The Broken Knife

It took the Broken Knife tribe ten long years to go from the Deep to their final home, near the very top of the mountain. At first, their ascent was slow, and sometimes they spent months in one place, before Oda grew dissatisfied and challenged a deeper tribe. Inevitably, they lost, and were forced to flee to a higher level. Over time, as their tribe lost members to beasts and battles, they were unable to keep any territory where food and water were easy to find. As a result, someone had to explore further and further from the den to find good areas to forage, and that someone was often Kaz. More than any other kobold, Kaz knew the layout and dangers of each level on which they settled.

The Broken Knives had never lived on the same level as the Longtooth tribe. They settled into a small den on the outskirts of the Ironclaw tribe’s territory, which was one level deeper, and they had managed to stay there until Oda insulted the Ironclaw leader, and the other female threatened them with luegat, or, worse, vara, which would allow them to simply kill or capture the Broken Knives, without the honor of a formalized battle.

Even though the Broken Knives had crossed through this level only briefly, Kaz knew the way to a relatively easy passage down. It wasn’t far from the territory the Broken Knives had briefly controlled, but it was well outside the usual range of the Ironclaws, and there was another, only slightly more difficult, passage to the next deeper level only a little ways away.

For once, everything went well. Kaz led the humans through the winding, wild passages created by nature and monsters, sometimes smoothed out by kobolds, sometimes not. He discovered that Raff still liked to talk while they traveled, though not as much as he had when it was just the two of them. Gaoda walked beside Lianhua, often reaching out to help her over loose rocks, or around large obstacles. He tried to talk to her, too, but she usually gave him only one or two-word answers, until the conversation died down again, and Raff filled the silence with his muttering. Chi Yincang, on the other hand, was rarely even visible. Kaz was only certain the human was still around because he would occasionally catch a whiff of his faint, dusty scent.

None of them tried to talk to Kaz, and he was fine with that. He kept all of his senses wide open, wary of janjio or lanma lurking in the disused passages. It seemed that the Longtooths were doing a good job of keeping their territory clear, though, and they reached the craggy pit well before lunchtime.

Gaoda looked down into the darkness, a displeased expression on his face. “This is it? Raff said there are staircases.”

Kaz’s shoulders tensed. “Not always. Many of the old stairs are blocked or broken, and if they are intact, they’re always well-guarded, and usually deep inside the territory of a powerful tribe. This is a safe path, and we can use it without anyone taking offense.”

The human snorted. “As if they could injure us. Next time, if there are stairs, take us there.”

Kaz gritted his teeth. “They could injure me,” he said. “Which would leave you without a guide.” A blue one, at least, he thought. While he and his father hadn’t been the only blue-furred kobolds in the Deeps, he hadn’t seen another even close to his own color in years.

Gaoda looked stymied, but Lianhua nodded. She reached out and brushed Gaoda’s arm with the bare ends of her fingertips. She pulled them back just as quickly, but she already had Gaoda’s full attention.

“I think the kobold is right,” she said. “Plus, it’s fascinating to see all of these lesser-known passages. None of my charts show the ones we’re using, so mapping these will help anyone who comes after us. And we’re far more likely to find relics that haven’t yet been defiled this way.”

Sighing, Gaoda nodded. “As you wish, cousin. If you wish to return to the stairs at any time, simply tell me, however, and I’ll have this cur change course like that.” He snapped his fingers, and a spark flashed away from them, vanishing into the darkness.

“Yes, thank you, Gaoda,” Lianhua said, lowering her eyes. Kaz, who was constantly amazed by the way the female deferred to the male human, could only thank her in his mind.

Turning back to the hole, Kaz knelt down and reached into it, feeling around for… Something clinked softly, and cold metal warmed under his fingers. “Here,” he said, looking up to see the humans staring at him. “There’s a chain bolted into the stone. It’s not hard to climb down, just don’t let the links pinch your fingers.”

Gaoda and Raff moved to the edge of the hole, eyeing the heavy chain Kaz was touching. Each link was the size of Kaz’s palm, making it easy to slip your fingers in, and you could walk up and down the wall by bracing your back paws on it.

“How deep’s the pit, Blue?” Raff asked, thoughtfully. “I can’t even see th’ bottom.”

Kaz shrugged. “This is one of the longer drops. Some levels are only twenty or thirty feet apart, while others are several hundred. There are ledges carved out so you can rest every fifty feet or so, and there are four ledges.”

He remembered how difficult it had been for the smallest and weakest of the tribe to climb the chain when they had fled the Ironclaws. Kaz and a few others had to tie ropes around their waists so if a pup or elder fell, the stronger kobold could catch them. It had been a frightening and exhausting ordeal, even with the ledges to give them a break.

Raff grunted. “Too far to jump, then. Even for Chi. He’d probably make it, but he’d be pretty banged up.”

Kaz’s eyes widened. They could survive a drop of more than two hundred feet? Some of the warriors of the Deep tribes were incredibly powerful, but he thought even they would die instantly in a fall like that.

Gaoda’s eyes flicked to Chi Yincang, who stood, a silent shadow, at his shoulder. The other human didn’t react, but Gaoda nodded as if he had. “Fine, then. Chi Yincang, you go first. Then Blue, me, Lianhua, and Raff.”

Without another word, Chi Yincang leaned down, grasped the chain in one hand, and jumped into the pit. The chain was so long and heavy that it barely moved, the shifting links just sliding together with a metallic scrape, and then he was gone.

Kaz realized his mouth was open, and closed it with a click. The human hadn’t even bothered to brace his feet against the stone wall, and there was no way he was shifting his grip as he went. No, he was just allowing the links to slide through his hand, using friction to control the speed of his descent.

Gaoda nodded in satisfaction. “Chi Yincang will make sure the chain is intact, and scout ahead.” His gaze turned back to Kaz, and he waited expectantly.

Uncomfortable beneath the watching eyes, Kaz laid on his belly, swinging his legs out over the abyss. His rear claws scratched at the stone as he tried to find a crevice to brace himself, and then he shifted his grip to the chain. Once he was certain he had a firm grasp and at least a sliver of a foothold, he was ready to go.

Which was when a large hand grasped him by the back of his neck and heaved him up like he was a pup again. Kaz yelped and thrashed, but Raff just deposited him on his feet in front of Gaoda without even a grunt of effort.

“No,” Gaoda said. The human was frowning. “It’ll take all day to get down if you go like that. Raff, you carry him.”

Raff snorted. “How’m I supposed to do that? Tie him to my back?”

“If you have to,” Gaoda said. “Figure it out. I’m going. Lianhua, stay close to me, and I expect Raff to be right behind us. With the kobold.”

The gold-furred human leaned down and grasped the chain. He didn’t vault over the edge with quite the same lack of concern as Chi Yincang, but he also didn’t bother bracing himself anywhere near as carefully as Kaz had. Using his arms alone, he lowered himself hand over hand down the chain. His light illuminated his progress, and they all watched for a few seconds, at which point he was already fifteen or twenty feet down.

Lianhua sat down, swinging her legs over the edge of the pit. She closed her eyes, and Kaz almost jumped as he felt something shift inside her. Driven by curiosity, he pushed a hint of power into his eyes, and when he looked again, he saw the same kind of cycle in her that he had seen in himself and the hatchling. Her pathways were wider and clearer than either of theirs, but there was no doubt it was essentially the same. Instead of a core, however, she had a spinning mass of power in her belly.

As he watched, that mass contracted, pulling threads of gray, hazy energy from the air around her. As the energy entered the ball of power that she used as a core, threads of black and gold spun out of it, joining the current that traveled up along her backbone. Hints of murky white and red remained in her center, seemingly unable to be ‘digested’ through this process.

Gold light coruscated through the muscles of her arms, settling into the palms of her hands, which began to glow with a soft glimmer. Kaz released the power in his eyes, and with it, the light faded, leaving the human female looking exactly the same as she had when she sat down. She opened her eyes, reached down, and grasped the chain, flipping her body around to face the wall. She did use her feet to brace herself, but she still moved nearly as quickly as Gaoda, the chain sliding easily within her empowered grip.

Once Lianhua had vanished into the depths, Raff turned to Kaz. “Can you hang on, or do I really need to strap you down?” he asked.

Kaz eyed the large human’s thick neck, which was made even larger by the heavy metal protecting it. “I can hang on,” he said, though inside, he wasn’t so certain.

Raff knelt, dropping one shoulder slightly so Kaz could reach up and grasp it. Kaz set a paw on Raff’s knee, clambering up onto the human’s back, where he looped his arms around Raff’s neck, grasping his own wrists, rather than grabbing onto any part of the metal armor. His legs couldn’t even come close to wrapping around the human’s rib cage, so he carefully braced his back paws on the heavy leather belt wrapping Raff’s middle, and said, “I’m ready.”

Raff shrugged his shoulders once, then again, and Kaz clung tightly, imagining himself as one of the sturdy gray lichens that could often be found clinging to the walls in places with even a little bit of water. “All right then,” the human said, and Kaz could feel his voice rumbling in his chest. It was a strange sensation, and distracted him enough that he nearly missed the moment when Raff, too, pulled power from their surroundings. Including Kaz.

Kaz whimpered, nearly letting go, but he managed to hold on in spite of his suddenly trembling limbs. Raff didn’t seem to notice, just flipping himself out and around, his gloved hands wrapping completely around the large chain. Much like Chi Yincang, he allowed himself to slide down, only exerting enough pressure to prevent himself from free falling.

For Kaz, the drain on his core was like being stabbed over and over with a very fine needle, except that the needle was coming from inside him, rather than out. He tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t, and as close as he was to the human who was stealing strength from him, the pull was too fierce to resist.

Just when he thought he would have to cry out or let go, they slowed. Craning his neck, he realized that they had caught up with Lianhua, which reminded him of what the female had done before she started down.

Closing his eyes, he turned his vision inward, focusing on his core. Three threads led away from it now, two into his pack, and one into a disordered, roiling mass inside Raff. Strangely, instead of being in the human’s belly, this mass was in his chest, and instead of feeding the channels that ran up and down inside his body, it pushed power into his limbs in a diffuse haze. That haze was a solid gray, with only a few flickers of more distinct color flaring up like flashes of burning ash in a cloud of smoke.

The cord that led from Kaz to Raff was thick, but just as cloudy as the rest of the human’s energy. There were none of the bright, distinct colors that Lianhua, the dragon, and Kaz himself produced. In fact, it looked like Raff was taking Kaz’s colorful threads and shoving it all together to make a dirty, dingy mix, and Kaz wondered if the human had any idea that he was even doing it. And if he didn’t, would he notice if Kaz stopped allowing it? Was that even possible?

With that, Kaz tightened his focus. He watched the little streams of brilliant color that were being dragged out of his core, and he focused on redirecting them back into his own cycle. For a moment, they shifted, like trickles of water redirected into a larger current, but then Raff’s cloud pulled harder, tugging them back.

If he couldn’t control them all at once, what about one at a time? He focused on the smallest stream, which was a deep, sapphire blue. Pulling on its thread, he tried to wind it back into the flow going up toward his head, and, almost eagerly, it obeyed. Raff’s cloud didn’t seem to care about it, either, at least not that Kaz could tell.

The black and red threads were the next smallest, and Kaz pulled at them both. The black released as easily as the blue, but the red stubbornly continued flowing into Raff’s smoky cloud of energy. Giving up on that, Kaz tried the last two. The broad gold stream returned to Kaz as readily as the red seemed to cling to Raff, but the white was reluctant. Still, three out of the five were back where they were meant to be, so, encouraged, Kaz doubled his efforts to take back the red and white.

Which was when the flow stopped. As abruptly as it had begun, it ended, and the taut cords of red and white power snapped back into Kaz’s core, making him cry out and pull away from the stab of pain.

His hands loosened, and he fell.