The only reason the gate hadn’t yet fallen was because the monsters assaulting the den were at least as busy attacking each other as they were the Redmanes. The bodies of warped beasts were mounded everywhere, some of them even resting up against the gate itself, providing some protection from incidental damage.
There were about fifteen tainted creatures left alive, at least as far as Kaz could tell. Some of those on the ground might still technically count, but given the gaping wounds in the abdomens of all he could see, Kaz somehow doubted it.
As the party watched, something that had probably started life as a fuergar was knocked down and disemboweled by another thing that might once have been a jiachin, but could equally have been a kobold. It was vaguely kobold-shaped, at least, but covered in the hard chitin of a jiachin, with two extra limbs. The point became moot a moment later when that thing, in its turn, was killed by a binyi-woshi hybrid, whose long jaws simply snapped up the middle portion of its body and swallowed it without even pausing.
The party had stopped as soon as the battle came into sight, and, as usual, none of the combatants seemed to have enough intelligence left to pay attention to anything except what was right in front of them. Raff, who was back in the lead, didn’t take his eyes off the gory battle as he asked, “What’s the plan?”
Gaoda frowned, eyes flicking from one abomination to the next. “We’ll have to kill them all. The kobolds won’t open the door while they’re still out there. I only see four that’re even worth worrying about.”
He lifted a hand, pointing to the binyi-woshi. “Raff, you take the slimy crocodile. Lianhua and I will hit the flying kobold, and Chi Yincang, you kill the blob with all the mouths. When we finish with those, we’ll team up against the big one. You kobolds keep the smaller ones out of our way.”
Kaz spoke up. “You haven’t seen binyi yet. The… crocodile? They’re very cold, and even a scratch can cause a kobold to freeze to death in a day or so.”
Raff shrugged, rolling his shoulders beneath his armor. “Not a problem for me, but thanks for the warnin’.”
Gaoda stared at Kaz with eyes as cold as a binyi’s den. “Anything else?”
Kaz’s ears flattened, and he shook his head.
“Good,” Gaoda said. “Go.”
The humans rushed away without even a glance at the kobolds, who stood staring out at the carnage, each clutching their weapons in white-knuckled grips. Civ waited until the human’s targets were engaged, then gestured to the right side of the broad tunnel.
“Stay right,” he growled, “Keep your backs against the wall. Regz, guard the left of the group. Don’t attack anything unless it attacks us, or I call it.”
The other males nodded, and Kaz followed suit. They all shifted to the right, and Regz moved to the end of the line, looking as competent with his knife in his left hand as any right-handed warrior Kaz had ever seen.
Slowly, they advanced, staying as far away from the humans and their targets as possible. It wasn’t an enormous space to work in, but the passage was ten feet wide and at least as high, and there was still a long stretch of it between their group and the den.
Kaz was in the center of the group, with Ilto and Regz to his left, and Pils and Civ to his right. As they approached the first pair of embattled monsters, the two creatures didn’t even seem to realize the kobolds were drawing close. Kaz’s nerves jangled as they came within ten, then five feet, until Civ could have reached out and plunged his weapon into the back of the six-eyed fuergar digging its long teeth into the neck of a segmented woshi. The seasoned warrior waited until the woshi stopped thrashing and the fuergar was about to dig out its core, and only then did he attack, taking advantage of the winner’s injuries and inattention. The other kobolds followed suit, with Kaz the last to react, and soon the fuergar had joined its opponent in death.
The five kobolds advanced down the hallway like this, methodically taking out one afflicted creature after another, allowing their enemies to whittle down their own numbers when possible. Kaz quickly became so focused that he completely lost track of what the humans were doing, and only looked up when he heard Raff’s triumphant shout.
The red-furred male human had just managed to separate the powerful binyi head from the pale body of the woshi. His sword was rimed with frost, as was his armor, but that quickly began to fade as the relative warmth of the hall caused the ice to melt.
“Kaz!” Ilto’s voice snapped Kaz back to his own situation, and he looked over in time to see the other kobold’s knife yanked from his injured hand by a yanchong with five lopo tentacles protruding from its round mouth. One of the tentacles punched forward toward the now-defenseless male, who held up his empty hands as if they would keep the thing from impaling him.
Kaz had been pushing ki into his own skin since the kobolds started their advance, and without thinking, he stepped between Ilto and the hooked tongue, stabbing at the tentacle as it drove toward his chest. His knife vibrated angrily as it slid along the side of the muscular gray tube, but it didn’t shatter like a stone knife would have. It didn’t cut through the rocky skin, but it and Kaz’s empowered muscles did manage to mostly turn it aside, so instead of hitting Kaz straight on, it slid along his ribs instead. The strength of the blow was enough to bruise, but he didn’t think it actually broke the skin.
A gasp came from behind him, then a whimpered howl of pain as something pushed against his back. Ilto was pulled forward, his impaled arm sticking out in front of him. The tongue hadn’t managed to hurt Kaz, but the young warrior he’d been trying to save hadn’t been as lucky.
A knife flashed, then another and another, and the tongue fell, the hacked-off end writhing as Ilto staggered back. The skin of the thing that was a cross between a lopo and a yanchong wasn’t nearly as hard as that of an actual lopo, and there were cracks and crevices between the stones it used as armor, just like a real yanchong. Civ and the others stabbed those weak points with methodical rapidity that reminded Kaz that Civ had met the Redmane female they were going to meet when they fought off a yanchong that had been advancing on the Sharpjaw den.
The thing fell without a sound, its remaining tongues trailing limply against the ground, and the other three kobolds formed a protective half-circle around Ilto as Kaz examined his injury. Carefully prodding the tissue beneath the bloody fur, Kaz grimaced. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could be. The hooked end of the tongue had gone all the way through the outer part of the arm, avoiding the large artery that ran along the underside. It had done a fair amount of damage, but at least since it went through, Kaz wouldn’t have to cut it out.
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Reaching up, Kaz took hold of the sharp end of the tongue sticking out of the back of Ilto’s arm and gave it a tug. The severed end slid through as Ilto howled, and then Kaz had his hand clamped over the injury, preventing the blood from flowing.
Civ glanced back at him. “I have firemoss in my pack.”
Regz and Pils made noises of agreement, all three males turning to proffer their packs to Kaz. This was what the small warrior packs were meant for. Even in the heat of battle, they could be used by other warriors to easily access needed materials such as firemoss and zhiwu web.
Kaz reached up with the hand that wasn’t holding Ilto’s wound closed, fumbling at the pack. The knot slipped easily beneath his fingers, and a bundle of webbing fell out. He remembered that Zyle had said they were out or almost out of bandages, and wondered if the Sharpjaws had sent the best of their dwindling resources with these males, who would probably be the last of their tribe to survive.
Turning back to Ilto, he pressed a wad into the wound, where it immediately began to stick and swell, blocking or absorbing all but a small trickle of blood. He glanced over at Ilto as he did, and saw that the male was already starting to look glassy-eyed. He needed to get the firemoss oil burning, and quickly.
A thought occurred to him as he turned back to Civ’s open pack. Kaz had managed to pull lopo poison from Lianhua’s wound when his unrefined version of the oil hadn’t been enough. If he burned Ilto’s arm, there was a good chance the male would lose some or all of the muscle, and he could be a cripple for life. There was no way a female would choose him as a mate with only one good arm, and Kaz knew that would be devastating to the other kobold. It was even possible that the Redmanes would refuse to take him.
Kaz’s hands trembled on the little stone jar containing the oil, and he scooped some out, putting a thin layer on the wound. He really should use more, and force some of it deep into the wound, but instead he allowed his vision to shift entirely into that other sight, looking for the blackness that he’d seen in Lianhua’s wound.
It was there. Instead of traveling along ki channels, which the male kobold didn’t have, the dark fog was sinking into the muscles and blood. With each beat of Ilto’s heart, it traveled deeper, and Kaz could see that it had already nearly reached the large artery in the armpit.
Before he could think better of the idea, Kaz imagined small blobs of ki, blocking the largest of the blood vessels. A moment later, Li took those from him without him even asking, allowing Kaz to focus on the darkness itself.
Now that he wasn’t afraid of the poison advancing further, Kaz was able to envision a sort of capsule surrounding the black fog. Unlike with Lianhua’s scratch, the torn flesh provided the venom far more access, so it wasn’t isolated to the blood. If he ripped all of it out, he wouldn’t just get a gout of blood, he would tear away the very tissue he was trying to save. He could feel his focus wavering though, and suspected that something about what he was doing was draining him far faster than he had realized last time.
Carefully, Kaz began to back the poison out of the veins, abandoning the idea of cleansing the muscles themselves. He could only hope that the small amount of firemoss oil would be enough to purge the last of it. He had to move carefully, or he would tear the walls of the blood vessels, creating oozing that was far too reminiscent of the way his own ki channels leaked. Still, the poison dripped out slowly, darkening the zhiwu webs Kaz had used to pack the wounds.
The moment he had all of it out that he could, he tugged out the filthy bandages, dropping them to the floor with a splat that was all but lost in the sounds of battle. Civ and the others were focused on two monsters who had decided to attack at once, so Kaz quickly unstrapped his own pack and dug out his father’s fire-striker, clicking it together until a spark arced out, setting the firemoss oil ablaze. It soon died down to the familiar blue flame, and for the first time, Kaz could actually watch it work. There was red ki deep in the flames, and as the oil burned, it released glowing motes of blue ki. The black fog seemed drawn toward the blue, and when it met the red, it dissolved into the soft, formless gray fog of undifferentiated mana and dispersed into the air, leaving behind an inert black sludge.
Kaz had no idea what was going on, but he thought that next time someone was struck by a lopo, he might be able to replicate the process, using ki alone to destroy the poison, without needing brute force to extract it. Cautiously, he pushed blue ki toward the last haze lingering deep in Ilto’s muscles, and the shadow moved toward it immediately. A hint of red ki, and the poison was gone.
Sitting back, Kaz allowed the level of ki in his eyes to drop back to normal, then nearly fell as he realized that his own channels had been drained far beyond what he had been trying to keep in them during the tempering process. He was actually leaning against Ilto, who was, in turn, leaning against the wall, his eyes closed.
On his shoulder, Li gave an interrogative whistle, and Kaz returned affirmation. The dragon released the blocks on Ilto’s blood, and it coursed through his veins again, sluggish at first, but soon resuming normal flow. Which, of course, caused his injury to begin bleeding again, so Kaz grabbed more of the bundle of web and forced it in through both sides of the wound again.
The firemoss oil was still burning, blistering the flesh and producing the pungent scent of burned fur, but Kaz could tell that all of the poison was gone. As carefully as he could, he scraped away the last of it with the dull blade of his knife, well aware that it would continue burning for another hour at least. He was no healer, but he thought that Ilto would regain most, if not all, of the use of his arm.
A grunt sounded from above him, and Civ staggered back, his paws bumping into Kaz and nearly stepping on his tail. Kaz yelped, trying to move out of the way, but only managed to roll to the side and fall onto his rear. His legs wouldn’t support him yet, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. His core was already churning out ki as quickly as he could cycle it.
“Are you all right?” someone asked, and Kaz looked up to see Pils, extending his hand with a somewhat bemused look on his face. “Were you injured, too?”
Belatedly, Kaz remembered the lopo tongue scraping over his ribs, and ran his hand over them. Flesh and fur seemed to be intact, however, so he shook his head.
“Just… not used to fighting,” he said, and Pils nodded understanding.
“It’s easy to forget you’re a pup. It’s almost over now, though, so just stay there.” The other male hesitated. “How is Ilto?”
Kaz managed a genuine smile. “He’ll be fine, I think.”
Pils looked at the wound, frowning. “I thought the oil would still be burning.”
Kaz’s ears lowered. He couldn’t explain how he knew the poison was gone, and Pils was right; normally, they would let the firemoss oil burn until it went out on its own. The damage it caused would be extensive, but it was better than death, at least in most cases.
“I… don’t think that thing had lopo poison,” he offered finally, using a thumb to lift Ilto’s lip to show pink gums. “His breathing and color are good. My aunt used to say that if the gums were pink, the patient would recover.”
“She was your healer?” Pils asked, but he still sounded uncertain.
Regz looked over at them, displaying his still-swollen right hand. “Kaz did a good job on me. Knew just what to do. If the puppy - ah, Ilto - is still breathing normally, he should be fine. If he’d been poisoned, he’d be panting by now, if he was breathing at all.”
Pils relaxed at this misguided confirmation of Kaz’s expertise, and the two males turned away, focusing on whatever was happening beyond the barrier of their bodies. Kaz could hear shouts and the clash of metal, but otherwise he couldn’t catch much more than the occasional glimpse around the other kobold’s legs. Whatever the humans were fighting, it was one of the gelatinous things that seemed to stretch to take up all of whatever space they were in. They were slowly whittling parts of it away, and it was so slow that it couldn’t seem to deal any damage to them in return.
“Was it a muju?” Kaz murmured, peering out from his position behind Pils’ brown-furred calf just in time to catch a glimpse of another blob of flesh falling.
To his surprise, the other male actually heard and answered him. “That’s what Grandfather thought. Until your group explained it, we didn’t know how it was happening, but we could see that the monsters seemed to be corrupted forms of some basic beast. Muju are really only dangerous when you walk right into one that’s blocking a passage. They move so slowly that if you just avoid that, you can go back later with a female who can kill it. Some of these are clear like muju, and stretch across the tunnel like they do, but they’re much faster and sometimes have tentacles or other limbs to grab you.”
He paused, then let out a satisfied little bark. “That’s it. It lost its grip on the ceiling, so it’s really just a puddle now. Once it stops moving, we can-”
He stopped speaking, and Kaz set his hand on the wall, struggling unsuccessfully to rise so he could see what the warrior was looking at. Civ and Pils parted silently, allowing Kaz to look beyond them.
The gate to the Redmane den was opening.