Raff carefully stacked another jar containing exactly one hundred of the pills the members of Squad E were concocting. He didn’t know what the things were supposed to do, but everyone inside the biggest warehouse was being particularly careful today, including the xiyi, so he doubted it was anything good. At least it probably wouldn’t turn them into ravening, multi-limbed monstrosities, so that was a positive.
He winced as the roaring started up again. Whatever was causing it, it had made both the xiyi and the dragons anxious, leading to the lizard-men corralling everyone inside this building and closing the doors, leaving the little dog-like kobolds to roam around outside. Raff and the others had been cleaning up and moving things around for the last hours or so, while the reptiles huddled in a corner, hissing at each other.
“What d’you think is goin’ on?” he asked Jerit, who was polishing empty jars right beside him. The leader of Squad A looked almost as tense as the xiyi, and Raff knew it probably wasn’t smart to prod him. Still, Raff had never been particularly smart, and he was okay with that.
Sure enough, Jerit glared at Raff, but he also answered, almost as if he’d been waiting to talk to someone. “They found a xiyi and a human bound up together in the guard building, and now that cursed dragon is screaming. There’s someone running around in here trying to do…something. Steal their fancy little pills? Hell if I know. It’s not like they tell me anything.”
His face was a study in frustration, and for the briefest of moments, he shifted his glare from Raff to the small crowd of xiyi. Then he looked at Raff again, growling, “Now move those jars back where you got them. Don’t even bother asking why.”
Raff sighed, but obeyed. He’d already moved the simple ceramic containers twice today, so a third time wouldn’t hurt. He almost missed the mild thrill of finishing off a cart and calling for the dog-bolds to come take it away and bring him an empty one.
Everyone paused as a new sound rose over the low thrum of the roar. It sounded a bit like barking and a lot like howling, and Raff recognized it. The kobolds outside were excited about something. The xiyi moved toward the door, and one of them opened it a crack, peering out, hand resting on the long knife at its hip.
And in through that crack came a tiny, desperate little yip. It wasn’t a yip that should have been made in that tone of voice. It should have been friendly, or questioning, perhaps even worried, but definitely not desperate. This wasn’t exactly perfect timing, but it was time for Raff to weigh anchor.
He eyed the distance from his position to the door. He was on the right end of the warehouse, which was good, but the xiyi were crowded around the opening, staring into the cavern like boys trying to peek into the girls’ bathhouse. How close could he get before someone noticed he wasn’t where he was supposed to be?
Leaning down, Raff picked up one jar, then another. Jerit was pointedly not looking at him, so Raff kept going until he held six jars, each precariously balanced against the one beside it. If there was actually a reason why the lizards were so careful about this stuff, then Raff was about to find out what it was.
The key to being somewhere you weren’t supposed to be was confidence, and Raff had that down to a science. He moved toward the spot where he should have set the jars down, then just kept walking, acting as if nothing was wrong. A few humans noticed him, some stopping what they were doing to stare after him, puzzled, but when one opened his mouth to speak, Raff just gave him the ‘It’s all good’ grin and kept walking.
By the time the xiyi noticed him, Raff could have lunged forward and stuffed a pill down one of their throats. Which wasn’t a bad idea, actually, since it would have kept the mayhem contained to just them instead of including the humans in the building as well, but here he was.
A particularly ragged and slightly blood-stained xiyi was the first to notice him. His once-fine cloak caught on another lizard-man’s claws as he spun, already giving a hoarse hiss, and Raff brought the first jar down on his head. Ceramic shattered, little orange-red discs rained down, and the xiyi sucked in a shocked breath, undoubtedly inhaling some pills while he was at it.
Six xiyi met six jars, leaving only two of the lizard-men who had just caught the edge of Raff’s attack, as well as the five leaders of the human squads. Raff reached behind him, pulling out the knife Kaz had slipped him, and with a single slash, another lizard was down, and everything around them was sprayed with blood as the xiyi bled out.
Raff had deliberately gone for shock value when he made the cut, and the gouts of crimson succeeded in distracting everyone. Turning, Raff set his shoulders against the door and backed out into the cavern. He took only an instant to slam the doors closed again, blocking those within from seeing him for a perfect moment.
Members of the Adamant Reach were trained to use simple cantrips for such things as sharpening their weapons, setting fires, and giving their armor extra durability during a fight. It was rare for one of them to have enough mana and control to be able to do more than that, because there was a fine line between a swordsman who could use magic and a low-level mage. And after all, who would want to be a merc when he could have been a magic-wielder?
But Raff had learned a thing or two during his years of working with those very mages, most of whom would have fainted at the mere sight of what he’d done inside that building. He’d also spent the last month with Chi Yincang, who bounced around more than a Pellis-cursed jackrabbit.
So Raff pulled mana and went up. Straight up, which wasn’t quite what he’d planned, and led to a sudden flailing that probably had nothing to do with the fact that he actually managed to catch the edge of the roof. Fortunately, the door below banged open as his arms flexed, flipping him up and over to land on his back with a soft thud. Between the door, the roar, and the barking, no one looked up until Raff was out of sight.
The yip that had led to his sudden departure had stopped, but it was easy enough to tell where it must have come from. All of the upright doggies were running in the same direction, and when Raff headed that way, he saw exactly what he’d expected. There, in the dim glow of the lanterns, was a ferocious bundle of bright-pink fur, latched onto a brown-furred kobold like a lamprey on a shark, while another, smaller, bundle of copper-pink fuzz darted in and out of the kobolds surrounding them, biting and fleeing, again and again.
Raff shook his head, but didn’t immediately join the fray. Kyla had a knife that was almost too big for her, and the fact that she looked unharmed indicated she probably had a shield up. The kobold she was holding looked like it was mostly intact as well, other than the blood staining one paw black. It was one of the ones wearing a loincloth, and Raff was almost certain it was the leader of these pitiful creatures. He muttered his hearing cantrip, and heard Kyla growl, “Tell them to back up,” as she dug her knife into her captive’s ribs.
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The other kobold shook her head, ignoring the way the knife poked into her. “Guard,” she said stubbornly. “No strangers. Guard!”
Kyla’s ears were pressed flat against her head, and she was watching Mei as much as the kobold she gripped. The surrounding dog-bolds were snapping and kicking at the little rodent, but she refused to stop, harrying them back, away from her young mistress.
Satisfied that he understood the situation and wasn’t about to make things worse, Raff jumped down. He landed in the middle of the group, plucking Kyla up and setting her gently on his shoulder even as he grabbed the brown-furred leader in his other arm. These degenerate kobolds were small. Even Kyla was almost as large as they were, so it was a simple matter to contain the growling, biting, probably-a-female.
Seeing their leader so thoroughly tamed, the surrounding dog-bolds backed up, several of them dropping to all fours as they whined and tucked their tails. Mei stopped her assault as well, scurrying toward Raff’s foot, where she sat down and began to groom her whiskers, sides heaving.
“Time t’go, kiddo,” Raff told the kobold girl, who was hugging his head even as she insisted that she’d had it under control.
As soon as he started to move, the confused kobolds came together into a single unified mass. At least, they did until he grasped their chief by the scruff of her neck and held her out toward them, shaking her just hard enough to keep her from saying anything intelligible. Hoping they could understand words, even if they couldn’t speak, he said, “I’ll drop her as soon as we’re out. You come after us, and she’s dead. Got it?”
A few of the dog-bolds just kept coming, but some of the smarter-looking ones grabbed them. They were all still snarling, the fur on the back of their necks standing straight up, but there was something pitiful in the way their eyes tracked the female. Raff really didn’t want to have to hurt them if he didn’t have to.
As he drew near the tunnel, Kyla still on his shoulder and Mei clinging to his shadow, he heard a loud hiss. When he glanced around, he saw that the remaining xiyi had left the warehouse, and the best-dressed one of the lot was standing at the front, holding up his hand. His scales seemed to be bubbling away from his skin, and his back was bowed, but he looked like he meant business.
“Ss-tay, or I will be forced to kill you!” he shouted.
Jerit stepped up as well. “He means it, Gravy! I’ve seen it happen, and it’s not pretty. Worse, they feed the corpse to the dragons, and even if you’re a damn fool, the rest of us don’t want to see that. Put down the dogs and get back here.”
Raff felt Kyla stiffen at being called a dog, lumped in with the dumb creatures milling in between them and the xiyi. Rather than say anything, however, she pulled something from her belt and held it out so he could see it in his peripheral vision. A storage pouch. His storage pouch. He’d recognize that pig-shaped bloodstain anywhere.
The young kobold opened the pouch, and Raff reached up, touching the leather just long enough to give the thing a bit of his mana. A moment later, he felt the familiar, comfortable weight of his sword fall into his hand. A fierce grin split his face.
“You do what you’ve gotta do,” he told them, “but I’m leaving.”
Seeing the weapon, which was impressive even to other humans, the xiyi and the humans fell back. A xiyi on one side of the group lifted his bow, sending an arrow whistling toward Raff’s chest, but he felt Kyla lift one hand, and the arrowhead shattered as it struck an invisible barrier.
At this, the well-dressed xiyi raised his own hand, staring straight at Raff with something like pity. Nothing happened except that Raff took several more steps toward escape. Both clawed hands lifted, and the xiyi made a gesture, but again, nothing happened.
Raff laughed. He would have liked to taunt them a little longer, but he wasn’t willing to risk Kyla and Mei. So instead he turned, counting on his passenger to protect them from any more flying missiles, and started to run toward the tunnel.
A piercing whistle sliced through the cavern. Kyla swayed, clapping her hands to her ears, and the dog-bolds did the same, crouching and whimpering as they pawed at their ears. Even the chief gave up her attempts to claw or bite Raff and gave a sorrowful little howl instead.
Overhead, the dragons shifted. Heads poked out of dens, eyes whirling with vicious and hungry intent. They saw dinner, and they’d just been given permission to eat. The xiyi and humans all turned and fled for the relative safety of the warehouse, leaving only Raff, Kyla, Mei, the dog-bolds, and one particularly pitiful-looking green-scaled xiyi left outside. Raff was fairly certain that the xiyi was the bedraggled one he’d hit with the first pot of pills, and even through his peeling scales, he looked triumphant as he blew his whistle once more, then followed the rest of his kind into the building.
Above them, a giant red dragon launched itself from its perch, heading straight for the group of dog-bolds. The furry creatures stared up at it, eyes huge and terrified, but didn’t run. Raff swore, dropped the brown-furred chief, and began waving his free arm as he yelled.
“Hey! You! Yeah, the big, ugly lizard! Pretty sure your boss told you to eat me!” He clapped the hand that wasn’t holding his sword against his chest. “Come on and try it!”
He wasn’t sure if the dragon understood enough to know it’d just been insulted, but it banked around, making only a desultory grab at the fuzzy critters plastering themselves against the floor. Raff wasn’t going to stick around to see what happened after that. He’d given the furry little guys a chance, and really, that was as much as he had at this point.
Turning, he ran, half-hearing, half-sensing the huge beast coming for him. He settled one hand on Kyla’s waist, ready to throw her toward the tunnel if worse came to worst. The fuergar was a survivor, and he was pretty sure that it would just keep running, but the kid wouldn’t give up until she managed to save his sorry hide or died trying.
And then something else came in between him and the red dragon. It knocked into the enormous flying reptile, throwing it out of the sky with a roar and a screech of fury. Raff stumbled, barely managing to hang onto the little kobold, and landed on his rear as he tried to turn in mid-air.
Another dragon was attacking the first. The second one was smaller, but faster, its long neck darting in to tear at its opponent’s flesh. Scales flew, and someone shouted, “Come!”
Kyla’s hand closed on the back of Raff’s shirt, and she said, “That’s Snen! He’s…a friend, I think?”
A xiyi was sitting on the smaller dragon’s back, his brown scales an almost perfect match for the dragon’s. Stabbing out with the long spear in one hand, he pierced the red’s wing, then twisted so the hooks on the edge of the spearhead caught at the membrane, tearing it.
The red dragon roared in pain and fury, and Snen looked toward Raff and Kyla again. “I’m going, with or without you!” he shouted, and Raff made up his mind.
Rolling to his feet, Raff ran in, dragging his sword one-handed against the side of the red dragon as he passed. It wasn’t the way the weapon was meant to be wielded, and usually, it wouldn’t have been very effective, but Raff pushed all the mana he could into it; far more than he usually dared, for fear that someone would see and realize he had more mana than any sword-slinger should have. In the wake of the blade, rib-bones peeked out for a moment before red blood covered red scales.
Raff threw Kyla up onto the brown dragon, then leaned down and did the same for Mei. Grabbing a wing-joint, he swung up behind the xiyi, praying to Pellis that riding a dragon was something like riding a horse. It wasn’t, but the dragon flapped its wings, straining a bit under the sudden increase in weight, and headed for what had looked like an empty dragon den, and Raff now realized was the entrance to a tunnel. The tunnel led up, and there was blue sky at the end.