The exiled Copperstrikers had been sent this way less than a day before, and Kaz had half feared they might come across one or more of their bodies, fallen on the stairs. It wouldn’t be the first time, or the last. The stairs were a place of relative safety, since anyone using them was considered to be in neutral territory. If they attacked from the steps, they could be attacked in turn, but otherwise they were protected by centuries of unspoken agreement. That meant that kobolds who were denied permission to pass by the tribes both above and below sometimes suffered a slow and lonely death, leaving behind their remains as a silent warning to others.
The steps were clear, however, and to Kaz’s surprise, it seemed that the female Copperstrikers had even bothered to carry away Golik, though the last time Kaz had seen the other male, he had been too injured to walk on his own. Did they hope he would be able to recover, or were they exhibiting an almost unheard-of respect for a male, and planned to provide him with a proper pyre?
The question was answered when they reached the bottom of the stairs. There was Golik, his body sprawled deep into a broad patch of fulan. It looked like the females had used him as a path to cross the powdery rot, keeping it from getting on their paws. They would have been able to jump from his shoulders, avoiding most, if not all, of the fine particles.
Staring down into the hazy cavern, Kaz wondered if their horrifying but practical solution had actually helped. Fulan spores hung in the still air, and even if someone passing through managed not to step in it, causing an explosive burst of fresh powder to enter the air, it would still cover them within minutes.
Kaz held up a hand as the humans came up beside him. He heard Lianhua gasp softly, but the males didn’t react, other than Gaoda’s visible irritation.
Turning to look back at them, Kaz shook his head. “I’ve never seen fulan this bad. Once, we found a territory that had been abandoned because of an infestation, but everything inside had already died by then, so only small patches still remained.”
“What happens if we breathe… that?” Lianhua asked, waving at the hanging cloud.
“I don’t know. Females usually deal with fulan, because the heat produced by firemoss oil isn’t great enough to destroy it completely, at least not without using far more than would be reasonable.” He rubbed his ear before adding hesitantly, “Aunt Rega once went to take care of an unusually large stretch of it, and she had a bad cough for a very long time afterwards.”
Lianhua nodded, pulling her pen and the little book from her pouch and writing in it. “Potentially dangerous to both plants and animals, then.”
“Yes, I think so,” Kaz agreed, “but it might only be the ashes that are unsafe. We’ve eaten beasts that came from blighted areas before, and they seemed fine and caused no harm.”
She nodded again, her pen moving more quickly, and Gaoda rolled his eyes. “Cousin, I don’t know why you bother. No one cares about a fungus, or rot, or whatever-it-is that can only be found inside the part of Shensheng that nobody passes through if they can avoid it.”
Lianhua stiffened, but her pen didn’t stop. “They will once I prove that the Diushi lived here. Scholars, sages, archaeologists, and treasure hunters alike will flood this place, and they’ll need to know all the dangers.”
Kaz didn’t like the sound of that. He might need to ask the human female what she meant when he had an opportunity. For now, however, they just needed to get safely through the area ahead.
“We can hold our breath,” he offered dubiously. “If this cavern is the worst, then once we’re past, things will get better.”
“And if the whole area is like this?” Gaoda demanded. “That kobold said it had spread a day’s walk in any direction. What if the air is unbreathable that entire time? Can you hold your breath for a day?”
Kaz’s ears flattened, but he shook his head. He wasn’t actually sure what would happen if he focused his ki in his lungs. Would he be able to hold his breath for longer, or would he actually need to breathe more often in order to keep up with increased demand? It was something worth testing, but not at the moment.
Lianhua returned her book and pen to her pouch and stared down into the silent mist. “If females burn out fulan, then presumably Litz would know if it was dangerous. She and her group went through.”
Raff shrugged. “Not like they had much choice, eh? Go back up and be poked fulla holes by her sister, or go on and hope for th’ best.”
Sighing in resigned agreement, Lianhua nodded. “It’ll have to be masks and a shield, then.”
Kaz tilted his head, watching curiously as she dipped back into her bag, pulling out pieces of pure white cloth, one after another. They gleamed oddly, not like fuulong silk, but more like the reflective surface of her mirror.
Handing one to each of the males, Lianhua hesitated when she came to Kaz. “Can you, um, breathe only through your nose?” She clamped her mouth shut and her nostrils flared, as if Kaz might not understand what she meant.
Carefully keeping his amusement from his expression, Kaz nodded, and Lianhua tied the cloth around his muzzle, wrapping completely around his nose. He could talk as long as he kept the movements of his jaw small, and he was fairly certain he could open his jaw if he needed to bite something, but that would definitely make the cloth ‘mask’ fall off.
Kaz drew in a deep breath through his nose, and immediately noticed that the powerful scent of fulan had all but vanished. If he used some ki, he could just catch a whiff of the dusty, rotten smell, but the mask was impressively effective.
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Lianhua smiled tightly as she tied her own mask over the lower half of her face. “Sometimes assassins or kidnappers use a gas to poison or put their victim to sleep. Grandfather tends to worry, so he made sure I had these with me. They’re quite effective.”
Raff was turning his over in his hands, an expression on his face that Kaz hadn’t seen before. At Lianhua’s words, he looked up and snorted. “Effective, she says. This’s made from Spiritual Bamboo, if I’m not wrong, an’ I’m not. Can’t miss that luster.”
Gaoda’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re more knowledgeable than I expected, for a mercenary. Spiritual Bamboo is rarely exported from our Sheng Empire. The cloth is never sold, but only given as a gift by someone of high rank.”
Raff looked away, shrugging. “A merc meets a lot of different kinds o’ people. High an’ low, they all need protectin’ sometime.”
That explanation was obviously enough for Gaoda, but Kaz thought there was more to it than Raff wanted to tell them. Which was fine. Kaz didn’t care what secrets the human had, so long as they didn’t endanger him or Li.
Speaking of whom… Everyone had their masks on now except Li. Lianhua was holding the last piece of cloth and looking very awkward. Each time she extended it toward the little dragon, Li lifted her wings and hissed, making the human female draw back again.
“Just leave it, cousin,” Gaoda said. “We can use the thing to test how dangerous the spores actually are.”
Hot fury flushed through Kaz, but he forced it down, admitting to himself that if he’d had a real fuergar at that moment, it would be reasonable to use it exactly as Gaoda suggested. Not that he would ever risk Li like that.
Kaz took the heavy white cloth from Lianhua and reached up to grab Li. The dragon snapped half-heartedly at his fingers, but allowed the oversized cloth to be tied around her head and snout, where it promptly slid off again. It was too large, and the dragon’s nose too small.
He tried a few different ways of doing it, and even considered trying to cut a smaller piece from it, but finally just told Li to hush and made the cloth into a bag that he tied over her whole head and neck, using some of the developing spikes to anchor it in place. Understandably, she was very unhappy about this, but after a few exchanges of flashing images, Kaz managed to convince her that he would keep her safe, and remove the cloth as soon as possible. She finally settled against his neck with a sulky whistle, but he could feel her body trembling and knew that she was frightened of being so helpless.
Once they were all masked, Kaz started down the stairs again, but Lianhua caught his shoulder, staying him.
Gaoda sighed. “Do you really think a shield is necessary, cousin? It’s so draining.”
“Maybe not for you,” Lianhua answered, voice slightly muffled. “You’re late Tin Body, and Raff and Chi Yincang are both Iron. I just broke through to Tin, though, and Kaz has never refined at all. If the spores are dangerous, and the masks can’t filter them out, you’ll be explaining to Grandfather that you let me die because you didn’t want to have to meditate for a day to recover your ki.”
Gaoda’s brows drew together, but he spoke agreeably enough. “Well, of course that won’t happen, cousin. I simply thought individual shields might be enough.”
“Which would still leave Kaz and Raff out,” Lianhua said, and Gaoda shrugged, glancing away.
Decision apparently made, Gaoda, Lianhua, and Chi Yincang stepped closer to each other. Gaoda grasped Lianhua’s hand with an enthusiasm that made her start to flinch away, before Chi Yincang took both of their free hands with his usual stoic demeanor.
Kaz’s eyes widened as all three of them closed their eyes, the nodes of power in their abdomens spinning much more quickly. What had Lianhua called them? Dantians? Kaz stepped back as streams of mana condensed from the air around them, pulled into their dantians, which began to shine with the brilliant colors of ki.
Lianhua’s channels were flooded with gold, black, and hints of blue. Gaoda’s colors were gold and blue, while Chi Yincang held glowing white and impossibly luminescent black. Through their hands, their ki mingled, with Lianhua in the middle. She shared at least one color with each of the males, and once all the threads of ki were thoroughly entangled, she drew in a long, slow breath through her nose before releasing it, and their hands.
The power linking them snapped, and Gaoda staggered, his skin growing clammy and nearly as white as his mask. Chi Yincang’s eyes remained closed, and he continued breathing the same slow, deep breaths. Kaz could see the pale light in his dantians already beginning to recover. It probably helped that Lianhua had only taken his white ki, while she had both of Gaoda’s colors, leaving the other male completely drained.
Lianhua, on the other hand, looked brighter than Kaz had ever seen her. With her pale skin and white hair, she would have fit in among the Palefurs, if she grew more fur and a proper snout and ears. Now, though, her hair glistened with the power inside her, and her amethyst eyes seemed to blaze.
Reaching out, the female traced a rune in the air, trailing scintillating lines in the air that seemed to pull out the small sparks of ki that sometimes flickered among the undifferentiated mana in the air. As Lianhua’s finger dropped away, Kaz heard a soft whisper from behind her mask, and the rune flared even brighter, spreading and expanding until Lianhua and the area around her was completely surrounded by it, creating a dome that began a foot or so over her head, and ended at her ankles, with Lianhua standing in the center.
Done, she nodded. Gaoda immediately stepped closer to her, and Chi Yincang took a single step down, bringing him within the sphere as well. Lianhua sighed, looking over at Kaz and Raff.
“Come on,” she said, voice ringing, rich and full of power. “It covers five feet around me, and one foot above, so you may have to bend down a little, Raff.”
Raff had that expression again, the one he’d worn when he looked at the masks made from Spiritual Bamboo. He didn’t say anything, though, just stepped closer, ducking down awkwardly until his chin was nearly resting on Lianhua’s shining silver hair.
Kaz was the last to enter, more because of how close he’d have to come to the humans than because he was concerned about the strange bubble that now surrounded them. He could see the amount of ki Lianhua was pouring into the shield, however, and realized that even with the power Chi Yincang and Gaoda had given her, she would run out sooner, rather than later, so he needed to either join them, or tell Lianhua he’d take his chances with just the mask. If his decision would only have affected him, he might have chosen to stay out, but with Li on his shoulder, there was only one choice he could realistically make.
Pushing aside his reluctance, he stepped inside the bubble, feeling a strange shiver run through his core as he did so. He put out a hand as his legs grew weak, and, looking down, he realized that there was now a softly glowing cord leading from him to Lianhua. It wasn’t as solid as the one that connected him and the dragon, but it was definitely there. He wasn’t touching Lianhua, but the pull of her dantian was so strong that she was still drawing a little of each of her three colors from his body.
It seemed that if he wanted to remain within the safety of the shield, he would have to feed it as well. As long as he didn’t touch Lianhua, however, the drain wasn’t uncomfortable, and presumably having his help would allow her to maintain their sphere of protection for longer.
Giving in to the inevitable, Kaz turned and stepped down, with the rest of the group right behind him.