by David Adams
“We travellers,” said the bow-man, and I felt—rather than saw—his grip on his arrow weaken.
I raised my shield in time. The arrow skipped off the top, barely missing my spines.
Their last mistake.
Three warriors advanced on me, blades ready, as the archer readied another shot. They were undisciplined but eager; their faces split into horrifying grins, hair bouncing around on their heads.
Despite their wounded and their dead, they were drunk on success. They had defeated a kobold patrol for the loss of only one of their own. And I was alone.
But I needed no one. I reached into myself, and I showed them something I had been practicing alone in the eastern tunnels.
I spat a word of arcane power, sucked away the flames, brought them into my mouth, and then closed them off.
The light returned to a comfortable level, illuminated by only the glowbugs. To the humans, though, it seemed as though they were suddenly blind.
They shouted to each other, their confidence gone. I walked right up to one. His eyes darted around, seeking the sound of my footsteps, and his blade swung blindly.
I didn’t even bother blocking; it was way over my head. When it passed, I neatly sliced his arm.
His blade clattered to the ground. The bowman fired, seeking the sound, the arrow finding his friend in the back.
“Idiot,” I said.
My voice drew all their eyes to me. Even the injured one. The bowman started firing wildly, shooting arrows in all directions.
One of the swordsmen, a female, pulled something out of her backpack. Two stones. She struck them together, and light flared on her torch as it lit.
It was fire they wanted, was it?
I spat the fire out of my mouth. A wall of fire sprung up between us, billowing and roaring, its heat pouring out towards the humans and obscuring them. I heard them shout in confusion and fear.
As well they should fear. I stepped forward into the roiling flames, smoke pouring out and obscuring the ceiling. The heat passed around my body like water.
The humans, however, raised their hands to shield their faces, stepping back.
As they retreated, I advanced, wreathed in flames. I lunged forward and stabbed the female human in the gut. As she slumped over, I twisted, avoiding her clumsy attempt to grab me. Her hair caught fire from the heat, and she let forth a panicked shriek.
I silenced her with a downward thrust.
“You think you can walk into Ssarsdale lands, into kobold lands, and kill with impunity?” I spat at the wide-eyed, retreating humans. “Monsters, that’s what you are!”
The farthest of them turned and ran. I summoned another wall of flame at the other side of the hallway, sealing away their escape route, took another step forward, and then pointed my rapier at the bandaged one’s throat.
“No,” he said, panic in his eyes, lips shaking so much they could barely form words. “No! No!”
I jabbed my blade under his chin and into his brain.
Two of them rushed in at once, roaring savagely. I deflected the clumsy strike with my shield, then parried the other and held it. The heat roared at my back. I took a step back; they could not follow.
“Curse you!” spat the swordsman. “Curse! Curse!”
I put my hands together and summoned a cone of flame, burning them both to cinders. Their bodies fell, writhing, and I casually stabbed them both as I advanced on the remaining two.
One ran, bent low, arms raised over his head, barreling towards the distant wall of fire. His legs thumped on the stone as he lowered his head, braving the heat.
He caught fire as he passed through, his hair, clothes, and leather armour igniting as he stumbled onto the other side. Screaming. Thrashing. Kicking.
“Wait,” said the last one, his Draconic slightly better than the first. He had to shout over the sound of his dying friend. “Stop! Stop!” He held out his sword, making a show of dropping it to the stone.
I didn’t care. I had no use for human prisoners. I summoned my wings of fire, taking flight, hovering up to his eye height.
Then the human did something I did not expect. He reached around behind him and withdrew a bundle of clothes with a face.
It was a tiny human. A tiny human who stared, wide eyed, at the flames, and at me. It didn’t seem frightened. It had bright yellow hair, just like the human that held it.
It was a human hatchling.
“Put that thing down,” I said. “Slowly.”
He did, slowly lowering the tiny human with care. On the other side of the wall, the screaming faded to pained moans. They were not the sounds of a person who would survive.
“Kill me,” said the human, his tone wavering. “Not my child.”
I fingered the hilt of my rapier carefully. The humans had to pay for what they had done, but what would I do with the human child? It would never be accepted in Ssarsdale. I couldn’t care for it, even if I knew how. I had no breasts for it to chew on and devour, not that I would feed anyone my own flesh willingly.
Humans were so strange.
The idea of feeding flesh—disgusting as it was—gave me an idea. The human had to pay. But there were other prices other than death.
“Pick up the child,” I said. “You may go, after you have paid for what you’ve done.”
The human, confused but relieved, scooped up the bundle of cloth and flesh at his feet. “I free? Child and I free?”
“After you’ve paid,” I said, and I slowly floated down to the ground. Cautiously I stepped towards him, aware of any trickery. “I must make sure that you do not run back to Northaven. Go south, and do not ever, ever, threaten me or my kind again.”
“South,” said the human, holding his child tightly. “Yes. How pay?”
“Kneel. And extend your sword hand.”
He knew where this was going. I could see it in his eyes.
“It’s your choice,” I said, hoping that he would choose sanity. What would I do with an infant human? “Choose.”
The human hugged his child. Hugged it long and hard, until I thought it might pop. Then, slowly, he extended his hand. The silver of the ring on his finger glinted yellow in the light of my flaming wings.
A slice of my rapier took his hand off at the wrist.
The human barely whimpered. The pain must have been intense, agonising, but he kept his composure.
I extended my hand, cast, and let flame sear the stump. His composure held.
Right on cue, the walls of fire winked out, one by one. I picked up the loose torch, handed it to the human, placing it into his remaining hand.
“Now go,” I said.
“Thank you,” said the human through teeth clenched in pain. “Thank you.”
The thanking was the worst of it. Guilt rose in my gut. I had done what I had needed to—that human would never swing a sword at a kobold again—but it seemed…cruel. Necessary and unnecessary. There had to be a better way.
“I wish you the best,” I said, and I genuinely meant it. “Take care of your child.”
He said nothing, looking at me. I felt I should say more. I had just taken his hand—I could not undo that—but…I felt, somehow, that I did not have to. It was right. It was justice.
If we were to liberate the surface, how much justice would I have to dispense? How many more hands would I have to take?
“Go,” I said, “before I change my mind.”
He stood, and cradling his child with his remaining hand, the severed stump of his other jammed under his arm pit, he left, staggering off into the gloom.
That left only the dying man, still smouldering, faint red embers burning in his skin. He still breathed. Still gasped for air with charred lungs.
It was pitiful to watch. Painful, even. His agony was painted all over his face.
There was nothing I could get from him. I ended his suffering the only way I could, with the blood-splattered point of my rapier.
The only thing left to do was to retr
ieve the rings from the fingers of the humans I had killed. My collection of these was small, but I had pledged to grow it, although as I held the eight bloodstained pieces of metal in my hand, I had to admit that it felt somewhat petty. Small.
Then—my bloodlust burned out—I turned, and I walked back the way I had come, to Ssarsdale.
CHAPTER III
I HAD A DAY TO myself, a day to rest and contemplate, and then I had to do my duty. A meeting with the council of elders.
Meeting. Worse than hot irons to the soles of my feet.
The council chambers were sparse and utilitarian, an oval chamber with stone walls and no windows. At the centre of the room was a huge table made of carved subterranean mushroom treated alchemically to harden it; the stalk of the plant it was taken from must have been fifteen feet in diameter.
I was late, so the council was already gathered. Everyone stared at me as I took my seat.
“Thank you for attending,” said Sirora, from the academe seat. Her arms were folded neatly in front of her, gaunt, and almost impossibly thin fingers curled around each other like a tangle of vines. “We were about to begin.”
“Beginning without me?” I asked, pulling my chair in close.
Sirora’s withered face grew into a shallow smile. “I know how forging magical items can drain one so,” she said, her voice like creaking leather. “As I said earlier, I feel our dear leader should have more than a day to rest after such exertion.”
I did ache, from the battle and the forging, but I would not show her. “I will endure,” I said, keeping as much strength in my voice as I could muster. “It takes more than this to kill me.”
Her empty eyes betrayed the utter lack of emotion beneath. “Of course,” Sirora said. She intertwined her fingers, each thin and boney.
Tzala, with an obvious attempt to deflect our banter, smiled to the table. “So. To business.”
Pergru, head of logistics and war, almost leapt out of his chair, his white scales harsh on the eyes and freshly polished. “Human aggression must be paid for in blood. The army continues to train, yes,” he said, his tongue clicking energetically. “We have the steel and the will; what we lack is experience, yes.”
He was too eager for my taste, too brutal, too willing to rush into war without planning. Despite this, I sympathised. One could not raise an army on training dummies.
“I will organise a sortie,” I said. “I agree that the army needs to be blooded. The humans need to be punished for what they have done.”
“When, yes?” he pressed, and then, as though remembering his place, he slowly settled back into his chair. “When should we expect to march, Leader?”
A hard question. “I must scout the surface,” I said. “I share your eagerness, Pergru, but I will not risk war with the humans without better knowing what we may face.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Tzala nodded approvingly, as did several others. Sirora and Pergru did not. Their eyes hid things from me.
“Send Darkguard?” Ilothika, the head of the Darkguard. Her hood almost hid her face, her cloak bearing the dragon-claw clasp of the Darkguard. She spoke the strange, compact variant of Draconic her assassins used to reduce echoes. I found it vaguely unsettling. “We find humans. Kill. Learn from bodies.”
Sirora narrowed her red eyes eagerly, looking to me. “The dead remember things; you know I can pry the secrets from their bones.”
“No,” I said. The memory of Friela’s skull crumbling to dust flashed back into my mind. “We are not butchers. The surfacers suffer under the heel of tyrants. Our goal is to free the people, not replace them with a greater tyranny.”
“But,” said Ilothika, “they kill us.”
It was hard to say, but I needed to convince them. “They strike out against what they don’t understand. I was held by humans once. They treated me well.”
“Ren is right,” said Tzala. “Our quest is a righteous one. We are not killers.”
“I am killer,” said Ilothika, matter-of-factly. It was true. Her magical abilities were equal only to her skill with the blade. Ilothika was like me—a spell caster and a warrior—but while I favoured open combat and steel armour, she was death in the night.
I did not trust Ilothika. Ever since Darkguard assassins had tried to kill me while I slept, I had always kept the Darkguard at arms length, except Valen of course.
I never did find out who sent the assassins. Ilothika had blamed Vrax; that seemed too convenient for me. The Darkguard would never move without their leader’s express permission. Much less three of them.
Yet I trusted her self-assessment. She was dangerous. That was undeniable.
“We have plenty of soldiers,” said Ushug, the head of domestic supplies. “Ssarsdale is smaller than Atikala was, but we have strength and power enough. War is a more than steel and assassins—warriors win battles, logistics wins wars. We can fight no one if we cannot feed ourselves.”
The memory of my destroyed hometown hurt.
“That is your job,” said Sirora, her tail flicking behind her, a snake curling around itself. “I busy myself not with the prattling of the food mongers.”
Ushug curled back her upper lip. “You will do well to consider what I say; even spellcasters can starve. Without support, you are a spear tip without a shaft. Useless.”
Their bickering was giving me a headache. “Enough,” I said, putting both my hands on the table and propping myself into a standing position. Everyone fell quiet, and their eyes turned on me. “Ushug is right. Our food supplies are significant, but not enough for a march on the surface. We cannot rely on the bounty of raided farms and settlements. We must provide our own.”
“I would hope,” said Tzala, “that you do not intend to steal the crops from innocent farmers.”
She had a good point. “I do not expect it will come to that. When they see that we are liberators, not conquerers, they will aid us willingly.”
My mother nibbled on her lower lip but said nothing. Her lack of confidence frustrated me.
I could not dwell on it, however. I turned to Yelora—head of the miners. Previously, this had been another’s position, but after her demise from some kind of misadventure, Yelora had stepped into the role. She was reading her spellbook and barely seemed to be paying attention.
“What do you say, Yelora?”
She did not immediately answer me, turning a page in her book and adjusting herself in her chair.
Almost all kobold spellcasters were sorcerers, but Yelora was not; she was a magus, a seamless blend of arcane and martial prowess. She gained her power not from magic in her blood, but as wizards did, from knowledge, practice, and study.
Finally, she put down her book. “I think this war is folly.”
The silence in the council chambers was palpable.
“I understand,” I said, keeping my tone even. “I do not expect Ssarsdale to follow an outsider so easily, especially on such short notice, and our foes are powerful, but we are a powerful in return. We have the potential to do good for those on the surface. When presented with such an opportunity, it is unethical to do nothing.”
She looked at me as she considered her words; I held her gaze until she looked away.
“As you wish, Leader,” she said, returning her attention to her book. “It will not be my head at risk. My charges will be safe in Ssarsdale.”
Pergru glared at Yelora and then looked back to me. “I agree with Ren; we have prepared enough, yes. Every day we wait we risk Contremulus finding us, yes?”
The very mention of my father’s name made my scales turn cold. The tip of my tail twitched, and I fought to control the fear that bubbled in my belly like frozen lava.
“His magical power is considerable,” I said, “as are the multitudinous skills of his many followers and lackeys. But we are deep underground. His scrying will have difficulty locating us, and we have not seen any indications of magical eyes upon Ssarsdale.”
Ushug ran her hand over the table,
her claw tips tracing the rings of the mushroom. “None of the section leaders have reported anything amiss.”
That was good enough for me. I sat back down.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, looking around the table at each of the members in turn.
Sirora. Tzala. Ilothika. Pergru. Ushug. Yelora. None of them voiced anything, but I could sense…something from each of them. A reluctance to speak that said a great deal.
Tzala was right. They did not truly support me. I needed to act in some way, even if it was small.
“Then,” I said, “I wish to put forward a motion to the council that we dispatch a scout to the surface.”
“I send assassin,” said Ilothika. “Scout. Slay. Return.” Her red eyes narrowed at me, and I did not believe, for a moment, that the Darkguard would be suitable for this task. “Give word and I send.”
That would never work. “No killing.”
“Then,” said Sirora, “I will send one of my apprentices. There are many valuable reagents on the surface; the visit can be dual purpose.”
I could only imagine what reagents Sirora might require for her work. Human skulls? Blood? Eyeballs?
“No,” I said, “no killing.”
“They would not die,” purred Sirora. A glowbug crawled onto the table, and she picked it up, examining its wiggling legs with detached curiosity. “The freshest pieces are cut from the living. We can retrieve a handful of surfacers and study their composition.”
I felt as though the purpose of this trip eluded them. “No killing,” I said again. It was becoming my mantra. “No dismembering. No abducting. No…anything.”
“Who send?” asked Ilothika.
There was only one answer. “I will go,” I said.
Sirora pursed her lips, showing a few of her teeth. “And how exactly did you plan to accomplish this? Darkguard are living shadows, my apprentices have their ways and means of slipping past the humans unnoticed…how do you intend to gather information about the surface without them gutting you like a glowbug?”
A question I did not have an answer to. “I am happy to take suggestions on this matter.” I pointedly looked at Sirora. “Especially from you. I am a spell caster, a sorcerer. Anything your apprentices can use, I am certain I can use as well.”
