The Broken Knife

Kaz rolled wildly, trying to cover his face as he was blown away from the exploding door. Heat and small door-pieces stung his skin, but the ki he had been using to reinforce his body seemed to be doing its job, and nothing hurt except his shoulder, where it had struck the wall. His ears were ringing, and woozily, he reminded himself to plug his ears before the next time he blew something up.

There was no way the sound hadn’t alerted anyone nearby that something strange was going on, so he forced himself to his paws, noting that though his fur was still smoking in places, his roll seemed to have put out any actual flames. Several small chunks of metal dropped away from his body, though the violent whooshing of his heartbeat covered the small sounds they must have made when they impacted the stone.

He shook his head, which was probably a mistake, but did allow him to focus on the blackened stone and gaping hole where the door had stood a minute before. The stone itself was barely damaged, but the door was more of a puddle than solid chunks. It was cooling rapidly, the red surface turning dark and dull, but Kaz could feel the heat of it from where he stood.

Still, he had no time to waste, so he edged closer, then pushed ki into his legs. His core seemed more and more unwilling to produce excess ki at his urging, even when he compressed it, but he was able to leap easily over the molten pool, landing on the warm stone in the room beyond.

Looking around, he was disappointed to see another of the enormous storage caverns, with no stairs in sight. There were no illuminating crystals here at all, so the only light was his orb, which had returned to its usual dim, flamelike appearance when Kaz stopped giving it extra ki. That meant that he could only see the area nearest to him, and left a great deal to his imagination.

He was about to expand his ki-light when one of the nearby containers caught his attention. To his left, he saw more of the yumi reed baskets, though these had lids, concealing their contents. To his right, however, were countless cubes that he would have guessed were made of solid metal if one of them hadn’t been broken by the blast. Several others were shifted and dented, but this one had cracked completely through, the two halves falling in toward each other, but separating at the bottom so they lay mostly on top of their former contents, which looked strangely familiar.

Kaz frowned, stepping closer. His paw came down on a smear of red dust, and the grit and feel of it between his toes made him jerk back with a yelp. He had felt that exact sensation far too often lately. It was fulan, but just the spores, not growing on anything.

Putting a hand over his nose, as if that would help, Kaz crouched, staring at the box and its dusty reddish contents. The fulan lay quiescent, not floating in the air or infesting a core, but it still sent shudders of horror down his spine, lifting what was left of his fur. The box was oddly smooth, lacking even seams at the edges, except for a single rune etched into the top. The rune was broken in half now, but glancing to the side, Kaz saw another of the boxes, with a pristine copy of the rune on top.

With new eyes and mounting dread, Kaz looked around. Box after box greeted him, silent and gray, the same rune catching the light of his orb. There were dozens just in his circle of illumination, and if this storage space was even half as large as the one the yumi was kept in? There had to be hundreds, even thousands of these containers, each holding enough fulan spores to irrevocably infect an entire level of the mountain.

Which led to the inevitable conclusion that the mosui were responsible for what was happening to his people. But why now? He remembered the hints and comments dropped by various kobolds, and thought he could put the story together at last.

A powerful tribe of kobolds, the Bronzearms, had been forced up from the Deep by some conflict. Their chief, who must be almost as proud as Oda, though more considerate of the members of her tribe, had ignored the warnings of the other tribes already occupying the mid-levels. She had expanded her territory too far, too fast, and when she reached the Nine, she had attempted to do the same in mosui territory.

The mosui, who seemed to be more about sabotage and stealth than direct confrontation, then took some members of her tribe, which usually served to stop such advances. When the Bronzearms ignored the loss, or perhaps only advanced more aggressively, the mosui instead deployed the fulan, spreading it everywhere the Bronzearms could be found, including levels above and possibly below their own.

How far had the Bronzearm’s chief attempted to invade in order to anger the mosui so thoroughly? Or had she done something else, something that no other kobold had done within the memory of the tribes? For their part, how and why did the mosui have the fulan spores, and how had they spread it so widely?

Kaz had no idea, and, honestly, didn’t much care, though he had to admit to a niggling curiosity worming its way into his brain. Still, it wasn’t worth investigating, not with Li waiting for him and who knew how many husede on their way.

He stepped away from the fulan, careful not to disturb it any further, then vigorously shook the remainder from his paw. A small amount puffed into the air, but by now it was clear that it took more than that to infect his core, so he wasn’t too worried.

As he did, however, he bumped into one of the closed baskets. They were short and wide, and the blast, which had been focused on the other side of the door, hadn’t managed to tip one over. He discovered why when his toe began to ache after the impact. Whatever was inside, it was so heavy that it rendered the unassuming baskets nearly immovable.

Kaz pushed a little more ki into his ears, and they swiveled as he leaned over the basket he’d bumped into. He was listening for any indication of movement, but when his deft fingers released the simple knot and threw back the lid, he was so shocked that both ears and fingers froze.

Adamantium. Not just adamantium, but pure, smelted ingots of adamantium. Individually, they were about half the length of his forearm, but when he picked one up, almost without realizing he was doing so, it was heavier than an equivalent amount of iron, but not as bad as gold. Hefting it in his palm, he thought it might be similar to silver, though he had only held the raw metal, nothing as pure as this.

Quickly, he unbuckled his pack and tucked one of the ingots away. He had no idea what he was going to do with it, but adamantium was the rarest metal in the mountain, and in spite of its weight, a weapon or tool made from it would last essentially forever.

Suddenly reminded, he pulled his knife from its sheath, staring at the strange, folded metal blade. He hadn’t been able to figure out what it was made of, but as he held it next to the container of adamantium, he could see the distinctive red-gold hue of it, mingled in the flow and curve of the wavy lines.

How had his father come to have a weapon made in some large part of adamantium, and how had Rega come to have it in turn? When a male died, his mate and his chief had first rights to his possessions, or at least so Oda had told him when she took Ghazt’s pack after Kaz watched his father die. By then, Kaz had already removed the fire-striker, so he knew this blade hadn’t been in the pack or on Ghazt’s belt, which meant Rega had either already had it, or had taken it from Ghazt’s hut, which he did not share with Oda.

With a shake of his head, Kaz pushed away these thoughts, along with the ones about the fulan. He had so many questions, and no way to find answers to a single one of them, at least not without returning to a tribe he’d decided to leave behind forever. Would Katri even know, if he asked her about it?

A matching curiosity pulsed through his bond with Li, along with some sense of reassurance. They planned to seek out her family, or at least others of her kind. Certainly they could take some time to go back and talk to Katri as well.

Kaz smiled as he closed the crate, tying it shut again with a tidy warrior’s knot. “Thank you,” he murmured softly. He didn’t know if he would ever actually go back, though presumably he and the humans would have to return along the same path they had taken to descend, but he appreciated the fact that his small friend was willing to go with him if he did.

A high-pitched squeal echoed through the space, coming from the gaping passage behind him. It didn’t sound close, but it was the first indication he’d had that there was anything alive on this level besides himself. He needed to move, and hope whoever it was couldn’t track him by smell.

Glancing down, he memorized the symbol painted on top of the basket of adamantium, and the one carved into the metal boxes of fulan. He wanted to get some idea of how many spores the mosui had, and if he could, he would stop and investigate any baskets with different runes marked on them. Who knew what else the mosui were hiding here?

Drawing in a deep breath, Kaz began to run, heading away from the strident sound at a steady lope. He didn’t want to miss anything by moving too quickly, and unless whoever was coming had a way to light up the entire cavern, Kaz would be lost in the darkness by the time they arrived. He dimmed his light even further, leaving it just bright enough to see the markings on the containers a few feet on either side of him.

Box after box of fulan flickered by, but the baskets of adamantium ended after only a few rows. A quick check told him the next rune must mean ‘mithril’, and he tucked a single ingot of this metal into his pack as well. He was half tempted to take a whole basket, given how little it weighed, but not only did he need his hands free, but that would ruin any chance that whoever came to inspect the damage might believe the door had burst by itself.

At this thought, Li snickered in his mind, sending Kaz an image of a spontaneously exploding door, along with a group of baffled mosui waddling in circles as they attempted to figure out what had caused it. Door after door blew up, tossing the round little mosui around like the balls of moss puppies liked to play with.

He sent her back a picture of the door beside her exploding in a shower of colorful sparks, sending the little dragon tumbling end over end, startled but unhurt, and Li agreed with far more enthusiasm than he expected. Such a blast might force the husede to stop looking for her so she could try to find Kaz. Li couldn’t really use the blue ki she took from Kaz, but it still coursed through her channels, along with plenty of yellow. Perhaps she could achieve the same effect without the blue?

Kaz was about to answer when the path he had been following ended. It was less a path and more a four-foot wide empty area between the fulan on his right, and the baskets of metal on his left, and it stopped abruptly as he came to stone urns ahead of him. They looked much like the ones kobolds used to store the larger quantities of firemoss oil that were then split into the little pots carried by each of the warriors and many gatherers.

There was a new rune carved into the stone plug, and when Kaz cautiously opened one of them, he got a nose full of some strange smell that burned his nostrils and made him sneeze. He dipped the tip of a claw into the contents, finding that it was dense and black. When he rubbed a bit of it on his fingertips, it was slick, and difficult to clean off, refusing to dry on its own.

After a moment, he pushed the stopper back in. He had no idea what this was, or why the mosui kept it hidden with their other treasures, but he needed to decide which way he was going to go. The path split left and right, or he could continue going straight ahead, winding his way between the jars. Nothing in his surroundings gave him a clue which way might lead to stairs or another way up, but the glowing cord that disappeared into the darkness above finally decided him.

Li was up and left, so Kaz was going left.