Their hosts were the Sharpjaws, the tribe the dying kobold, Scov, had been trying to reach. When Lianhua told Zyle about Scov and Davik’s deaths, the old male had seemed saddened, but unsurprised.
“The Sharpjaws used to have two dens, one on the level above, and this one,” Lianhua said, handing Kaz another roasted beetle, which he passed to Li. The dragon cracked it open gleefully and began to devour its steaming innards as the human continued.
“This den was for warriors, so there was only one female in charge here. The kobolds who live here were just supposed to guard this end of the stairs and the territory nearby, to make sure no monsters moved in. When the fulan appeared, it was on the level two above us, where we saw the worst infestation. The Sharpjaws assumed that the tribes above would burn it out. Then a few large patches showed up in an area they hadn’t foraged for a while. Their females burned it, but they breathed a lot of smoke and spores in the process, and a few days later, they began acting strangely. They were erratic, and easily angered. They attacked anyone nearby, including other females, and then forgot they had done it. More fulan appeared, and each time they burned it out, the females got worse. Finally, they started killing each other for their cores. Zyle said they were more like beasts than thinking creatures, and the few remaining unmated males fled here.
“When she heard what had happened, the female in charge of this den went up, taking half of the warriors back with her, but she was killed as well, and the surviving males ran. Which brings us to what we saw when we arrived at the stairs. A few infected females, other creatures, and one abomination like the one we fought came down before they set a guard, so now they take turns at the top, killing anything that isn’t intelligent.”
Kaz shook his head. “So all of the Sharpjaw females are dead?”
“As far as they know,” Lianhua confirmed. She glanced toward Litz, who was studiously ignoring them as she devoured her own meal. “A few females from other tribes have made it through, and so long as they can still speak, the Sharpjaws allow them to come down, but they refuse to let them into their den.”
Litz’s hands stilled, and her lips curled away from sharp teeth as a low rumble came from her throat. “Males denying a female. They’ll regret it when my power recovers.”
Lianhua looked unhappy, but she didn’t argue, and neither did Kaz. The kobold female was right. As far as Kaz knew, no tribe had ever had all their females die before, but the obvious result was that the males would have to join another tribe. There were a dozen things Kaz could think of that required a female’s power, and a male simply couldn’t do, or it would take so much effort that it wasn’t worthwhile. Males needed females to survive, and that was fact.
Wasn’t it?
“So what do we do now?” Kaz asked, shifting away from the long-furred female, who was now eyeing him with open loathing.
Gaoda snorted, flicking a glance at Kaz. He had seemed even angrier than usual ever since Kaz joined them. “What do you think? We spent the last two days recovering our cultivation while you were lazing about. Another day or so, and we’ll be ready to go, with or without you.”
Lianhua looked shocked. “Gaoda Xiang! I, for one, need at least two more days, and Kaz may need even longer, depending on how his foot is doing. Surely you’re not suggesting we leave him behind?”
The golden male’s jaw flexed, and he pointed an accusing finger at Kaz. “He’s not even blue anymore!”
Kaz froze, then lifted a hand. The darklenses turned everything gray and dim, and Kaz had been flinching away from the light since he woke, so he certainly hadn’t spent any time examining himself. How could his fur possibly be anything other than blue, though?
Moving the lenses off his eyes was exactly as painful as he thought it would be, and Kaz quickly spun away from the fire and Gaoda’s light orb, squinting at his own legs. At first, Kaz thought his eyes were still playing tricks on him, but the purple embroidery on Lianhua’s white robe was just as vibrant as ever, so what he was seeing was the truth.
He was gray. It was a slightly bluish gray, but there was no doubt he was gray, not any shade of blue. He tugged at the drab fur, and it hurt, so this was definitely his fur.
Lianhua’s hand came to rest on his, stilling the fretful plucking as she spoke gently. “It’s all right. Whatever that atrocity used for blood bleached almost everything it touched, and your whole body was doused in it for several minutes. Zyle had one of the males clean you up as well as he could, but you were hurt, so they couldn’t just dump water over you. I’m sure in a few months, when new fur grows in, you’ll have your beautiful blue color back again.”
Kaz could actually hear Gaoda’s teeth grit as he muttered, “But he’s not blue now.”
Taking in a slow, deep breath, Kaz settled the darklenses back on his snout with trembling fingers. He felt like a stranger in his own skin, seeing the ashen fur on arms and legs that moved when he told his body to move. He hadn’t realized just how much being the ‘only’ blue kobold had been a part of him until it was gone.
He turned back to the others, looking straight at Gaoda. “My fur may not be blue, but I still know how to reach the Deep.”
Beside him, Lianhua nodded, watching Gaoda with narrowed eyes. She didn’t relax until the male finally looked away and shrugged, saying, “It’s not like there’s really an alternative, anyway.”
Kaz snorted a little laugh. That was true enough. One of the Sharpjaws might be able to take on the task of guiding the humans, but without a female to order him, no male would volunteer. Kobolds stayed with their tribe unless they were expelled or traded.
“We’ll rest here for at least two more days,” Lianhua said. “Then we’ll head onward. That way, if we do encounter more fulan, we’ll be strong enough to cast the shield again.”
“I still don’t see why we should bother,” Gaoda said. “If this just affects creatures with cores, none of us are susceptible. We were all exposed at the end of that battle, and there’s nothing wrong with us.”
“But both Zyle and Kaz’s story about his aunt indicate that greater exposure leads to stronger symptoms. This time, we were exposed for less than an hour after the shield failed. We all use ki, and we don’t know what will happen if we depend only on the masks,” Lianhua argued.
“If we hadn’t had to stay within the shield, we could have moved much more quickly, reducing our exposure,” Gaoda countered. “Plus, we would have been able to make short work of that aberration if we hadn’t all been drained from feeding the shield, so we wouldn’t have had to depend on a kobold to dig his way through the thing.”
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Dig his way through? Was that what the humans thought had happened? Or was it just Gaoda who was so blind? Kaz didn’t dare look around at the rest of them, instead focusing on picking up another jiachin whose shell had just popped open. It was hot, and he juggled it from hand to hand as Lianhua and Gaoda bickered, before finally splitting it in half and handing part to Li, who actually hesitated before accepting.
“Are you full?” he murmured, glancing at the dragon as she crunched through the crisp shell. She clicked muffled denial through the first mouthful, but he noticed that this insect definitely wasn’t going down as quickly as the first few had.
“…that, Kaz?”
When Lianhua said his name, he realized that his mind had wandered again, and looked at the female, feeling a little embarrassed. “Yes?” he offered, hoping that was the answer she was hoping for.
Apparently it was, because her face lit up. “Good! Then as soon as you’re done eating, we’ll go get you cleaned up. There isn’t enough water for a good bath, but we can at least get the crust and tangles out of your fur.”
That actually did sound very good to Kaz. Like most kobolds, he kept himself clean, but he rarely did what Lianhua seemed to prefer and actually poured water over his whole body. Water was a precious resource in the mountain, but Kaz was certain the Sharpjaws had a larger source somewhere in the den itself, so if they used some of the little pool here, it shouldn’t matter too much, as long as they kept it clean.
He popped the rest of the jiachin in his mouth, chomping it down, shell and all. He had been trying to eat just the insides, like the humans, but he didn’t need to, and he wanted to get away from Gaoda and Litz as quickly as possible.
Grabbing the long bone from beside him, Kaz managed to climb to his paws, gingerly tapping the toes of the bad one on the ground. They hurt, but sitting and getting something to eat had helped, so it felt better than it had when he and Raff arrived.
Lianhua, too, got to her feet, meticulously wiping her fingers clean with a square of emerald cloth. She started to reach for Kaz, as if she would pick him up and carry him the thirty feet to the water’s edge, but he leaned away from her, and she stopped, sighing softly.
They moved at Kaz’s limping pace, but it only took a minute to reach the pool, where Lianhua knelt down and began to pull things from the pouch at her waist. First was a series of jars, which Kaz recognized as containing both the bubbly substance she called soap, and the sweet-smelling unguent she had used on him while brushing out his fur. Then there was a large, thick piece of cloth, and finally a comb carved from precious wood and something that looked like two short, conjoined knives with loops on the end.
Picking these up, she motioned for him to sit beside her. “I’ll trim and even up the burned and missing clumps first, and then we’ll get you clean.”
Kaz’s hand went to his head, not to his wound this time, but to the longer fur on top and behind his ears. He ran his fingers through it, and found that it was, indeed, of many varying lengths. Part of it felt crunchy, and when he looked at his fingers, he could see that not only had there been a dried glop of something in it, the fur itself was brittle and had broken off when he pulled the glob free.
Lianhua grimaced sympathetically. “It’s all bleached, I’m afraid, plus we had to cut away some parts so we could see your injury, and the fur has been pulled out or is breaking off in other areas. Don’t worry, though. I cut my dog’s fur every summer, so I’m very good at it. I promise it’ll be much better when I’m done.”
Whimpering slightly, Kaz gave in to the inevitable, bending his head beneath her ministrations. Li scampered down as soon as he sat, crossing to the pool, where she fully submerged her head, then lifted it up, guzzling down mouthful after mouthful of the clear liquid.
Quiet snicks began to sound around Kaz’s head as Lianhua got to work, and Kaz sent Li an image of herself, falling away through dark water just after she had hatched. They had both nearly died when Kaz dove in to get her, and though there wasn’t enough water here for even a small dragon to drown in, he was still nervous.
Li ignored his concern, drinking greedily until she released a belch that seemed far larger than should have been possible for such a small creature. Even Lianhua hesitated at the sound, then giggled.
“Something else to add to my treatise on dragons,” the human murmured softly. “No one has ever suggested that they burp.”
Kaz watched Li from the corner of his eyes as she put first one foot into the water, then another, then simply dove in, sliding along her belly in the shallow pool, whistling happily. Her wings extended up, flicking away glistening droplets that glittered as they flew through the air, settling in Kaz’s fur and creating dark spots on the stone.
“Have they mentioned that they have a very annoying sense of humor?” Kaz muttered, noticing that the dragon was intentionally aiming the majority of the droplets at him. Li sent him a smug sense of satisfaction as she rolled over, spitting out a stream of water that soaked Kaz’s knee.
Lianhua laughed again. “No. I think the question of whether or not dragons even have a sense of humor is something that‘s usually secondary to wondering if they’re more likely to eat people whole or chew them up first.”
Li sat up, head tilting to one side as she pictured a large gold dragon dropping a human into its gaping maw. First the dragon chewed, then swallowed, and Kaz grimaced.
“No eating people, whole or otherwise,” he said firmly, sending Li an image of herself as a very small dragon eating insects and fuergar while entirely inedible humans and kobolds watched.
The dragonling flicked a wingful of water at him, and Lianhua’s blades stilled for a moment. When she spoke again, she sounded very thoughtful. “I knew it was smarter than the dragons I’ve heard of, but it really seems to understand you.”
Kaz snorted. “She does.” He started to say more, but hesitated. Litz, at least, could probably hear them if she tried, and Kaz didn’t trust the female not to do or say something that might make the other humans question whether Li was a normal fuergar or not.
He sighed and said, “She’s very smart for a fuergar.”
Lianhua hesitated again, then put her sharp tool down and picked up the jar of sweet-smelling cream. She turned the lid, opening it, then scooped out a fingerful. Leaning over, she traced out a rune on the stone beside them, and Kaz flinched as he felt a very small amount of ki flood it.
No dome sprang up around them, but Lianhua murmured, “This will make everything we say sound like mumbling. If we’re loud, they’ll be able to pick out words, but so long as we keep our voices low, no one will understand. We’ve already had a few arguments with Litz, so if Gaoda senses anything, he’ll assume I don’t want her to hear. He may not notice at all, though, since he’s trying not to use any ki until he recovers.”
Kaz felt a chill and turned to look at her. “Arguments? About what?”
She sighed and shook her head, scooping some water up into a small bowl. “She wanted the largest hut, and keeps trying to tell Raff and Chi Yincang to do things for her. She spent most of the first day barking at the guards outside the den, demanding that they let her in.”
Lianhua poured cool water over his head, and it took Kaz a moment to get enough breath back to say, “She got here at the same time we did?”
“Mm hmm. She must have been hiding somewhere nearby, because as soon as the monster died, she popped up, demanding to be allowed to go down the stairs. The guards couldn’t stop her, so she shoved right past them. When we got here, she was already at the gate.”
Several more scoops of water followed the first, and once Kaz’s fur was thoroughly wet, Lianhua began applying foaming gel, which she then rinsed off so the bubbles ran into a crevice in the floor, leaving a trail of broken fur and unidentifiable chunks. She didn’t speak again until she began to work the comb and oil through the tangles in Kaz’s tail.
“There’s something wrong with her aura, Kaz,” she whispered softly. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s different, and I don’t like it. Don’t listen to her, and don’t let yourself be alone with her.”
Kaz hadn’t intended to, but his skin crawled as he glanced back toward the female kobold, who was hunched over the fire, her mouth moving as she muttered something to herself. He still couldn’t focus well enough to see her core clearly, but he thought there was a darkness in her belly that hadn’t been there before.