The Broken Knife

Zhangwo turned away from Lianhua, taking two long strides back to the place the image of the mountain had hovered. He fiddled with the rings on his fingers, and the mountain reappeared, just as clear and lifelike as before. Reaching out, he pulled and twisted it, and Kaz, watching through Li, saw the tiniest sparks of ki jump from his jewelry to the insubstantial picture with each gesture.

After a moment, during which Lianhua’s face grew red with effort as she strained against whatever held her, the mosui pulled on a certain section of the image, which snapped into focus. In it, tiny mosui scurried, and though at first Kaz wasn’t sure what was happening, when one of the buildings exploded and showered debris on their heads, he understood. This was the mosui city, and it was under attack.

The ancient male - and ancient he must be, unless he was mad to the point of delusion - screeched in shrill anger, tugging and pulling until he could see a particular street. There, three familiar figures walked and leaped, ki-bolts and weapons taking the lives of anyone - mosui or husede - who stood in their way. Gaoda’s golden hair looked bloody in the crimson light, and the red color of Raff’s hair deepened to garnet. Chi Yincang’s spinning weapon cut through walls and bodies with equal ease, leaving gory carnage in his wake.

Behind them came something even more unexpected. Male kobolds advanced, the red fur around their throats brilliant in the light of ki. Their clubs were soaked in crimson, as were their teeth and claws. Among them, Kaz could see Hod’s tall shape, with Ilto’s pale brown fur and distinctive curly tail not far behind him. The young warrior looked more ferocious than Kaz would have thought possible, until he remembered that Ilto was one of the few survivors from the Sharpjaw den. Perhaps that hadn’t only been because the others had watched out for him after all.

Turning on Lianhua, Zhangwo pointed the digit at her accusingly. “You said you came alone!”

He must have released her, because Lianhua slumped, then smiled, a long, slow stretch of her lips. “I lied,” she said.

The mosui moved so quickly that Li barely saw the movement. Striking out with his glittering device, he connected with the arm she barely raised in time, and a loud crack sounded through the room. Lianhua screamed, falling back, but the table behind her prevented her from dodging either of the next two blows. Another crack, and either Lianhua’s knees gave out, or she deliberately fell in an attempt to drop beneath the table.

Zhangwo spun, kicking out, the long claws on wide feet that had been hidden by his robes rising through the air to slash toward her face. Lianhua rolled away, but her back arched as red lines sprang out against the pale skin of her neck. Then she was far enough away that it would be difficult for the mosui’s short limbs to reach her, though she didn’t seem to be able to move any further.

The warped male stared under the table, fury written large on his face. At last, he pointed the device toward her and shrieked, “I don’t have time for you now, anyway. Die, and I’ll take your friends in your stead.”

Mana flooded the golden object, and Lianhua began to scream. Zhangwo dropped the device on the table and walked away. Kaz and Li scrambled back in case he moved toward them, but he exited through one of the other doors, slamming it shut behind him.

As soon as the door closed, the two watchers tumbled through the door. Li went directly to Lianhua, whose howls were already growing hoarse. Kaz picked up the bejeweled tool, nearly fumbling it in his haste. Two of the gems were brilliantly lit with ki, and a waiting reservoir of mana lurked inside an opalescent crystal the size of a jiyun grub.

His first impulse was to do as he had with his collar, and flood it with mana in an attempt to overwhelm it, but he was afraid that would actually make matters worse. This thing could obviously handle much greater amounts of mana than his collar had, since the insane mosui had just poured enough power into it to crumble two collars.

Something tugged at his foot, and he looked down to see Li holding up her good forelimb, clearly telling him to give the thing to her. He wasn’t sure what good it would do, since she couldn’t use mana at all, as far as he knew, but there was no harm in letting her try. He knelt down, which brought him far too close to Lianhua’s twitching body. She had fallen unconscious, but the collar around her throat was starting to smoke, and he was afraid he would have to take some drastic steps very soon.

Li accepted the object, though she staggered forward under its weight, allowing one end to thump against the ground. Using teeth and claws, she began prying at one of the brightly lit stones. Kaz quickly realized what she was doing and pulled out his knife, using its sharp tip to dig the crystal from its setting.

With a snap of her jaws, Li sprang on the freed crystal, swallowing it whole before Kaz could do more than yip in protest. It was large enough that he could see it working its way down her slender throat, but she only looked momentarily uncomfortable before she set to work on the next one. One after another, Kaz extracted the gems and Li ate them, her belly swelling until it bulged gently. Beside them, the collar ceased to smoke, and Lianhua’s body grew still.

When the glittering tool had been reduced to a sad remnant of itself, simply a hollowed-out golden rod, Kaz let it fall and reached out to the dragon. Looking sated and entirely too pleased with herself, she burped softly before allowing him to pick her up and place her on his shoulder. Her long tail wrapped around his neck, and once he was certain she was securely attached, he crawled forward and tugged Lianhua’s limp form from beneath the wide table.

Touching the collar, he was glad to find that it was no longer even slightly warm to the touch. The skin beneath it, however, was blistered and hot, with clear fluid oozing from broken skin. Gently, Kaz rolled the human female over, seeing that, ironically, the collar had probably saved her life. Four deep gouges began at her hairline, tracing down and toward the artery at the side of her neck, but stopped at the collar, where a matched set of tiny scratches showed just how much power the mosui had put into the attack. It was next to impossible to damage mithril, but the former human had managed it with only his claws.

As Lianhua rolled over, her sleeve fell back, and Kaz winced at the sight of her arm. It was clearly broken, though the bone hadn’t gone through the skin. Her robes must have protected her from at least some of the damage, then.

Twisting, Kaz looked around. If he left the arm like that, it would only get worse, and if it did break the skin or, worse, sever a large vein or artery, she could bleed out, wasting the time and effort he spent trying to save her. His eyes fell on the scrolls resting in the cubby holes nearby, and he lunged toward them, pulling out and unrolling two in particular.

Sure enough, they were made of strips of yumi reeds, flattened and woven together. The runes painted on them were illegible to him, but the important thing was that they were the right size and stiffness to support Lianhua’s arm. He looked around again, seeing two pieces of glossy red cord binding two more scrolls, and then his eye was caught by something else, half-hidden behind one of the boxes Zhangwo had been looking through.

It was Lianhua’s pouch, or at least one that looked exactly like it. Picking it up, Kaz sniffed it. Yes, it was definitely Lianhua’s, since her scent still permeated it, in spite of the lingering smell of Zhangwo and a few different beings who must have handled it before it was brought here. It made sense, though, that anything strange or filled with ki would be brought to the mosui’s ultimate sire.

Quickly, he pulled off his pack, sweeping the pouch and most of the other contents of the cubby into it. That left the pack full to overflowing, and when he tried to tie it, he found that he couldn’t quite do his regular knot, which required doubling over the cord before beginning. Still, he managed, and swung the pack back on before grabbing the reed scrolls and untying the ribbons.

Squatting down again, he brought the sleeve of Lianhua’s robe back down around her arm, cushioning it, then wrapped the scrolls around it. After tying the scrolls on with the ribbons, he found himself at a loss for what to do next. He needed a large piece of fabric to strap the arm to her body, but the only one he had was… his loincloth.

Among kobolds, wearing the loincloth was part of growing up. Puppies too young to leave the den were allowed to run around naked, but they were given their first loincloth before they went on their first gathering expedition. When they completed their spirit hunt, they received another one, usually sewn with teeth and bones they brought back. Another loincloth was given to males by their mate, usually one that had been passed down through the female’s family, and which they would only wear for important occasions. Their fur covered their bodies well enough, but clothing separated kobolds from beasts, and pups from adults.

Deeply embarrassed but determined to do everything he could, Kaz removed the item, then folded it into a large triangle, which he tucked under the arm before tying it behind her neck, beneath the collar and open wounds. That would support the injured limb as well as possible, and he was glad to see that the fuulong silk was still clean, which Rega had taught him was important when dealing with injured kobolds. He assumed the same was true of humans, and since Lianhua seemed obsessed with cleanliness, it was a fairly safe guess.

Once he had prepared Lianhua as well as possible, he slid his arms beneath her, finding that she was even lighter than he had imagined. Her bones must be as thin as a janjio’s. Carefully, he cradled her against his chest, having to set his chin atop her bound arm in order to see over her body. Li hissed softly, then crawled atop his head so she, too, could see.

He sighed. Now he was naked and, as far as anyone else could tell, had a small fuergar perched between his ears. If he managed to survive this day, he would definitely remember it as one of his most frightening, as well as the most embarrassing.

Three doors meant three possible tunnels to escape. Kaz mentally removed the door Zhangwo had taken from the options, which left two. There was the one he’d come through, and its familiarity made it the safest choice. If they made it that far, they could hide in the stairwell until the ground stopped shaking and the alarm stopped blaring, and then emerge long enough to find out who won.

Unfortunately, that passage was small, and there was no way he could carry Lianhua and crouch-walk until it opened out enough to stand. He would have to drag the human behind him, which wouldn’t be good for her injuries.

Looking at the last door, he nodded. He needed to move, and while he could pull Lianhua after him, that was a last resort. First, he needed to see what was behind that door. He might even peek through the door Zhangwo had taken, though it almost certainly led to wherever the mosui was currently battling the humans, which was exactly where he didn’t want to go.

Decision made, he crossed the room and tucked Lianhua up against him more firmly so he could get a hand free to grasp the handle. With a soft click, it opened, and Kaz switched his hand back to Lianhua, then pushed the door with his paw and took a step inside.

The hall beyond was small and dark. Kaz pushed some ki into his eyes, and saw that while crystals of all colors lined the walls, they were quiet now. Power lingered in their depths, but something suppressed it, preventing any from escaping before it was needed. The light from the room he just left only illuminated the floor a few feet inside. He could just make out a dark passage ahead, and what he thought was another door to his right.

Taking a tentative step inside, Kaz felt something like heat flash up his leg, jumping from a crystal in the floor to his paw. For a horrified instant, he thought it might be a trap, but as red ki surrounded him, he realized that it was simply a switch, turning on the lights.

The tunnel ahead grew brighter as red crystals lit up along the walls, and to his right, the shadowy oblong he’d thought was a door resolved into something very different. It reached from floor to ceiling, but stood on two dark legs that might be ancient wood, if they weren’t stone carved to look like it. Staring back at him from its depths was a naked kobold with ragged gray fur, carrying a bleeding human female, while a fuergar perched atop his head.

If Lianhua hadn’t once shown him a much smaller version of the thing, Kaz wouldn’t have known what it was, though he would have understood that he was looking at his own reflection. After all, it wasn’t likely that there were any other kobold pups around here who looked quite as pathetic as that one.

But he had seen one before, so Kaz knew it was a mirror, and when he took a step toward it, its surface shimmered like water. Kaz’s counterpart vanished, leaving a room that was familiar in the way of something once seen in a dream. Long shelves lined the walls and disappeared into the distant shadows, while an old, gray-bearded human sat at a table, his pen scratching away at a parchment that was even longer than the last time Kaz had seen it. A second later, the pen wobbled, creating a splotch of dark ink, and the male muttered to himself, looking up toward Kaz.

“What is it now, Zhangwo? I’ve told you-”

He broke off, expression shifting from annoyance to curiosity, before his eyes - a shade of purple that was strikingly similar to Lianhua’s, though somehow Kaz hadn’t noticed it when they met the first time - traveled to Kaz’s burden, then to the fuergar-shaped dragon on his head.

“Oh,” he said, tone mild as he released his pen, which continued scribbling just as it had the previous time. “Well, this is unexpected. How… interesting.”