The passages were strangely silent as Kaz passed, without the chittering, scratching sounds produced by the things that usually lurked just outside the light. He grabbed a few more handfuls of lichen on the way, refilling his pack a bit, then stopped just around the last bend before the cavern where he’d left the humans.
Crouching, he wrapped his knife back in the dirty leather bundle with the broken blade, then took out a bit more of the firemoss, placing it on the ground. He repeated the process of producing the thick, stringy goo, then used his fire-striker to light it. He didn’t have any long bones, which were what kobolds usually used for torches, but there was a long, flattish stone nearby, so he scooped the burning goo onto it, making a reasonable light source suitable for a completely powerless male kobold. Then, reluctantly, he put out his light orb, shrinking his ‘safe’ space to barely beyond reach of his arm.
When he cautiously rounded the corner, ready to run if it looked like Lianhua hadn’t recovered after all, he saw that the group was once again illuminated by Gaoda’s brilliant white light orb, rather than Raff’s dimmer, yellowish stone. Everyone except Lianhua was sitting up, but the female now had a bundle of cloth beneath her head, and another huge piece of fabric laid out over her body.
At the sound of Kaz’s claws scraping on stone, the males tensed, Raff half-standing and drawing his blade. Kaz mostly ignored them, his attention on Lianhua, who rolled her head to the side to look at him. A pale smile brightened her face.
“Kaz! I knew you didn’t abandon us,” she said.
Kaz froze, looking at the males, who still hadn’t relaxed. He reached down and pulled the fuergar from his belt. “I went hunting. I told Chi Yincang.”
Gaoda snorted, and Raff finally sat back down, returning his weapon to its sheath.
“So he told us,” Gaoda said. “At least you brought meat.”
“Thank you,” Lianhua said, struggling up to her elbows. The males immediately urged her to lie back down, and she gave them a long-suffering glance.
“I’m fine,” she told them, but her hand shook as she threw back the covering. “Or at least I will be, once I eat something.”
Raff stood, holding out his hand for the fuergar. “I’ll get them ready.”
Kaz hesitated. “I can do it. I have some toufa and jiao, too. It will help the flavor.”
Raff glanced at Gaoda, who looked at Lianhua, then gave a single nod. The big man pulled a small knife from a sheath at his belt, handing it to Kaz hilt-first. “You’ll need this, then.”
Kaz accepted it, sensing that something had just shifted among the party, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it was. Turning, he walked to the edge of the light and set down his makeshift torch and the fuergar. Preparing meat was a task for pups among the kobolds, so Kaz had long experience with it, and the metal knife was far superior to the stone blades he usually used. He finished quickly, then stuffed the cavity with the jiao and toufa and brought the prepared fuergar back to Raff, who had already set up his little fire stone.
Once the first fuergar was spitted on Raff’s sword and roasting over the flames, Kaz turned back to the rest of the group. Lianhua, who was now sitting up and had a little more color in her face, patted the stone beside her. Kaz hurried over and sat, ignoring Gaoda’s sour look.
“Thank you again, Kaz,” Lianhua told him, patting his hand. “Chi Yincang said you found the firemoss and treated my wound, and then you went and found dinner, as well. You’ve certainly proven your worth today.”
“After leading us into a pit full of ki-resistant monsters,” Gaoda muttered.
“After you told him we could handle it, without listening to his warning that the creatures were dangerous,” Lianhua corrected.
Gaoda looked away, shrugging his shoulders.
Lianhua watched him, sighing. When it seemed he had nothing more to add, she turned back to Kaz. “There’s something you should know about us.”
At this, Gaoda looked back, but she glared at him until he turned to Raff, asking the other male if the food was ready yet, even though it obviously wasn’t.
Lianhua shook her head, turning her attention back to Kaz. “The truth is,” she told him, “we’re not even supposed to be here.”
Seeing his surprise, she smiled ruefully, waving around at the cavern in which they sat, and especially the hanging shadow of the lopo. “By that, I mean we’re not supposed to be in this part of the mountain. Grandfather gave us permission to travel, but the last time anyone from our clan came here, there was a path that led directly to what you call the Deep. We have tokens that were meant to grant us passage, but when we arrived, we were told the tunnel collapsed more than twenty years ago, and we would have to turn back.”
She shook her head, eyeing Gaoda’s back. “Some of us thought that should be it, but I insisted we try to find another way. We hired Raff, who told us a few dragon hunters had come back with wild tales of entering through a cave the dragons used as a nesting ground.”
Raff snorted. “Dragon hunters’re a mad lot, anyway, but the stories were consistent enough I figured there might be some truth to ‘em.”
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“And there was!” Lianhua said, smiling. “But now, instead of an easy path leading directly to a kobold tribe who had a treaty with humans, we find ourselves having to take the long way down.”
Kaz shook his head. “I guess that explains why we don’t have more humans wandering in the way you did, but I’m not sure what difference it makes.”
She bit her lip. “It’s just that… We’re not quite as strong as we may have led you to believe.”
Kaz gave her a look, and she chuckled.
“Oh, we’re strong enough for most things,” she admitted. “Even I can stand against anything we’ve met to this point, given enough time to prepare. It’s just that we were never expected to have to fight anything very powerful, and as we go deeper, we may find things that are beyond us, no matter what we might like to believe. And, as our guide, you need to know that.”
Lianhua tilted her head toward the others. “I know this won’t make much sense to you, but Gaoda is at the Tin body stage, and Early Foundation in ki refinement. That means his skin and muscles are much stronger than those of a normal human, and he can cycle ki and refine it quite well, but he hasn’t finished opening all of his channels and secondary dantians.
“Chi Yincang is Iron body, and Late Refining. His skin and muscles are even stronger than Gaoda’s, and he’s started reinforcing his organs and bones as well. He hasn’t finished cleansing his dantians and channels yet, though, so while he has more ki than most of your females, he has a lower capacity than Gaoda and me, so his endurance isn’t as good.”
She glanced at Raff, who snorted.
“I’m none of that fancy stuff,” Raff said, pulling the roasted fuergar off his sword without flinching, even though the meat had to be hot enough to blister. He tossed it to Chi Yincang, who caught it with equal ease and began cutting it into slices.
Sliding the next fuergar onto the weapon, he went on. “I don’t know anything about ki, or refining, or whatever it is. I can use some mana, and my guild trained me to use that to make my body stronger than any regular person. This lot calls what I do ‘Iron body’, like Chi Yincang here, but as far as I’m concerned, I was just lucky to be born able to do this, and then meet the right teachers. I’m no mage, though.”
Lianhua nodded. “The difference between our magic systems is actually quite fascinating. I once read a treatise by Huang Hanying, who theorized that-”
“You’ve told a potential traitor all about us, cousin,” Gaoda broke in, voice sharper than it usually was when speaking to Lianhua, “so perhaps you should speak about yourself now.”
Color rose in Lianhua’s cheeks, but she nodded. “Fair enough. I’m also Tin body, but that path has never been my focus, so I’m not as far along as Gaoda. I’m a little stronger and sturdier than a regular human all the time, but I have to focus in order to channel more ki to my skin and muscles. I’m also Early Foundation, so our ki capacity and refinement speed are roughly the same, though Gaoda may be a bit stronger than me.”
Kaz could have told her that wasn’t true, since the whirling ball of energy in her belly was much brighter than Gaoda’s, but he certainly wasn’t going to do so in front of the males. For the first time, though, he thought he might ask a few cautious questions.
He gestured to his eyes. “Do you… see better than other humans?” He wished he could ask if they saw what he did, but, given that Lianhua’s ability to simply sense the ki of other creatures was so highly valued, he found it highly doubtful.
Lianhua shook her head, then glanced at Chi Yincang, who was offering the plate of sliced meat to Gaoda. “Developing the senses comes with Iron body. As the organs are refined, including the eyes and brain, a cultivator’s senses sharpen as well.”
Kaz couldn’t help a small shiver as he glanced at Chi Yincang, who was completely ignoring the conversation as he offered a plate to Lianhua. She accepted gratefully, pulling two smooth sticks from her pouch. Kaz had seen the humans eat with these before, pinching bites of food between the crossed sticks, and now he gratefully turned the topic away from what Chi Yincang might or might not have seen and heard when Kaz thought he was far enough from the humans not to be spied upon.
He pointed at the sticks. “Where did those come from? None of you carries much, but you always seem to have everything you need.”
She nodded, swallowing the bite she had been chewing. “We have spatial storage pouches. We can store quite a bit in them. Basically, anything that can fit through the opening will go in, though eventually they will fill up.”
Raff shook his head. “You nobles may have fancy ones,” he said, “but mine’s just the standard issue given out to all mid-level members of the Band of Blades. Just big enough to carry my gear, a change of clothes, and some food and water.”
He cast Kaz a wry glance. “Don’t let these fancy folks fool you. Most people have just enough to get by. If they have a full belly and a roof over their heads, that’s good enough.”
Kaz nodded. “Just like us. Most kobolds just want enough to eat, and a safe place to sleep and raise our pups.”
Raff looked startled at the comparison, then thoughtful. “Guess that’s true. Doesn’t matter if you’re a human or a… something else. I suppose we all want that.”
Lianhua looked between them and smiled, nodding. “I think that’s true. Luo Tai once wrote that-”
She went on for a while, but eventually even Kaz stopped listening. He got some of the second fuergar, and managed to stuff a good portion of the third into his pack for Li. Between his own full belly and the dragon’s feeling of sleepy contentment hovering around the edges of his awareness, his eyes began to drift closed even as his mind turned over everything he’d learned.
The humans weren’t as strong as he’d thought. He’d already started to understand that, but he had a feeling that they would be unpleasantly surprised once the group entered the mid-levels of the mountain. The powerful kobolds tribes kept the Deep clear of any significant monster infestations. The political machinations and constant infighting would probably be the greatest danger they would face there.
Meanwhile, something about the heights usually kept the strong monsters from growing or coming here. He had heard Oda tell Katri that power grew harder to access as they climbed the mountain, and now he suspected she had been talking about the availability of ambient mana, or perhaps ki? Though either the difference wasn’t really noticeable at this level, or he couldn’t tell because he didn’t seem to take in mana the way the humans did.
Still, they were obviously getting close enough to the middle of the mountain that some of the stronger beasts were able to grow into true monsters, at least in places where there were no kobolds to kill them while they were young. The enormous lopo and the giant fuergar were evidence enough of that, and he wondered what they would find as they traveled even further down.
Kaz had been too young to fight when the Broken Knives had made their way up to the heights, so he hadn’t seen the creatures along the way firsthand. They had still had powerful males then, including several of his uncles who had died or been traded away during their travels. Kaz had heard stories of the things that lurked in the mostly uninhabited mid-levels, but he hadn’t believed them until today. Rega had been known to embellish her tales in an attempt to keep curious little pups from venturing too far from the den. Not that it had worked very well with Kaz.
But now, Kaz was heading straight into those dangerous levels, with little knowledge of their layout, and a group who weren’t the unstoppable killing force he had believed them to be. He had hoped to help Lianhua find some sign of her lost civilization there, in areas no one had explored or looted for some unknown but likely significant period of time. Unfortunately, he would probably have to keep them to the stairs, a path which had its own dangers.
All of which meant that if they survived the passage through the mid-levels, they really would eventually enter the Deep. A place where his tribe, and his mother in particular, had left behind a large number of enemies, many of whom would probably be less than pleased to see her son. As Kaz’s eyelids finally drifted shut, he wondered if he would be in more danger among the titans of the mid-levels, or the scheming kobolds of the Deep.