Kaz explained what had happened, though he left out any mention of Li flying at Litz or the female kobold’s reason for attacking him. He kept a wary eye on Chi Yincang each time he came to a part of the story where the human could have corrected or added to it, but the male never spoke, simply keeping his usual silence. He had apparently used up his allotment of words for the day, and Kaz was glad of it.
“So you just ripped out her core,” Gaoda said flatly when Kaz finished.
Kaz nodded. That was what had happened, after all. There was no need to mention his own urge to eat the core once it had been removed, or the fact that only his concern for Li had prevented him from doing so.
“She didn’t use her ki at all?” Lianhua asked.
“No,” he confirmed. “As the fight went on, she seemed to lose the ability to speak or even think clearly. It was like fighting a fuergar or a janjio, rather than a kobold.”
“Not much difference-” Gaoda began, but stopped when Lianhua glared at him.
The female drew in a breath and let it out slowly before taking the little book and pen out of her pouch. She flipped through a few pages and nodded. “That lines up with what I’d begun to suspect. Seeing that core, I think I know at least a little of what’s going on.”
All eyes turned toward her as she shifted to her scholar role. “We believe that the core is what not only grants some beasts near-human levels of intelligence, but also allows them to ascend to Spirit or even Divine beasts. A normal core contains one or possibly two colors. In the case of a Spirit Beast, it might even have three. No matter how many colors there are, the core will be homogeneous; all seeming to be of the same material, and always in a spherical shape. Some cores have minor flaws, such as pitting or cracks, but they are never amorphous, nor do they have any surface discoloration.”
She pointed to Litz’s core, which lay on the ground on top of yet another handkerchief, this one pure white, which made the core’s strange shape and colors stand out even more. It was obviously lumpy, and instead of the colors blending seamlessly together, they had clear lines between them, something like what Kaz’s core had looked like after he broke it. This core’s colors were murky, but there were several yellowish lumps, along with two silver-gray sections, and one that was a deep, charcoal gray.
“I’ve never been part of a kobold-eradication team,” Lianhua said, breaking from her role long enough to give Kaz an apologetic glance, “but during my training, I was given the opportunity to examine many different kinds of cores. Kobold cores are among the smallest, weakest ones, and usually have one or more imperfections. The best one I’ve ever heard of was taken from a kobold Queen when the den near Dogwharf was finally cleared nearly a hundred years ago. It was yellow and white, the two most common colors found in kobolds, with no flaws. At approximately three-quarters of an inch, it was also the largest-”
Raff cleared his throat. “Ah, Lianhua, I don’t mean t’ hurry you, but could you hurry up?”
Pink rose in Lianhua’s cheeks, and she crouched to touch her pen to the largest bulge on the core. “This core is nearly two inches at its largest point, and looks like an amalgamation of several smaller cores. If you look closely, you can see where each one has begun to merge into the greater whole. I believe this may have occurred when Litz, ah, ingested one or more other cores. Furthermore, I believe that either this or the fulan corrupted her core in turn, and when a core becomes corrupted, its owner loses their capacity for both intelligence and the purposeful use of ki, leading it to give in to its basest instincts.”
She turned the pen over and scraped the end against the rusty film covering the bulbous object. A bit of dust fell away, dropping onto the crisp fabric. “And this substance isn’t blood. In fact, it’s remarkably like the coating of fulan spores that was on all of our shoes when we arrived here.”
Raff pointed toward the ceiling. “Are you sayin’ that you think the beasty we fought up there was some kinda mashed-up monster created when one critter with a core ate a bunch of others? And that it all happened because they breathed in too much Pellis-cursed dust?”
Lianhua stood, shaking her pen with a grimace of disgust. “Not quite how I would have put it, but yes, I believe that’s a reasonable hypothesis.”
Gaoda had his arms folded across his chest and had become progressively more restive as the conversation continued. Now he flung his hands up and said, “I don’t even know why we’re talking about this, cousin. Again, we’re through with all of that, and it doesn’t matter! We’ll be continuing on into the Deep, and these miserable kobolds can go ahead and eat each other for all I care.”
“I’m talking about this, Gaoda Xiang,” Lianhua said, “because we have no idea if this is the only infestation of fulan we’re going to find. What if we’re currently in the only safe area? What if the next level is even worse, and we meet a dozen monsters like the one that nearly killed us?”
For once, Gaoda didn’t back down. “We’ll be at full strength, and Chi Yincang will just slice them apart, or I’ll blow them up. We don’t have cores, so we should be able to walk through the stuff without becoming crazed, cannibalistic monstrosities.”
“And you only ‘know’ that because I’ve examined the evidence and told you so,” Lianhua said. “But what if I’m wrong? Or, again, what if simply having ki is enough to render us vulnerable as well?”
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A quiet cough came from behind them, and the two bickering humans spun, though neither Chi Yincang nor Raff seemed particularly surprised. Kaz had been listening to the approach of several sets of paws coming from the low tunnel that led to the Sharpjaw den for a while now, but seeing the two male’s lack of reaction, he wondered again just how good their senses really were.
“I believe the young female is correct,” Zyle said, expression neutral, “and I would like to propose a deal.”
Silence greeted the statement, and the elderly male’s eyes seemed to twinkle beneath the long tufts of fur that hung over them. “Some of our males would like to join another tribe. Our chief was recently approached by a female from the Redmanes. She wished to take Civ as mate, and he would have gone to join her as soon as negotiations were complete. The Redmanes are a descending tribe, and they control part of the level two below this one.”
He lifted a hand, and one of the four males behind him stepped forward. His fur was as black as Zyle’s had probably been in his youth, and his eyes a particularly striking green color. He was a tall, powerful kobold, with sharply pointed ears and glossy fur, and Kaz could understand why a female would find him intriguing enough to travel two sets of stairs to speak to his chief. Katri certainly would have been willing to do the same.
This male bowed slightly, saying, “I believe Etle will still accept me as mate, and the Redmane tribe is a good one. If you allow me and these others to travel with you, we will serve as guards and guides until we reach the Redmane den. As thanks, they should be willing to let you use the stairs they control, which leads to the first of the Nine.”
Gaoda looked at Kaz. “Do you need help guiding us, kobold?”
Kaz noted he wasn’t even ‘Blue’ any more, but said, “I don’t know where the dens are, just the stairs. Having a safe place to stop and rest would be good, especially if we do run into any more surprises. We’ll want to go through all nine mosui levels in one day, if possible.”
Plus, if Civ and the others tried to travel without a female to arrange passage, they might well be claimed by a tribe in between here and the Redmanes, if any were left. Since this Etle wasn’t expecting Civ yet, she wouldn’t even know to look for him until he was already mated to someone else. Traveling with the humans gave the male kobolds legitimacy and protected them as much or more than they could protect the humans.
Gaoda looked from Kaz to the new kobolds, then back at Lianhua. Finally, he crossed over and very deliberately stepped on Litz’s core, crushing it into powder. When he walked away, he left a sparkling trail of what looked like rust on the stone behind him.
“Do as you wish, cousin. So long as we leave here the day after tomorrow, it doesn’t matter to me.” With that, he slammed back into his hut.
Chi Yincang looked at Lianhua, bowed his head slightly, and stepped back into the shadows, vanishing utterly.
Raff shrugged, turning back toward the spot where he’d left his fire stone. “His high an’ mightiness has spoken. I reckon one kobold or five’s all the same.”
Lianhua rubbed her forehead, then looked at Zyle. “I thought you said you couldn’t trust anyone with power. Now you’re sending four of your kobolds with us?”
Zyle sighed, scratching his chin. “I think if you were going to go mad, you’d have shown signs by now, like that Copperstriker. I’d send the rest of my tribe with you, if they would go. Some lost their mates above, and others are too old to go to a new tribe, like me. We’ll stay until the monsters take us, or one of our females returns from the ancestors to tell us to do something different.”
He pointed to Civ, then each of the others. “You met Civ, and these are Regz, Pils, and Ilto. Please, keep them safe.”
All five bowed deeply, and Lianhua nodded reluctantly. “All right. You heard Gaoda, though. We leave as soon as possible the day after tomorrow.”
They straightened, nodding, and Lianhua cast one more glance toward Kaz before turning away. Kaz watched her until she returned to her abandoned breakfast, then looked at Zyle and said, “What aren’t you telling them?”
The old kobold chuckled, then coughed; a deep, wracking cough that shook his aged body. “Not so much what I’m not telling you as what she told us. Your female says the fulan is spreading down the stairs, which shouldn’t be possible. In the rest of the mountain, there are enough kobolds to prevent an outbreak, but this isn’t the first time fulan has taken over one of the mid-levels. The last time was when I was just a pup, but I remember my tribe leaving in the middle of the night, abandoning everything too large to carry. This time, I told Tekdu, our chief, to retreat when I saw we wouldn’t be able to burn it out, but she refused to listen to a male, even if he was her father.”
With a deep sigh that threatened to bring on another round of coughing, Zyle went on. “The stairs have always held back the fulan, and after a few months, when it destroyed everything in its path, the males of the tribe would burn out the remnants with firemoss. A few weeks after that, the whole tribe could return, though food remained scarce for another year or more.”
He shook his head. “If the stairs are no longer keeping the spread at bay, the entire mountain is in danger. Someone must tell the other tribes, and a young female may take the word of her new mate when no one else would listen to a male. There must be no travel between levels until the fulan is destroyed.”
Kaz glanced up. “What will you do if another female tries to come down?”
Zyle’s lip lifted, showing his few remaining teeth. “We will kill anything that sets a paw on the stairs, or we will destroy the stairs themselves.”
“Can you even do that?” Kaz asked. The eighteen staircases were the best way through the mid-levels, and in some cases, the only way. They were carefully maintained by whichever tribe controlled them, and the idea of blocking or damaging one intentionally was even more shocking than suggesting they would kill someone while they stood on the neutral territory of the steps. Such an act could prevent travel between the top and bottom of the mountain for years, given how difficult it was to chip away at the stone here.
The old kobold chuckled, a deep raspy sound. “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out. Now, I best be on my way back. Are you coming with us, pup, or will you stay here until it’s time to go?”
Kaz glanced back at the camp, meeting Lianhua’s eyes as she looked up from her steaming cup of tea. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, or if she had heard the question, and she turned her gaze back down after a moment.
“I’ll… go with you,” Kaz said. “There’s no need for me here.”