on the stone between them, Kaz had no doubt what it was.

“Usually, the first word a student learns is their own name,” she said. “But I’m going to start you off with a different one.”

Kaz watched as one line joined another. She formed a symbol with quick, practiced movements. When she was done, she looked up at him, then her eyes drifted over his shoulder, coming to rest on the top of his pack.

“This,” Lianhua told him, “is the rune for ‘dragon’.”