The first order of business was getting Pilla back to the den. She had managed to pull the zhiwu jaws from her leg, but her long fur was matted with blood, and her body shook with tremors every few minutes. Still, she insisted on walking, and Lianhua refused to leave her behind, which meant they all had to make their way through the tunnels at Pilla’s limping speed.
The first sign of trouble came a short distance from the den, when Kaz’s sensitive ears picked up the distinct sound of raised voices. A deep male voice was actually arguing with a female, and that was a very, very bad sign. Females gave orders, and males obeyed. The only time that fundamental rule was broken was when the male in question believed that the disagreement was worth losing his life over.
Soon, Pilla’s ears pricked up, though their length made it more difficult to tell than with the more common pointed ears. She stopped and turned to Lianhua. Lifting her arms, she said, “Will you carry me? Just to the entrance of the den. Speed is more important than my pride.”
Lianhua looked startled but complied, scooping the little chief into her arms. In silent agreement, the whole group began to hurry, though Kaz soon took the lead, since the humans almost immediately took a wrong turn.
The tunnels were empty, and when they turned the last corner, they saw that even the entrance to the den stood unguarded. By now, the voices were clear enough that they could all hear and understand.
“As the new chief, I order you to come with us! Pilla and the humans must be dead or fled by now, but they clearly managed to delay the zhiwu enough to give us time to run. We’re strong, and we can easily-”
“My orders are to protect the den and the pups. The males will stay.” The growling voice was distinctive. Bek’s tone was flat and absolute.
A sharp bark of laughter answered him. “Not all of them. You males! Golik is your new leader! Move out of the way so we can take the pups, and I won’t have to kill you all.”
Pilla pulled at Lianhua’s arm. “Put me down.”
Lianhua complied, and as soon as Pilla’s paws touched the ground, she was off, barely limping in her urgency. Everyone else followed her as she wound between empty huts. Not a single kobold was visible until they passed through a narrow, easily defensible tunnel, emerging into an open cave.
The cave was large, with a high ceiling, but it seemed small with what looked like most of the tribe crowded into it. Two more tunnels branched away from the open space, and ten or eleven males stood blocking the entrance to one. They were mostly older, though a few were young, probably the pups of the older ones, and all held their clubs in upraised fists. Some looked uncertain, but not Bek.
The rugged male stood before Litz, glaring at her with cold, pale blue eyes. The dense ruff around his throat stood up, the only sign of his agitation, framing his broad muzzle and head. As soon as Pilla entered, a slight, triumphant smile touched his mouth, only to vanish a moment later.
Raising his club to point at his chief, he said, “Here is my chief. Why don’t you ask her what she thinks?”
Litz whirled, the ki bolt she’d been gathering vanishing into nothingness. Her jaw dropped, and she stared at Pilla for a long moment before visibly pulling herself together.
“Sister! I thought you were dead!” she exclaimed. Several of the kobolds arrayed behind her shifted, leaning subtly further away.
Pilla’s lip lifted. “Clearly, I’m not. I defeated the zhiwu, and return to find a rebellion in progress?”
Litz attempted a conciliatory tone. “So much time has passed. I thought you dead, and simply hoped to save what I could of our tribe. I’m glad to see that my caution was unnecessary.”
Pilla ignored her, crossing to Bek. She tried not to limp, but the slowness of her step and the blood in her fur gave her injury away.
Litz’s eyes locked on the wound, and Kaz could tell she hadn’t missed the tremors caused by the remnants of the poison, either. Her lip lifted in a sneer.
“Sister,” The squat brown female said, “you’re hurt.”
Pilla halted, now standing between Bek and Litz. The male shifted, clearly ready to defend his chief, though he didn’t try to step in front of her.
“Not too hurt to defend my tribe,” Pilla said, and her shield snapped into place around her. She had been injured, but she’d also been able to recover her ki while the others fought, and the long, slow trek back to the den had given her still more time.
Litz bared her teeth, and she looked around at the gathered tribe. “I declare challenge. Pilla is too weak to protect us, and unwilling to take the hard road to restore our honor.”
Heads nodded, and a few females fell in behind her, along with their mates. Golik stepped up so he was right beside her. Many more kobolds looked uncertain, however, and a few females even crossed over to Pilla’s side. Kaz saw one grayish-purple female briefly brush Bek’s hand as she went by, and Bek’s expression softened slightly as his eyes followed her.
“I’m more than strong enough,” Pilla said, raising her voice so it was clear she was speaking to everyone. “The ways of the upper levels are not those of the mid, and we must change so we can grow. You know we can’t go back, so we must go forward. If I must prove my strength so we can go down the tunnel ahead together, so be it.”
A few more heads nodded, and one more female stepped over to Pilla’s side, to the clear dismay of a purple-red male, who reluctantly joined her. Other kobolds stepped away from both groups, unwilling to take a side.
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Lianhua shifted, and Kaz reached out, laying his hand on her arm, though Gaoda glared at him for his temerity.
“She has to do this on her own,” Kaz said softly. “If you help, someone else will just challenge her after we leave.”
Pilla drew in a deep breath, meeting Litz’s eyes as she saw that no one else would be joining her. “I accept your challenge.”
And that was it. Shields shimmered into place around the females, while the males charged at each other, clubs swinging and teeth bared. Bek remained by Pilla’s side, defending instead of attacking, and his mate extended her shield, covering them both. This was unusual, since males were generally considered expendable, and Kaz wondered what had caused a female who clearly cared about her mate to take the opposite side in a challenge, even for a short time.
Ki bolts flew, splashing against shields. Kaz watched, fascinated, as cores flickered and flashed, and the females with the weakest cores were quickly reduced to using claws, teeth, and the small clubs at their waists. A few retreated, joining the rest of the watchers, who pulled away from them as if they were diseased.
Pilla’s core blazed bright, but so did her opponent’s. Litz threw one powerful bolt after another toward Pilla, and with each strike, Pilla’s shield weakened. Pilla returned the strikes one for one, though she trembled as she did so, and to Kaz’s eyes, her core was dimming more quickly than Litz’s.
Soon, Pilla was forced to shift her shield from a full dome to the directional one, and Kaz’s heart nearly stopped as Golik forced his way through the defenders and swung his club viciously at the chief’s unprotected side. Bek was there, though, and his club caught Golik’s, pushing it back and down. The two males focused on each other, and Bek’s mate was forced to drop the shield she’d built around the two of them as the males moved too far away from her.
Now, Kaz’s attention was torn between the two smaller battles within the larger one. Bek was clearly the more skilled fighter, but Golik was young and strong, and his greater height and reach allowed him to push the older male back. Meanwhile, Pilla, too, was struggling, her weak leg nearly giving way as she staggered back.
Growing frustrated at Bek’s continual parries, Golik let out a ferocious howl, lunging forward, intending to simply beat his way through the older kobold’s defenses. For an instant, this left him wide open, his arms lifted and his body moving inexorably forward.
Bek’s lip pulled back from his teeth in triumph, and he crouched, using his shorter height and his powerful arms to thrust his club up, into Golik’s abdomen. As it withdrew, Kaz could see that he had embedded several long fangs on the end of his club, so he could stab with it, instead of only placing sharp teeth on the sides, as most of the males had. Red poured from Golik’s belly, and the male toppled forward, a baffled look on his face.
A sudden commotion pulled Kaz’s attention from the scene, and he looked back toward Pilla, who had fallen to one knee, clutching her hands to her abdomen. She looked no bigger than a half-grown pup as Litz thrust a glowing hand toward her, but Kaz could see that Pilla’s shield was once again a complete dome, protecting her on all sides, thanks to the smaller space she now occupied.
Litz’s ki bolt headed straight forward, veering off at the last second to strike at Pilla’s side. It splashed harmlessly against the protective dome, which fell completely under the blow, though only Kaz could see that.
Before Litz could muster another strike, Pilla looked up, her brown eyes seeming to glow with red as she raised her hands. Kaz realized she had dropped her shield intentionally, mustering all of her strength for this final attack. A ki bolt hovered over her palms, and it stabbed forward, glowing brilliantly.
The blow hit Litz’s shield dead on, and Litz’s core flickered as she pulled her power to the front of her own shield, leaving her sides and back unprotected. Normally, this would have been a completely reasonable action, and one that the females were clearly trained to take as they felt themselves weakening.
But Pilla had spent a great deal of time with Lianhua over the last week, and three more ki bolts formed over her hands while Litz’s attention was focused on adjusting her shield. It was only a fraction of a second, but it was enough.
All three bolts flashed out simultaneously, and Litz scrambled to move her shield. She managed to block one, and Kaz heard Lianhua make a triumphant sound as the other two altered course, one slamming into Litz’s unprotected body, while the other struck her head. Litz let out a short yip of pain, then toppled, her fur burned away in two circles, revealing raw red flesh beneath.
The fighting ceased as everyone seemed to draw in a collective breath, all eyes on the fallen female. She groaned, then whimpered, trying to get back up, but soon it was clear that something inside her was damaged. She coughed forcefully, and blood stained the fur of her muzzle.
Everyone turned to look at Pilla, who stood tall - or as tall as she could - and stared back at them, meeting the eyes of each member of her tribe.
“I am chief!” she declared, and raised her muzzle, howling in triumph. Her supporters quickly joined in, with Bek’s raspy howl rising above the rest. It took only moments for those who had been undecided to join in, and slowly, even Litz’s adherents let out tired, defeated howls.
As the sound died down, Pilla looked around again. She pointed to those who had fought on Litz’s side, including the ones who had tried to rejoin the watching crowd. They fell in silently behind the quivering body of their leader, kneeling on the stone floor.
Pilla indicated the rest of the tribe. “The zhiwu are dead, and my challenger defeated. I declare a day of celebration! Retrieve your pups, and prepare a feast!”
Several kobolds came forward, and Bek and the others allowed them to pass down the tunnel beyond. They returned with whimpering pups clinging to them, or older pups trailing behind them, ears low and tails tucked between their legs. Bek’s mate led two identical pups by the hands, and Kaz realized why she and Bek had started out on opposite sides in the recent clash. If Pilla hadn’t returned, Bek would probably have been killed, but his mate would have lived to take care of their pups.
As the pups and the majority of the tribe left down the other two tunnels, Pilla, Bek, and a few others of Pilla’s supporters remained, watching the defeated kobolds warily. Kaz wondered what they would do.
Pilla walked among the kneeling kobolds, touching some on their shoulders. Each one she touched hesitated, then stood, glancing at each other. Most of these were male, and they bowed their heads in submission. Everyone ignored Litz, where she lay gasping on the stone floor.
When she was done, Pilla returned to the front and said, “I have won.”
Her tone was unconditional, and everyone standing nodded.
She continued. “You fought on the wrong side, and lost.”
More nods.
“Your lives are mine.”
Again, agreement.
Pilla sighed, and her voice was gentler as she said. “What my sister cannot admit is that our lives have changed. We can choose to be bitter, to yearn for what we lost, or we can embrace this change, and find a way to be strong within it. I choose to change, and if you can change with me, you may remain a part of the Copperstriker tribe. If not, you will return with my sister to the place she longs for… the mid-levels.”
Several kobolds swallowed hard, and some of those still kneeling began to whimper softly. All of the kobolds who’d been allowed to stand bowed even deeper, and each called out their new allegiance loudly. Pilla nodded in satisfaction, waving them away.
“Go, and tell the others that before we feast, we have one more duty. We must send those who wish to join our ancestors back to their cold embrace.”