by Colt, K. J.
The advantage didn’t last long. I crested the grave and let my bite lead the way, chomping and snapping at No-Kill’s hands and earning a punch on the snout for my trouble. We brawled unarmed, but that was going to change. Khavi scrambled for the blades strapped to No-Kill’s back, grabbing hold of the two-handed sword’s handle and yanking. No-Kill jerked around violently.
My teeth sank into No-Kill’s shoulder, and she jerked. I twisted my neck, tearing into gnomish skin and tasting coppery blood. We rolled around on the hard stone, claws and teeth and fists flying, until finally Khavi’s great strength combined with my good grip on her shoulder managed to get us the advantage. Khavi held one of No-Kill’s hands down, and I released my bite on her shoulder long enough to grasp her other hand.
With her limbs secured, No-Kill could only shriek in her own tongue, kicking repeatedly. The pain made it difficult to hold on, but I squeezed my claws into No-Kill’s skin, gripping her arms tight enough to hurt.
Khavi used his claws to slash the bonds on his blade and pulled it free of No-Kill’s backpack. No-Kill continued to struggle, and for a moment, I almost lost her hold on her.
Then she was staring down the business end of Khavi’s blade, and the fight went out of her.
“Let’s chop its filthy head off,” said Khavi, panting and gasping, black blood running freely from his swollen and bruised snout. He’d lost a tooth in his front row; painful, but it would grow back in a week or so. “The monster led us directly into a trap.”
“No kill!”
“Shut your mouth!” I snarled, squeezing No-Kill’s arms and digging my claws in. I turned to Khavi. “Look, we could just bypass the gnomes entirely and head to Ssarsdale. We don’t have to have anything to do with them at all.”
Khavi’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You can’t seriously be suggesting that we just walk on by, can you? These beasts destroyed Atikala, brought the stone down on our homes, killed tens of thousands of kobolds, and you’re suggesting that we just let them be? That we allow slaughter to go unpunished?”
I looked to the bloated and festering gnome bodies scattered around. “No, but I think these ones have paid the first installment of their debt. When we get to Ssarsdale, we’ll tell our cousins what happened, and they’ll rally their armies. The Ssarsdale kobolds have spellcasters, they have warriors and assassins—they’ll repay the loss of Atikalan blood a hundred fold. That’s a better way.”
Khavi jabbed his sword towards No-Kill, almost skewering her. “We can’t,” he said. “It doesn’t seem right. A handful of gnomes for tens of thousands? That’s bad comedy. We should at least pass by them, see if we can pick off another patrol or two, or maybe even more.”
No-Kill started kicking again. I bared my teeth, still stained with her blood, and the gnome stopped. “I want them all dead as much as you do,” I said, “but I think that Ssarsdale’s army is the best way to deal with it.” I risked rubbing my bruised side, glaring down at No-Kill. “Urgh. My whole body hurts.”
“You’re telling me,” said Khavi. “That water-thing packs a punch. I think I have bruises on my bruises.”
“I’m surprised you’re still upright.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m tough, remember?”
I had seen Khavi shrug off blows that would fell a lesser kobold, especially when his blood was boiling, but the way he held his sword limp was a worry to me. Beneath his thick scales he’d been bruised, quite heavily, although I didn’t think anything was broken. Khavi was in a bad way, running purely on fury and hate, but that would only last so long. We could neither throw ourselves at the gnomish settlement, nor make the dangerous trek to Ssarsdale in our current state. Thirst for revenge would only carry us so far.
“Let’s find a place to sleep,” I said. “Hole up for a day or two. Then we can make a decision about what we’re going to do. But first, cut these ropes off me. They burn my scales something fierce.”
Khavi obliged, and my relief was immediate. As Khavi tied No-Kill up, I let go, rubbing where the rope had burned me, several scales coming loose as I tried to sooth my injuries.
“No kill,” said No-Kill, the tremble in her voice returning.
I glared at her. “No promises.”
We half carried, half dragged the bruised, bitten, bleeding No-Kill until the stink of the gnomish dead was far behind us, then neither of us could stand it any longer. Khavi collapsed in a tunnel. As I stared at him the strength flowed out of me. I knew that we had to restrain No-Kill, but the weariness on the gnome’s face was clear. There was no fight left in her, and she just sprawled out face down on the stone, covered once again in body tears.
I knew that we should set watches, should keep a tight eye on our prisoner, and should learn from No-Kill’s treatment of me, but the exhaustion and battle fatigue was too much for both of us. Wordlessly, Khavi and I lay on the stone, letting our aching bodies recover. Moments later we were both fast asleep.
I did not know how long we lay on the cold stone, stretched out in an uncomfortable position and completely unguarded, but it was much later when my mind brought me back to the world. I had slept a dreamless sleep, one wrought of exhaustion, but I knew that the rest had done its work. The wellspring of my magic had recovered, perhaps not full to the brim, but better than last night. Propping myself up on stiff and sore elbows, I stretched out my hind legs and tail, my body chaffed from sleeping a night in mail. A glance down at my fingers and I saw that the broken nails had begun to fall out. Several of them lay on the stone, and the nubs of fresh claws were already growing.
No-Kill sat cross-legged in front of me, her bloodied shoulder wrapped in the tattered remnants of her sleeve, her eyes puffy and bruised. Our weapons laid before her feet.
“What do you want?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just kill us?”
No-Kill pointed to the weapons and back down the corridor they had come from. “Dig,” she said, but it didn’t carry the same weight, the same tone that it had before. This was a request, not an order. “Please.”
I eased myself to her knees, regarding the sitting gnome. “You want to bury the bodies of the gnomes, yes?”
“Dig,” No-Kill said again, then pointed to my blade. “Dig, and give.”
I understood. “Dig,” I walked over to Khavi. “Wake up.”
“Why?” Khavi groaned, his eyes flicking open. “It’s my shift already?”
I shook my head. “No shifts tonight.” I crouched down beside him, reaching out and touching his flank. “Listen, Khavi, I have a request of you.”
Khavi slowly sat up, glaring at No-Kill. “You want me to kill it for you, don’t you?”
Did he always think this way? Of killing and fighting? “No. I want you to help me bury the gnomes we killed, and do it properly before the scavengers get them.”
He scrunched up his face. “You…want to cover our trail? Are we being pursued?”
“No, I just want to give the gnomes a proper burial.”
Khavi’s disgust at the prospect was palpable. “Why?” he asked, his upper lip curling back in disgust. “What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s just something I want to do. I can’t explain why. Look, No-Kill could have just squashed you flat with that elemental, but she didn’t. She walked away from her home, her feet bleeding, because she wanted to go back to bury them. I think if we do this one thing, she’ll stop resisting.”
“Let it try,” snarled Khavi. “I’m getting sick of it anyway. I want to see what its guts look like.”
I tried something else. “Everything else aside, you’ve got to look at the bigger picture. Try to see it this way—that spider nearly killed us. The elemental nearly killed us. We don’t know what other surprises lay out beyond the mist since neither of us have been this high before. If we spent an hour putting some fey in the ground, then we might be able to secure No-Kill’s cooperation. A calm hostage is much easier to control and will serve our purposes much better.”
“I don’t like it,”
Khavi said, glaring at No-Kill again, “but you’re the patrol leader, and you’re the sorcerer. It’s your job to lead and mine to follow. If that’s what your orders are, then that’s what I’ll do.”
There was resentment in his voice. I was testing his loyalty, and perhaps I was testing it too far, but I knew that he would follow my orders. “Very well then,” he said after a length. “Let’s get it done. Then we can get back to killing.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN WE ARRIVED BACK AT the battle site, a swarm of six-inch bugs were crawling over the bodies, tearing at the exposed flesh with their pincers and slowly consuming them. They were Flesh-Cleaners, blind four-legged insects that feasted on flesh too small or too rotten for other predators. I chased them away with a spray of flame from my hand and all three of us set to work.
With our bodies rested and No-Kill’s help, the gnome corpses were buried quickly, their final resting place a mountain of rocks and dirt in the biggest of the tunnels. The sickly-sweet smell began to recede.
Once again No-Kill seemed more exhausted than the two of us. I gave No-Kill a few strips of glowbug meat from my haversack, much to Khavi’s chagrin. He stared daggers at our prisoner as she consumed the lion’s share of our meagre supplies. She didn’t seem to like the taste, though, which helped.
The grim business was finished, and we turned towards the gnomish settlement, No-Kill walking before us. Our weapons remained sheathed, although Khavi kept his claw resting on the hilt at all times. The route we took was different this time, through smaller, poorly maintained passages that were covered in dust.
The idea was strange to me and must have been strange to Khavi too. All kobold tunnels were either maintained to the common standard and well patrolled, irrespective of their use, or collapsed to prevent their use by our enemies. I couldn’t understand the thought process that would allow a race to be so lackadaisical with the defence of their community.
Their existence proved useful to us though. Based on my reckoning, the journey to the gnome settlement was shortened significantly.
I was glad for this, and glad No-Kill was cooperating with us, although every time she helpfully bypassed one of the gnomish traps or led us through a hidden side passage, I could feel Khavi’s rage building. He hated being shown up, hated not being right, and most of all, he hated taking orders from a gnome.
No-Kill took us to the wide passage to the underground stream. My instincts begged me not to approach the water again, but No-Kill waved for us to proceed.
We did, weapons in hand, and as we drew close, the water once again rose up to meet us. The elemental's body coalesced from the flow of the river, limbs made of bubbling water dripping onto the stone as it regarded Khavi and I impassively.
No-Kill said something in her own tongue and the monster relaxed, slowly sinking back down into the water like a wineskin with a hole in it, becoming one with the stream once again.
“Do you think it can still see us?” I asked, peering at the water.
“Maybe it’s a trap,” replied Khavi.
“It didn’t kill us before; it won’t now,” I said, a faint hint of exasperation creeping into my tone.
“No kill,” said No-Kill, pointing to the river and then to my backpack. I fished out the empty bug-container and handed it to her. Moving to the water, No-Kill leaned down and filled it with a single scoop, screwing on the lid and handing it back, beaming widely.
How could she be so friendly to us all of a sudden? Khavi hated her, but I could feel my resentment weaken. It was difficult to be angry and suspicious of someone who was so cheery.
At least we had water again. I worried, though, if some part of the elemental was inside the bottle, and what might happen to my insides if I drank it. Would the creature burst out from within me? Would my body absorb it and take control of my very blood, using my vital fluids as the new carrier for its spirit?
Sometimes knowledge of magic can be a scary thing indeed. At times like these I envied Khavi with his much more simple thought processes and outlook on life.
Khavi snatched the hollow glowbug from No-Kill’s hands, growling angrily. “Well, at least it replaced what it drank,” he said, unscrewing the top and sniffing within. He regarded the water with the same caution one might give to a vial of poison.
Perhaps he and I thought more alike than I had guessed. Khavi gave the bottle’s contents another suspicious sniff, then he dipped a claw and tasted it, rolling the drop around on his tongue. Unable to find anything immediately wrong he screwed the top back on and thrust it to me. “Bah.”
“It’s water,” I said.
“What if it put the water monster in the bottle?”
I was reluctant to let Khavi know I was thinking the same thing, so I just replaced it back in my backpack. “It’s twenty kobolds tall. There’s no way it could fit in a tiny bottle.”
“Gnomish magic is built on deception. What if it’s a fragment of the monster?”
“Are you afraid of a water elemental the size of a glowbug? Look, if No-Kill wanted to smash us with the thing, she’s had ample opportunity to do so.”
“She?” asked Khavi questioningly, inclining his head. “You’ve been doing that for a while now. Monsters shouldn’t be addressed with such familiarity.”
“It is clearly female.”
He wrinkled his snout. “How can you tell? They all look alike to me.”
“Tzala told me that the females of the surface races have two squishy flesh-growths on their chests. That’s how you know they’re female.”
“What purpose would they serve?”
“Apparently they use them to nourish their young.”
“They allow their hatchlings to eat their own flesh?” Khavi shook his head and looked away, sticking his tongue out. “That’s vile.”
“They have their ways of raising children,” I said, although I immediately regretted bringing up the subject around Khavi. “And we have ours. It’s just how they are.”
“Well, at least we know it hasn’t spawned. It still has both.” He paused. “Maybe they grow back?”
That was likely. We continued on, leaving the sweet-smelling water behind us, once more walking through tunnels lined with the glowing crystalline growths.
The passage began to open, wider and wider, towards a faint purple glow—a dot at the end of a vast funnel. As we drew closer, the source became clear. An opaque wall of energy ran from floor to ceiling, thick and shimmering purple. A grid of arrow slits were carved into the tunnel walls, each approximately a kobold and a half’s height above the other and surrounded on either side by spear holes. Near the ceiling, more slits were spaced farther apart and the steel tips of ballista bolts poked, armed and ready to fire. Below our feet were grates designed to filter away poisonous gasses and flooding waters, others filled with a black liquid that smelled of flammable oil. Some were filled with arrays of darts, angled upwards in a wide cone, their tips wickedly sharp. My power felt faint, an unseen force suppressing my magic, silencing the inner roar of the dragons within my soul, a feeling that was amplified the closer I came to the end.
With every step down the long corridor, I expected to die. We were being toyed with; silent watchers waited to give the signal to kill.
We made it all the way to the end, closer to our enemies than, any others of our kind had ever done before. We stood outside the entrance to the gnome city, staring down the sights of enough arrows to repel an army ten thousand strong. Here we were, two tired and footsore kobolds and a gnome whose intentions were as opaque as the shimmering wall that stood between us and the city. We were nothing before the might of these fortifications.
Yet they did not kill us.
No-Kill gestured for us to put away our weapons. I did so, and as my rapier slid into its sheath, a sinking feeling grew in my belly. The ominously silent defences stared us down, hundreds of dark slits mocking us, mutely daring two reptilians to attack for the amusement of all. How did I ever think we had a hope
of succeeding?
No-Kill called something in her own tongue but received no reply. She turned to us and pointed to the floor. “No march,” she said, jabbing her finger at my feet, then towards the opaque shimmering wall. “No march. Kobold die. No march.”
“No march,” I echoed. No-Kill stepped through the purple wall and vanished.
Khavi exhaled a loud hissing sigh beside me. “Perhaps she is going to tell them to cut us down,” he said, his eyes darting from arrowslit to arrowslit, expecting to be shot at any moment. “We should have kept her in front of us as a shield.”
“I don’t see anyone at the ballistas,” I said, pointing to crossbows that stood without crew, their loaded bolts pointing beyond us to the entrance.
“Perhaps they are invisible. Our own defences use invisibility to confound our enemies.”
“It doesn’t make sense to use invisibility to mask the presence of siege engine crews. Our sorcerers could simply lob fireballs into the rooms. Being unable to be seen doesn’t mean you can’t be burned.”
“It’s a trick,” Khavi insisted, “some kind of wicked deception. Perhaps they intend to test our will?”
“To what purpose?”
“They saw us coming,” he reasoned. “The gnomes have much reason to fear us. Perhaps the weapon crews deserted.”
Khavi was so fixated on seeing danger that he couldn’t see the broader picture. What was odd about the gnomish defenses wasn’t that our enemies were waiting for the right time to pull some ingenious trick on us, it was that they didn’t seem to be waiting at all. “You think that dozens, possibly hundreds, of gnome defenders pissed themselves and ran because two kobolds approached their gates?”
“I don’t know what to think!” Khavi hissed, and snapped his jaws. “I just want them to get it over with! They should kill us already instead of drawing it out!”
The tip of one of the bolts gleamed in the crystal light. It seemed so sharp. “Do not wish for death so easily.”
