The large meeting hut in the center of the Goldcoat den was packed. Raff was so large that he had to be sent out, though Chi Yincang refused to leave so long as Lianhua remained inside. Lianhua, for her part, was absolutely determined to stay as long as Kaz did, and Kaz couldn’t leave, no matter how much he wanted to.
Besides Kaz and the two humans, there were fourteen other kobolds, all shifting uneasily and casting suspicious or angry glances at each other. Idla stood on one side, along with Berin, Senge, and their mother, Tezne, who had finally returned from battling the fulan-created monster who managed to reach the Deep. Across from them, Ija and Sika seemed to be erect only through sheer force of will. Ija’s father, Rudu, was the only male kobold present other than Kaz, and the pink-furred puppy, Kyla, huddled against his side.
Not far from Idla was Tisdi, the chief of the Waveblades. She was about the same age as Idla and Vega, but everything about her was black. Her dark fur didn’t reveal a hint of white or silver, to the point that Kaz had caught himself wondering if she dyed it. She almost certainly did dye or paint her claws, because Kaz had never seen any that weren’t white or yellow before. Her ebony eyes had to be entirely natural, however, and only her teeth and the whites of her eyes revealed that she wasn’t a kobold-shaped patch of darkness.
Given the way she looked, Kaz had expected her to be silent to the point of being taciturn, but instead she was currently serving as peacemaker. Her light, soft voice somehow overrode the angry growls that had risen more than once during the explanation of the past day’s events, and her dark eyes were always mild, even when she glanced toward the Magmablades.
Tisdi was accompanied by two other females, one about Kaz’s age, who was probably her successor, and another whose age Kaz couldn’t pin down, but whose dark core burned fiercely. Both of these had the black-painted claws, but the daughter’s fur was a natural deep gray, while the third female had black fur with a wide white stripe that traveled from her nose, down her back, all the way to the tip of her tail.
The final contingent was made up of three Mithrilblades, but their chief seemed unsettled in a way none of the other females were. Her name was Avli, and she was young enough to be Idla or Tisdi’s daughter. The other two great chiefs treated her like a child who was there to learn, rather than an equal partner, and she hadn’t spoken a word since she was introduced.
More interesting to Kaz was what was going on inside this female’s belly. Her core was a wild mass of ki, and while it seemed to be entirely white, it was like watching a battle between moonstone and white dolomite. The dolomite was soft, almost fuzzy around the edges, while the moonstone shone with crystal clear brilliance. Again and again, Kaz found his attention being drawn back to Avli, who looked more than a little sick.
“Kaz is Ghazt’s pup, which means he’s not only a true Woodblade, but the rightful chief of the tribe!” Ija insisted, drawing Kaz’s attention back to the current argument raging between the chiefs. He winced, hating that he was involved at all, much less that Ija seemed determined to make him a chief. Unfortunately, this was the one thing she and Idla agreed on, though the Goldblade refused to believe Rega was Kaz’s mother, no matter what Ija and Sika said.
“I remember young Ghazt, but he died without taking a mate,” Idla said stubbornly. “Kaz must be one of the pups who escaped the Woodblade den the night it burned, and Oda somehow stole him away. He is certainly a Woodblade, but there is no way he has Magmablade blood in him!”
Apparently, when a new tribe was created - or an old one resurrected, as in this case - the chief could select the new tribe’s members from among their old one. Old chief and new worked together to choose, making sure to leave both tribes with enough members to continue and grow. In this case, Ija was arguing that because Kaz had been born to a Magmablade female, that meant he should select his new tribe members from among the Magmablades. Or, more accurately, he should claim all of the Magmablades.
Idla, on the other hand, said that Kaz must be a pureblooded Woodblade, and they had many cousins among the Waveblades and Goldblades who would be happy to be part of the formation of a new tribe of Woodblades.
Kaz had repeatedly informed the Goldblade chief that he was certain Ghazt was his father, and Ghazt had been very much alive when he left the Deep with the Broken Knives, but she brushed his claims aside by focusing on the fact that he had believed Oda was his mother until a few hours ago. After all, if Oda was willing to lie about giving birth to him, wasn’t she also entirely capable of finding a male who looked like Ghazt, and calling him by her lost love’s name? Kaz had to admit that that did indeed sound like something Oda might have done, and his moment of hesitation was all Idla had needed to make up her mind.
At this point, Kaz’s opinion was as worthless as his presence, and he was about done with it all. If it weren’t for the fact that only his existence seemed to be holding Idla back from demanding the death of every Magmablade, down to the youngest pup, he would have walked out an hour ago.
Li shifted on his shoulder, reminding him of the other reason he hadn’t left yet. He needed these females to let them out of the mountain, and if he made enemies of them all, that wasn’t likely to happen. Though at the moment, it seemed equally possible that they wouldn’t allow him escape no matter what he did, which made simply turning and exiting the hut more and more appealing. Facing the long trek back up through the mountain had to be better than listening to these supposedly great chiefs argue.
The dragon hissed softly in agreement, sending him an image of herself, spraying a blast of water from her mouth that was so powerful it drilled a hole through the side of the mountain, neatly removing the need for anyone to help them. She was extremely pleased with her new ability, even though it was currently limited to a light mist and a few drops of water. She spent so much time practicing that Kaz was becoming used to having a wet ear.
Kaz smiled a bit and returned a picture of the little dragon chomping at the wall, eating a hole in the stone large enough for the two of them to escape. That seemed more likely than Li developing a strong enough burst to wear away stone, and the picture of the dragon’s belly swollen with rocks was very amusing.
A burble of condensation dripped from Li’s snout as she made a little sound of annoyance. This sound was entirely new, rather like bubbling or boiling water, and Kaz couldn’t bring himself to tell her that it was adorable, rather than intimidating.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Idla, we still need Magmablades,” Tisdi said sweetly. “The furnaces will go out without them. Plus, the Voice of the Mountain created five tribes, not four, and while losing the Woodblades was a tragedy, one terrible choice does not call for another.”
Idla glared at her sister chief and pointed her finger at the Magmablades. “They’re rotten, Deep to heights! Even if we don’t kill them, they should be exiled, and we should find those within our own tribes with the same power.”
Avli spoke for the first time, her voice wavering oddly between a deep, authoritative tone, and the near-whisper of a nervous pup. “The Magmablades have proven themselves unworthy, but we could give them another chance, and they should be punished! Ija isn’t anything like her mother.”
Everyone turned to look at the Mithrilblade, whose pure white fur was so soft that it seemed to float as she swayed from side to side. Idla opened her mouth to bark a reply, but something in the young chief’s aspect must have made Tisdi uneasy, because she gestured to the female with the white stripe, who leaped forward just as Avli slumped, her eyes closing and her hand clutching at her belly.
The two Mithrilblades accompanying their chief reacted more slowly, and it was the striped Waveblade who caught Avli. The young chief was about the same size as her rescuer, but the dark female showed no sign of effort as she swung Avli into her arms.
Idla and Tisdi exchanged glances, while Ija stepped back, holding up her hands as if to assure everyone that she had nothing to do with Avli’s collapse. Her eyes were worried, however, and Kaz remembered Avli’s last statement. It certainly sounded like Avli knew Ija personally, and they were friendly, if not friends.
“What’s wrong with her?” Lianhua asked. She had been scribbling in her book since the meeting started, apparently writing down everything that was happening, but now she looked almost as worried as Ija.
Neither of the two older chiefs seemed inclined to answer as they cleared a space for the Waveblade to lay Avli down. Ija, however, said, “Her mother died three days ago,” as if that was all the answer anyone needed.
Lianhua still seemed confused, but Kaz looked at the roiling core in Avli’s abdomen and felt his stomach sink. When a kobold died, the rest of the tribe had three days to visit them to say their farewells before the body was burned. Females prepared the bodies, and while a male’s corpse was simply laid in jejing, a female was thoroughly wrapped, and only other females were allowed into the hut where she laid.
Kaz used to believe that this was simply another way that males and females were treated differently in a tribe, but now he knew that it was at least partially to conceal the fact that the female’s cores were removed before they were burned. He still wasn’t sure if all cores were taken out, or what happened to those cores, but he did know that new chiefs, at least here in the Deep, ate their predecessor’s core. Which meant that Avli had probably eaten her mother’s core, and what was happening right now was a result of that.
Kaz found himself pushing through the small crowd gathering around the unconscious chief, ignoring Idla as she tried to protest. He knelt down on the cold stone, pressing his hand over Avli’s stomach, feeling the heat rising from her flesh as she breathed in panting gasps. She was far too hot, and he gently pushed a little black ki into her body, not deep enough to interfere with the battle that was raging inside her, but hoping the cooling energy would help.
“What happens if the two cores are equal?” he demanded, looking up at Tisdi, who seemed the more reasonable of the two elder chiefs.
She sighed heavily and reached out to grip the youngest Waveblade’s hand. “If neither core will yield, she’ll die. Then her core will be passed on to the next chief.”
Kaz stared down at the glowing white core beneath his hand. His own flesh suddenly seemed as transparent as Avli’s, and the core appeared to grow larger, floating just out of reach. A weight lifted from his shoulder, and Li flew down to land on Avli’s other side, her long neck stretching out as she stared at the young female’s embattled core.
Again, Kaz noted the two shades of white held therein. One was impossibly clear and brilliant, its light almost painful, while the other was softer, gentler, but no more yielding. They swirled around each other, but to Kaz’s eyes, the softer light was clearly fighting a losing battle. While the bright white swirled around, shifting and stabbing at will, the soft white remained in one place, simply placing one bulwark after another before its opponent. Each time that shield cracked, it was replaced, but it was weakening with each attempt.
Kaz narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out why the soft white didn’t retaliate or evade, and caught a glimpse of something else, almost completely hidden within the enveloping glow of the gentle ki. The barest flicker of blue lay there, little more than the last spark in a bundle of firemoss before the fire went out. The soft ki was protecting it, but in doing so, it rendered itself vulnerable, and the sharp white power was more than willing to take advantage of that fact.
There was something about that fierce protectiveness that made Kaz like the softer, gentler ki, but the two were so intermingled that he had no idea which one was actually Avli’s, and which belonged to the core she had ingested.
Carefully, Kaz reached out, trying to separate the two, hoping to at least give the softer ki a chance to recover, but both instantly turned on him, and he withdrew. He was strong enough that the two weakened ki-sources couldn’t injure him, but they might well hurt themselves if they tried, which would make Avli’s death at least partially his fault.
Helpless, he watched as the two twined around each other, soft ki shifting around the blue, while the harder ki continued its assault. Vaguely, he was aware that someone was trying to pull him away, but his ki-strengthened body was all but immovable, and when Li began to hiss and emit her vaporous cloud, the insistent hands pulled away.
At last, Kaz saw his chance, but this time he didn’t target either of the furious coils of metal ki. Instead, he stretched out his own wood ki, holding tight to the fact that it was his, and not Avli’s, and created a shield around the little flicker of blue. At first, neither of the two whites seemed to notice, but when the harder light turned a feint into an assault, its blow bounced back from Kaz’s protective shell.
Again, he found himself the target of both forms of power, but when the soft ki struck at him, he yielded before it, allowing it to touch the blue flicker within, and after a few rounds of this it seemed to realize he was there to help. It turned away from Kaz, applying its full strength to attacking its opponent, and before that unyielding fury, the harder white ki began to shatter. Pieces of it chipped away, and the soft ki quickly absorbed them, becoming stronger itself in the process.
Once the balance shifted, the end came quickly, and the soft glow of ki suffused the core, all but the small part Kaz held safe. As soon as he was certain that it was over, and Avli - or at least Avli’s body - would live, Kaz pulled his ki back with a great sigh of relief. It was very difficult to keep his blue ki from merging with that other scrap of power, which seemed all too willing to yield itself to him. He thought he could have absorbed it in an instant, eating up the very thing he had started out to protect.
His audible sigh was joined by another, emitted from the muzzle of the female lying on the ground in front of him. She opened eyes which he would have sworn used to be gray, but which were now very definitely blue, and smiled at him.