“Oi,” Raff said. “These belong to you?” He shook the dangling kobolds, his voice as genial as ever, but his eyes were calculating as they watched Avli.
To Kaz’s surprise, Dett started to step between his future mate and the tall human, but Avli pressed her hand to his chest, holding him back. The Mithrilblade chief had looked as shocked as everyone else when Raff emerged with his captives, and now her eyes narrowed as she leaned in toward the males, taking a deep whiff of their scents.
“These aren’t Mithrilblades,” she said, reaching out to take hold of the necklace hanging around the neck of the unconscious male. Raff’s grip had pulled it taut, so it was partially hidden in the longish gray fur, but Avli simply pulled sharply, snapping the leather strip. Pulling off a metal bead shaped like a small knife, she held it up. “This is one of our tribe beads, but I don’t recognize either of these males, and they don’t smell like our dens.”
Kaz wondered what a Mithrilblade smelled like. He had never really thought of a tribe having a particular smell, but now he drew in a deep breath, and the scent of hot metal and fire instantly filled his nose. He didn’t know how he had missed it, but now that he’d noticed, he wondered if each section of the city, or perhaps each of the great tribes, really had their own distinct aroma.
Leaning closer, his nose nearly touched the fur of the closest male, and he sniffed. Every kobold did have their own unique scent, and this one was no different, but what he didn’t smell was more important. The ambient aroma of metal and heat was there, but only as much as it was probably on all of them now that they had spent some time in the Mithrilblades’ section of the city.
He shook his head, looking at Lianhua. “I think she’s right. He doesn’t smell like-” At a loss for how to explain it to a human, he simply waved his hand, indicating the metal decorations everywhere around them.
On his shoulder, Li sniffed, then sniffed again, disdainfully this time.
Kaz was certain that the dragon had only just noticed the scent as well, but he didn’t reply, instead gesturing to the second gray kobold, whose thrashing had gone from desperate to weak. “We need to find out why they were here,” he said, and Raff glanced at Lianhua, who nodded.
Almost reluctantly, Raff let the males’ paws touch the ground, and the conscious one immediately let out a gasp, while the other continued to slump until Raff was finally forced to release him. Dett was on this one instantly, pinning him with a knee in his back before looking up at Avli with bright eyes and pricked ears. She wagged her tail gently, and Dett puffed up with pride.
Lianhua took one of the mithril blades she’d traded her cloth for out of her pouch, and almost gently pressed it against the underside of the remaining male’s jaw. His muzzle lifted, white showing around his eyes as he whimpered quietly.
“Who sent you?” Lianhua asked, using her greater height to loom over the kobold, though it wasn’t as effective as it might have been with Raff right beside her, doing a much better impression of a wall.
The male’s eyes flicked from side to side, desperately searching for some escape, then jerked his head forward. If Lianhua’s reflexes hadn’t been enhanced by ki, he would have managed to spit himself on her sharp, narrow weapon, leaving them with only one significantly damaged potential informant. Fortunately, she managed to pull back her weapon in time, resulting in nothing more than a thin trickle of blood trailing down her blade.
Lianhua’s lips pressed together, and Kaz knew her well enough by now to recognize the unhappiness in her eyes, but her hand didn’t waver as she lowered her knife. “Clearly, he doesn’t want to talk,” she said. “Ideas?”
Avli shook her head, but Kaz frowned, looking more closely at the male’s throat. Specifically, through his throat, to where Raff was gripping his scruff.
“Raff, can you let go, or at least,” Kaz waved at the gloved hand, “shift your grip?”
Raff’s brows lifted, but he complied, and Kaz’s hands darted out, grabbing the male’s heavy ruff with one hand, and his muzzle with the other. Holding the jaws shut was easy enough now, in spite of the other male’s growling efforts to bite him, and Kaz’s fingers closed around something beneath the skin of his neck. Pinching it, he looked over at Lianhua.
“Could you cut the skin? Just here.”
Lianhua looked fascinated as she saw that the fur was stretched across a round object hidden beneath the kobold’s skin, and she made a fast, shallow slice which allowed a bloody bead to emerge from the flesh. Unfortunately, the moment it did, a loud crack filled the air, and a pulse of power pushed everyone back as light flared.
Kaz was sent back a few paces, his hand stinging, and Li whistled, clinging to him tightly, but Lianhua nearly fell down. Only Chi Yincang’s sudden appearance prevented her posterior from impacting the ground, as the male stepped between Lianhua and the small explosion, blocking the worst of it and the resulting debris even as he lifted the female into his arms. Kaz and Raff took the worst of it, since their hands were only a few inches away, and when Kaz managed to focus again, he saw Raff shaking his hand and grimacing. His glove was in shreds, and his fingers were covered in blood.
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“Pellis’ frigid nuggets, that hurt!” he yelped, wiping his hand on his clothes. “What happened?”
Kaz looked down at the remains of the gray kobold, then over at Dett, who was sprawled out on top of the second captive, eyes wide and covered in gore. “I didn’t have much time,” Kaz admitted. “But it looked like a ki crystal with something carved on it. Not a particularly strong stone, but,” he lifted a lip at the smells now overriding the previous odor of hot metal, “strong enough, obviously.”
Avli ignored the red spatters on her soft white fur, and helped Dett to his paws, checking him over for injury. The second gray male remained in place, utterly unaware of his former partner’s fate.
Kaz knelt beside him, gingerly rolling his head to the side and feeling beneath the skin of his neck until he found another small bead. Through the skin, this one glowed a soft gold, slightly brighter than the one that Kaz and Lianhua had removed. Did that mean it was newer? Or had it just started out with a little more power?
Leaning forward, he stared at it, trying to see if he could tell anything else about it through the layer of skin and fur. Finally, he sat back, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it is, or why it’s there.”
Raff was massaging his injured hand, but Kaz was relieved to see that the blood hadn’t been his. His thumb looked like it was changing color, the brown skin turning a darker shade, but otherwise it didn’t look like he’d taken any real injury. His armor had a fresh dent in it, however, and it would definitely need to be cleaned.
“Kept ‘im from being able to talk,” Raff said thoughtfully. “Wonder if it woulda done that even if we hadn’t cut it out. I’ve heard of some spies havin’ something like that. Gotta knock ‘em out and get ‘em in a room where magic is blocked before you try interrogating them, or they just… boof.” He made an expressive gesture, and everyone grimaced.
Kaz started to say that he hadn’t felt anything in particular from the crystal before it exploded - no energy entering it from the outside as if controlling it - but held his tongue. He didn’t want to explain to everyone how he knew, so instead he just met Lianhua’s eyes and shook his head.
“I didn’t sense anything before it went off,” Lianhua said promptly. “So I think it just happened because I cut it out. Should we wait until this one wakes up and try again?”
Everyone looked at her, shocked, and her eyes widened as she held up her hands. “Asking questions, not cutting out the crystal.” She slanted a glance at Kaz. “Though maybe we can figure out a way to prevent the explosion if we think hard enough.”
Avli still had her arm wrapped around her shorter mate’s shoulders, and she looked between Dett and Lianhua, clearly indecisive. Dett was shivering slightly, and desperately needed a bath. Finally, Avli said, “I’ll leave some guards here with you, but I think I should take Dett to my - our - hut. Would you like me to take this one away?” Beneath her pale fur, the skin of her ears turned bright pink, but she ignored it, nudging the fallen kobold with her paw.
Lianhua shook her head, then looked around at the gory scene. The explosion hadn’t been enough to do much damage, really, but there was still a good deal of blood and other things sprayed everywhere.
“Someone obviously knew exactly where we were going, and this place is… not as pleasant as it was before. Do you have somewhere else we can rest and clean up?” she asked.
Nodding, Avli gestured to one of the females who had been discreetly trailing them since they entered the city. “Tiga, guide them to the building for human helpers.”
Avli looked back at Lianhua and the others. “When humans come to trade for gold and gems, they often have other humans of lower rank with them. Some of them don’t like to sleep in the same hut as their lessers, so we have another building for them. It’s actually closer to the center of the city, where all of the tribes come together at the chaoxue.”
Lianhua tilted her head. “Is that what you call the plaza?” She drew a circle in the air. “The open area in the middle of the city?”
Avli nodded again, then looked down again as Dett shivered again. She drew him closer protectively, and looked at Tiga. “Show them the way, then stay until I send someone to relieve you. Don’t let anyone enter the hut without the humans’ permission.”
“Yes, Avli,” Tiga murmured, bowing slightly. She glanced at the two males behind her and nodded to the one with a large uncut diamond that matched the one on her own necklace. “Narg, bring the intruder.”
Narg, a short but solidly built male with silvery gray fur, stepped up and reached for the surviving male still sprawled on the floor. Raff swooped in and picked up the intruder instead, swinging him easily across one broad shoulder.
“Nah, I got this,” Raff said. “You show us the way. Even I have to admit I need a bath, an’ we’ll get where we’re goin’ sooner if you’re not haulin’ someone almost as big as you.” He gave the Mithrilblades one of his carefree grins, but Kaz suspected that Raff actually didn’t want to chance the intruder waking up and escaping. While Raff had him, they could all be certain that the male was completely under control. Of course, if he did explode, he was right next to Raff’s head, but Kaz didn’t think an explosion so small would manage to kill the large human, even at such close proximity.
Avli gave a short gesture of agreement, then led Dett back the way they’d come, already beginning to lick the little male’s fur clean. It was a terribly embarrassing thing to do in public, especially since they weren’t even officially mates yet, but Avli was chief of a great tribe, so Kaz very much doubted anyone would say anything.
“This way,” Tiga said, nodding to Lianhua respectfully. She even included Kaz and the other males in the gesture, and Kaz was once again surprised by how different the Deep, or at least the Mithrilblades, were from his own tribe.
Everyone fell in behind her, and Kaz sighed, preparing himself for one more short trip before he could rest.