The howl was about to begin, and Kyla’s stomach felt like she’d swallowed a dozen jiyun grubs whole. Not only was this the first howl she’d ever attended that was for her, but Ija had solemnly informed her that this was also the first full howl which would include both the old Magmablades and the new Woodblades. Worse, many of these Woodblades had been traded or given to the new tribe from other great tribes, which meant that they didn’t really know Kyla, and now they were going to have to howl for her.
“Breathe,” Baihe said, gently stroking Kyla’s ear. Her finger caught on the rather painful bite Aunt Sika had given to her wandering ‘pup’, and Kyla flinched a bit, which made Baihe click her tongue. The old female didn’t speak out against Aunt Sika, though, which Kyla appreciated. Lianhua had been less than pleased to see even a few drops of blood on Kyla’s ear, but Kyla hadn’t expected anything less. A pup who didn’t listen was a danger to herself and the rest of her tribe, and Kyla had spent a good portion of her life not listening. For good or ill, she was about to become an adult, and a nip to the ear was the smallest punishment she could have received.
Baihe took a small container from her pouch, and when she opened it, Kyla flinched away from the sharp scent of the contents. Baihe scooped some up on her finger, laughing softly. “Lianhua’s Yingtao makes the best medicines, but she only makes them smell good for Lianhua. Hold still for a moment.” A careful finger spread the stinky goo on Kyla’s ear, while Kyla tried not to whimper. Now the smell would be on her for her entire howl, and everyone would remember it. She would rather have had a sore ear, but she didn’t dare tell Baihe.
“From now on, you’ll be responsible for yourself,” Baihe said as she screwed the lid back on the jar and put it away. “And I’m certain you’ll remember not to place yourself in danger when others are counting on you to be safe.” Her amethyst eyes met Kyla’s in calm amusement, and Kyla was suddenly less certain that this wasn’t just another form of punishment; one old female supporting another in correcting the young.
“Yes, Lady Baihe,” Kyla said, trying to sound properly chastened. What she would remember was to do a better job of covering her tracks. If no one knew she left the mountain, they wouldn’t have been worried about her. Usually, she would have told someone in the hidden den that she was going to the main Magmablade den, and vice versa. The two groups rarely spoke to each other, and when they did, they had more important things to worry about than where Kyla was. Unfortunately, now everyone was in one den, talking to each other constantly, and apparently Kyla had become a topic of shared interest.
Ducking her head, Kyla said, “I’m going to check on Mei.” Then she scampered off before Baihe could call her back for more of the stinky goo, or perhaps something even worse. Not that she was running away, because she really did need to check on her fuergar.
Mei was almost as much of a topic of conversation as Kyla herself. Ija had told Kyla not to share her story with anyone until the actual howl, but that didn’t stop people from asking. But rather than focusing on Kyla’s adventures, most of the questions centered around how Kyla had ended up with a fuergar at all. Some kobolds couldn’t understand that she wasn’t just keeping Mei as some elaborate form of food-storage, while most pups just wanted to know how they could get a pet of their own. A few had even gone so far as to ask if they could have one of Mei’s babies!
Mei was now tucked into a new nest hidden in the back of Lianhua and Yingtao’s hut. They were staying in one of the large huts made for human traders. All of the great tribes except the Magmablades had built one or more of these huts in their part of the city, and now that the Woodblades had returned, the humans who’d come with Kyla were staying in their human huts. The Goldblades, Waveblades, and Mithrilblades had maintained their part of the city, including these huts, and even Raff seemed happy enough with the accommodations. He barely even had to bend over to walk around inside.
Kyla knocked on the yumi-reed door before entering. She’d just walked in soon after Lianhua and Yingtao settled in, just as she would when they were in the tent while they were traveling, and she had vowed never to do so again. She hadn’t even known that the ‘bathtub’ was large enough to hold two humans, no matter how friendly they were.
“Yes?” That was Lianhua, which was good. Kyla liked Yingtao, but she was always very aware that the other female probably knew more ways to kill her than there were glow-worms in the Deep. Chi Yincang was frightening enough, but Kyla always got the feeling he would regret killing her. She wasn’t absolutely certain that Yingtao would even blink an eye if she decided it was necessary for Kyla - or anyone else - to die.
Kyla gave a yip of greeting, then said, “It’s Kyla. Has Mei had her babies?”
Unlike Raff, Lianhua didn’t try to yip back, but she did open the door, smiling with real pleasure at seeing Kyla. “No. Yingtao says it may not even be tonight.”
Kyla entered the building, still somewhat amused by how different it was from a human dwelling. Not that she’d seen many - only Raff’s, really - but this was so small and cramped in comparison. Kobold huts had only one room, though they sometimes hung furs to create separate areas for older pups, so when the human traders told them they wanted more than one room, the kobolds simply divided up what they thought was a hut large enough for their enormous guests.
The whole building would have fit into Kyla’s bedroom in Raff’s home, and then it was further split into four smaller rooms, with no real thought given to the size of each of those spaces. Someday, she would have these taken down and rebuilt properly. Or perhaps she would have better ones built in the old Magmablade part of the city, which was currently also controlled by the Woodblades. No one quite knew what to do with it anyway, since the Magmablades weren’t actually a great tribe any more, but they also couldn’t be ignored, since their Blade was needed to open the mountain. Or at least it was until yesterday.
Reminded, Kyla glanced back at Lianhua. Yingtao had appeared from somewhere, and to Kyla’s relief both of her hands were visible. It was never good when they vanished into her sleeves. “Have they figured out why the portal won’t close?” ‘They’ in this case actually meant Lianhua and her grandfather, though the great chiefs were all very concerned as well.
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Lianhua bit her lip. “No. It seems that something made the portal permanent. Or at least it hasn’t shown any signs of fading, and both Idla and Tisdi have sent several scouts through. Females, of course, in case they get trapped outside.”
Kyla almost glanced toward the tiny room where Mei now rested, but caught herself in time. Neither she nor any of the humans had suggested that the fuergar might have anything to do with this change, but Mei had been acting very oddly ever since the portal was opened. Kyla hadn’t told anyone that she’d actually started to feel the passage collapsing in around her when Mei waddled into sight, busily chewing pieces of, well, nothing apart.
Lianhua, too, seemed to be looking very deliberately away from Mei’s nest. “If Shensheng truly is open for good, things will probably change quite a lot. You’ll need to hire human guards, as well as creating rules for who can come in, and when. When only a few humans could enter, and only on the solstices, you kobolds could keep the bad humans out, for the most part. But now-” She shook her head, and Kyla could tell that she was genuinely concerned.
Of course, back before the Woodblades were murdered, kobolds had opened the mountain every three to six weeks, depending on a system that most females in the Deep learned from their den-mothers. Humans just weren’t allowed to come in at those times, and not even Aunt Sika could tell a young and curious Kyla why the ‘extra’ openings existed. Now, she suspected it was for the convenience of Qiangde and his servants, but over the last thousand years, reason had faded into tradition, and kobolds were nothing if not loyal to tradition.
“Ija has been talking to Raff, and it sounds like we can trade gold to some of the humans from his guild in exchange for them helping keep the bad humans out. He said he might even come to help, if Reina is still looking for a mate. I’m not sure why he doesn’t like her. She’s very strong, and the daughter of a chief. She also has very pretty hair.” It was a little lighter than Kyla’s deep pink fur, but Reina’s hair was indeed lovely.
Lianhua snorted a small laugh, and exchanged a look with Yingtao that Kyla couldn’t quite interpret. “Well,” Lianhua said carefully, “Raff would probably be very helpful. He likes kobolds. Especially puppies.”
Kyla nodded. “I’ll help, too, since I’m the liaison to Holliander. Maybe I’ll even be the liaison to the Sheng Empire, someday, as well.” She eyed Lianhua as she said this, but for once the pale female had nothing to say. With a sigh, Kyla let it go and entered Mei’s room.
This space was barely larger than what the humans called a ‘closet’. Not even the human puppies could have slept on the floor, unless they curled up in a very tight ball, and it had originally only had one exit, which made it a tiny trap for anyone who couldn’t eat through the walls. Mei, of course, could do exactly that, and had, so now there was a Mei-sized hole in the opposite wall.
Mei herself was ensconced in a nest made of furs, cloth, and far more of Kyla’s fur than she would voluntarily have parted with. It was just beginning to grow back after the long bits were burned off in the incinerator, and now she had bald patches again where Mei had chewed it off while she slept last night. She supposed it was worth it to see her copper-pink fuergar curled up in her cozy nest, but Kyla would really have preferred to appear before her new tribe with her fur intact.
Kyla squeezed herself into the small space beside Mei, glad for once that she got her father’s stature, instead of her mother’s. Height was the only thing Kyla had wanted from Vega in a very long time, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that she wasn’t even going to get that. Well, at least she still might be taller than her father, which was something.
Lying down on her side, Kyla stared into Mei’s sleepy eyes. The fuergar looked back, then opened her mouth in a blatant plea for food. Kyla chuffed a laugh, pulling her new backpack around to her front. It wasn’t as nice as her old one, entirely without beads or decoration of any kind, but it was far better than the ragged, burned tatters she’d been carrying around.
“Here,” Mei whispered, pulling out the last of the mithril bars Kaz had given her. She followed that with several chunks of raw gold ore, which Mei glanced at disdainfully. The fuergar was already used to pure, smelted metal, but Kyla would have to get that from the Mithrilblades, and she wasn’t quite ready to face Avli yet.
The youngest great chief was Ija’s friend from when they’d both been pups - or at least as much a friend as any Magmablade had outside their own tribe - but Kyla was technically still about as far below her as it was possible for a female to be. Perhaps once she had her new necklace around her throat she would be able to face a great chief. Or perhaps she would wait until she was officially the liaison to the humans. But Mei needed ore for her puppies now.
When Kyla pushed the mithril and gold ore closer, Mei gathered the ingot into her pink paws and began to nibble daintily at it. The gold she ignored, at least for the moment, but Kyla edged it close enough that she could reach it when she was ready. The fuergar really looked like she was going to burst at any moment, and Kyla wasn’t certain she could actually walk, so she made sure her little friend had food and water within reach at all times.
The gold thunked against some other metal that was already hidden in the nest, and Kyle gently nudged the fur and fluff aside to see a small mountain of copper coins, along with some silver, and what looked like quite a collection of cheese crumbs. It seemed that she wasn’t the first to bring treats since Mei settled in here.
“I’m going to have to leave for a while,” Kyla told Mei, unsure as ever how much the fuergar actually understood. Those round eyes could be disturbingly intelligent, but then at other times Mei seemed to want nothing more than to eat and create tunnels. Tunnels like the one that now connected the mountain to the outside. Possibly permanently.
“Ija called a howl for the whole tribe, and Gram decided the Woodblades should come, too. Ija says they haven’t had much to celebrate together, and since I’m her sister and Gram’s cousin, it seems like a good way to get everyone in one place for something fun.” Kyla lowered her voice. “I’d rather just have a quiet howl with Ija and Rudu and some of the puppies. And maybe Aunt Sika.”
Mei chewed her bite of mithril slowly, fluffy cheeks bulging as her whiskers twitched. She stared at Kyla, as if to say, “And what does that have to do with me?”
Kyla drew in a deep breath. “Please stay,” she said. “When you have your puppies, please don’t run away with them. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’m not abandoning you, so please. Please don’t abandon me, either.”
Slowly, Mei lowered the mithril and laid one paw on Kyla’s finger. She pulled the finger in until Kyla’s hand was pressed against her cheek, and then the fuergar rested her head against Kyla’s fingers and closed her eyes, snuggled up against her kobold. Kyla sniffled and held very, very still, determined to remain exactly where she was until Ija herself came to drag her away.